FACT 178 – kimono wo tsukurimasho~

so, it’s come to this, has it. i am now so over the edge about japanese goods that i have made my own kimono. yes! yes it has come to this! and isn’t it AWESOME!? i’ll maybe be putting up some more details on how i made it, but that’ll have to be later. i’m making another one, this one electric blue. you should see my super anal-retentive diagrams and instructions and stuff i wrote out for myself. (^_^) i used an amalgam of a couple of sets of instructions i found on the web. the Immortal Geisha forums were helpful for detail stuff. it’s not especially historically accurate/traditional, but i’m not really into making 50 thousand little kise for my seams, for a garment i’m not actually going to be wearing to Obon festivals… also, because the fabric, i bought came in two (almost but not really) equal-length panels, my collar attaching in the front didn’t go quite as planned, and so, as you can see, there’s so wrinkling/gathering that shouldn’t be there, on the front, right above the obi. as for the obi. hot damn, i love that thing! (^_^) if you’re not especially attached to having your obi be all one piece, it turns out you can buy a yard of whatever you’d like, and (assuming 45 inch fabric) but it into 6ths, and piece them together for an obi of 540 cm. plenty long! I lined this one with some muslin i had laying around, but if you want to self line it, just buy 2 yards and in to town. this one isn’t stiffened in any way, and i think i’ll definitely be stiffening my next one, but for a casual kimono, this is okay. overall, i’m super pleased with my first effort. this next one i’m ongoing to be making with panels all of the same size (zomg!) so the neck portion should sit down more normally. hopefully less wrinkly, at the very least. guess we’re going to find out in pretty short order. i’m planning to do he thing this week, so i can year it for Easter service. we’ll see if my desire to stay out of the spotlight overrules my desire to wear cool things in public…

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