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| Making a Kimono: crash-course ;) By: Jessica Entis, Spring 2002 One practice Yukata out of cheap patterned cotton, maroon with a faint leaf pattern.
My source books:
The story thus far: So, want to make your own kimono, huh? I'll warn you guys now this is not an undertaking for the faint of heart. The amount of fabric needed for one of these things is ridiculous, especially if you want all the bells and whistles such as long sleeves and a lining. Depending on the width of fabric, the amount you need if you're of average American female height (5'4" in my case) is from 5 to 7 yards, which can get pretty pricey if it's a nice fabric such as satin. If you're making an unlined yukata (summer kimono) you'll need a little less fabric, about 3.5 to 4 yards. You'll also need a lot of room to work; I got to use my parents' big dining room table, but if you live in a smaller place you'll need one of those giant carboard mats (visible in my photos) that they sell just for this purpose (they create an instant work area). The body piece of the kimono is the largest piece of fabric and for me was 128 inches long (yikes!). My only previous experience with sewing had been making the obi for my peacock yukata (see Kimono I essay), so I knew I would need to plan this project out a bit. There was no way I was going to try and sew expensive satin (which is 8 dollars a yard on average) without any experience, so I decided to make a practice yukata first. I got to the fabric store during a weekend sale and bought what is essentially bedsheet fabric (maroon with a light black vine pattern and bright yellow flowers along one edge) for only a few dollars a yard. It's very soft fabric that doesn't like to stay where you tie it, so it actually doesn't function too well as a yukata. I also made many errors while making it (please note: always cut the selvege off the fabric before measuring!!), but it was worth the time and expense for me to be able to iron out the whole kimono process without killing my wallet too badly -_-;; I was only able to work on the yukata a few days a week after work, so it was really slow going. When the yukata was eventually done I decided the underkimono was the next logical step (that and I felt I still needed more practice before attempting the kimono). I bought a decent amount of white muslin (cheap, thin white cotton) and repeated my yukata steps, ending up with a fairly decent, short-sleeved yukata. I realized trying it out though that I was missing some things...namely a stiff collar (it wrinkles pretty badly on your neck if it's not being supported by anything) and something less bulky than a sash to hold it closed. Grabbing my Book of Kimono, I saw a black and white photo they had of an underkimono and noticed long ties attached to a surprisingly short collar. Hmmm...what I don't understand about my other book, the John Marshall one, is why he includes every imaginable Japanese garment (minus Hakama pants, gosh darn it!) but neglects including instructions for one of the most important parts of any kimono ensemble: the underkimono! *growl* With no directions I essentially had to make up the adjustments to my underkimono. As I note in the photo caption, it works pretty well, but I think there's something still not quite right about it *sigh* Maybe one day when I go to Japan (and I do intend to go, oh yes ^_^) I can pick up a real underkimono and figure out what I did wrong. Oh well. On with the main event!! By April (four long months after the start of this thing) I was finally ready to get to the point, so to speak. I spent quite a long time while making the yukata nailbiting over the whole red silk thing. Allow me to explain: the fabric that is currently my obi was my grandmother's, a beautiful red-orange (Chinese red) embroidered silk she bought in China in the 40's. Not only is the fabric very narrow (only 27" wide) but I only had 4.5 yards of it, which just wasn't enough for an entire kimono. If you look at my sketches at the very top of the page, my original idea was to combine the silk with black fabric (the only color I could find to go with it) so that most of the kimono would be red silk. My friend and helper Lauren (aka Ranma1517730129 to you fanfiction people ;) thought it was a very cute design and was all for it. I couldn't get around the fact that it reminded me of a red fox though; I like foxes and all, but I just felt like I was compromising too much, since I kept having to shorten my sleeves to make the whole thing work. In the end I threw up my hands and switched the fabric around, and I'm glad I did. The stores stock black satin all the time, so I could make my sleeves as long as I wanted (money permitting, of course) and I wouldn't be so...well, multicolored. Looking back, I'm really glad that my mom used to sew so much, because her advice was instrumental in getting the lining to work. When I started the kimono I was pretty confident that I'd ironed out all major problems, but it turns out adding a lining opens a whole new can of worms. I soon realized that the crux of my problem (i.e. lining and body pieces not matching and fitting together like they should) was the satin itself. Satin is a very thin, bouncy material with a lot of spring to it. Unlike cotton, it doesn't like to stay where you put it when measuring, and it stretches out when you try to line it up with a straight edge. You can swear up and down that the line you sketched out on the fabric is straight, but the fact is that the material mostly likely moved on you with the slightest touch, and you can't even tell when it has until it's too late. It's nearly impossible to measure and cut a perfectly straight line. The result of this was that all the various lining and body pieces that were supposed to be identical in length were in fact not, so that when I went to attach the two together nothing worked. The two largest problems: the body of the kimono itself didn't match up correctly, so that long after I'd sewed the major seams I discovered fabric puffing out around the arm openings of the kimono and around the collar line. The only way to fix this headache was to unstitch everything, trim the offendingly long piece of fabric, and sew it back up again. The sleeves were an even bigger hassle (the photos of the lining were taken while I was trying to adjust the pieces to fit with each other) and caused me no end of frustration. Some parts of the finished kimono are still not quite right, especially around the underarm openings, because in the end I finally ran out of patience and I couldn't stand to rip, trim and resew one more seam. Call it bad craft on my part, but since that part of the kimono gets hidden by the obi anyway I figured it wasn't worth wasting hours and hours of my time on. Other fitting problems made themselves known as I was attaching the collar (one of the most tricky parts of the whole process) and also involved resewing several seams *sigh*. But the crowning achievment truly was when I, being the genius that I am, accidently cut through the fabric of the kimono with my scissors while I was trimming fabric for the collar. The only way to fix it was to sew it closed by hand, so my beautiful kimono now has a very visible mar on the back above the obi *cries* It's not fair!! *ahem* sorry about that. Anyway, I did manage to work through all those problems and I got a pretty nice, lined kimono out of the deal. It took me a whole week working all day every day to complete the kimono; I can't honestly say how many hours it actually took. Had I not kept running into snags, I'm sure it wouldn't have taken me as long as it did. I'm glad I went through the experience, however I will probably never make a garment with a lining again. I'm sticking with unlined yukata from now on...hehe yes, I did spy a beautiful fabric at one of the clothing stores, a black cotton with gold embroidered butterflies that would make a perfect yukata (and would match the obi I already have). The only catch? 12 dollars a yard...ouch -_-;; But the story doesn't end there! I'd already made an obi before, so that was pretty straightforward (the silk's even springier than the satin though, so it did give me a little trouble) and the hair ribbons were easy. I have a fairly good-sized square of silk left over that I intend to make into a pouch/purse for the kimono (I'll post pictures when it's done :) I also had to make tabi to go along with my outfit. I have size ten feet that are very wide, so I knew that any cotton tabi I ordered over the internet just weren't going to fit. Fortunately, Marshall's book provides very decent instructions for fitting and constructing tabi, and my pair turned out pretty nicely (they actually fit, yay me!). Adjusting the fit is very tricky, but managable (though I had to start over a couple times -_-;;). And then of course there are all the various accessories required to actually wear the kimono. Many of these I ordered from Moto-ya, an online store that specializes in import obi and kimono accessories. The Obi stay (obi stiffener), stiff collar, bustle sash and obi pad were all ordered from this site. They also sell cotton tabi, but they are too narrow for my feet. The black zori I ordered from Cherry Blossoms.com, a store that carries Asian gifts and other interesting items. Unfortunately, while the zori are beautiful, they were meant for a size seven foot and the vinyl straps are just a smidge too low, so they are very uncomfortable on my toes, and I can only wear them for a few minutes at a time :( They just don't sell zori in my size over the internet, that will be another item I'll have to pick up in Japan when I go someday. After all that it was finally time to wear the kimono. I still am unable to get into kimono by myself; Lauren had to help dress me and tie the obi bows. We did two bows, the formal drum bow (which requires accessories such as the obi pad) and the simpler shell bow, which we had used previously at Marcon. The instructions for wearing kimono are in The Book of Kimono (Marshall's book is just patterns and doesn't tell you how to wear anything) and unfortunately are not as clear as they could be. We still have lingering problems: my collar line was constantly uneven (you can see in the photos how the white looks wider on one side than the other) and we couldn't figure out how to keep it in place. I also had trouble getting the bustle sash to stay even; you can see in the photos how it pokes up on one side but not the other. A bigger issue than that though is the fold under the obi. When properly made, a kimono is as long as you are tall (which mine is) and so drags on the floor when you wear it unbelted. The kimono is designed to be folded at the waist so that the kimono hangs at about ankle level, and you get a nice large fold below your obi (this also helps keep the obi from sliding down). Achieving this fold is a bit harder than you might expect, and it was constantly coming undone as I was walking around, despite being tied up with a sash. Our theory is that there is probably some kind of trick to tying the fold and getting it to stay that you'd only know if you were a Japanese girl being taught to wear kimono by your mom. You know, the kind of practical advice that doesn't make it into a kimono book written by a man who doesn't have to wear a woman's kimono *sigh* It's a continuing problem, and the only way to solve it is through practice and experimenting with different ties to hold the fold in place. When we finally did have the fold tied, we discovered another problem: the obi completely covered up the fold (having no fold was one of my issues with the yukata at Marcon). Two things are working against me here: one I have a very large chest, so the obi has to go below it, and two I happen to have a very short torso, so the six-inch-wide obi can't quite fit in the space, hence why it covered up the fold. There really is nothing to be done about this except to tie the kimono higher and make the fold bigger that way. Oh well. I eventually want to get to the point where I can dress myself in kimono whenever I want, but tying the obi on yourself is just so hard. How on earth do single women in Japan get themselves dressed for weddings and funerals? Or for summer festivals? HOW??? All answers lie in Japan...I'm going to apply for the JET (Japanese-English Teachers) program this coming December, so hopefully I can go to Japan for a full year ^_^ All in all, making a kimono is a challenging yet worthwhile experience. Thank you for reading, ja ne! Jessica Entis
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