Resewing a woman's kimono for a man

Today's sewing demonstration at the exhibition involved remaking an unlined (hitoe) woman's kimono to fit a man. The main difference between men's and women's kimono, apart from the fabrics, is in the sleeves. Women's sleeves, whatever the length, are sewn with the back of the sleeve (the part towards the body) left open, and the sleeve is only attached about two fifths of the way down from the shoulder. The body side seam is left open immediately under the sleeve/body seam for about 5ins. You can see these features in the photo. Men's kimono sleeves are attached to the body for about four fifths of their length, and the back of the sleeve is sewn closed. The corner of the sleeve, just under the wrist opening, is squarer than women's kimono - I'm hoping to get away without altering the very small curve here!

Why do this kind of alteration? It is quite hard to find second hand kimono that will fit Western men, as the kimono are usually too short, even though men's kimono are about 25cm shorter than their height. Women's kimono are an ideal source for remaking, because they are much longer - approximately the same length as the woman's height - so a 175cm man could wear a remade woman's 150cm kimono.

My sale kimono have a good selection of patterns similar to Western men's shirting and suiting fabric patterns - stripes, checks, small patterns etc. Although these were informal women's kimono in Japan and some of the fabrics, for example a bold red and black check, would look more like women's patterns in a Japanese context, they make great men's kimono for casual wear over here.

You are probably thinking that the kimono shown above is quite a wild pattern to be made into a man's kimono - so it needs to be for a man who likes bright, bold patterns - the "balloon" design perhaps for someone connected with the performing arts or festivals? You'd be right!

I'll post a photo of the alteration when I finish it (tomorrow?) and hopefully a photo next week showing the lucky recipient wearing it. Today I unpicked the sleeves and the seam allowances, pressed out the existing seam creases and reattached the sleeves to the body, with a minimal seam allowance at the shoulder to gain more "wingspan" width for the sleeves.

"Wrexham Leader" photo

Our local paper, The Wrexham Leader, included a good photo of one of my wedding kakeshita (above). This kimono was the first one I bought, at a kimono sale at Shimizuya department store, Sakata City, in Autumn 1991. It has dyed and stencilled clouds on silk rinzu damask fabric and the flower cart motifs are machine embroidered. The lining is synthetic. It is, of course, ex rental. I can remember selecting it from a great heap of kakeshita and uchikake heaped up on the temporary tatami mat floor laid down in Shimizuya's gallery space on the top floor. Most of the other garments had very bad snags in the embroidery or dye migrations. It was a choice between this one and another that had a pair of golden pheasants (?), but I chose this because I preferred the red background to the more orangey vermilion. It used to hang in the tokonuma alcove in my house in Yuza-machi.

We had lots of visitors today Dot Sherlock brought her "Quilters' Needs" travelling quilt shop today, and demonstrated machine patchwork. If you didn't catch Dot today, she will also be at the Nantwich fabric sale at the Civic Hall on Sunday 20th January, and at the Quiltfest Trading Day on Sunday 10th February. She is having a special sale on her Kona Bay fabrics, at 20% off in January. Perfect for some Japanese style quilts!

Gresford quilter Maureen Poole helped me cope with the rush!

How to cut out kimono and other things

Today we had several groups of visitors who are all very interested in textile design, so it was really enjoyable to show them around. I hope everyone drew some inspiration from the displays.

At the end of the afternoon, the lady above (Hilary?) arrived with her husband and several very lovely kimono bolts she had been sent by a Japanese friend. She is wearing one of my sale wool kimono above. Her friend obviously has very good taste, as the bolts included a pretty silk tsumugi (pongee) bolt with a rather 1930s feel to the design, a chirimen (crepe) komon (allover small pattern) bolt that almost glowed with rich gold and green tones and a nikko nikko kasuri (print kasuri, or double ikat) bolt for yukata (summer cotton) kimono. I explained how to cut them out - if you have a real kimono bolt or tanmono, it will measure about 14 - 141/2in wide and cutting out is quite easy. You need to know only one basic measurement - your height.

First cut off the label section at the end of the bolt. Assuming you are going to wear the kimono in a conventional women's style, with the ohashori fold at the waist, lay the fabric on a flat surface and run out a length that is the same as your height measurement plus 8 cm (2cm for the hem, an extra 4cm to get a decent length for your height and an extra 2cm - to allow for the horizontal sewn tuck across the back). Fold the fabric back on itself, pinning at the fold, and run it up to the cut end, and pin again. Repeat. You have set out the two body panels. Now set out the piece for the collar, collar cover and okumi overlap panels, by running out another length, 15cm shorter than the body, doing the fold again, and back to the cut end. Pin this too. The remaining fabric will make the sleeves - run it out on top of the body panels and fold it back on itself, so almost no fabric remains, to find out the maximum sleeve measurements that you can use, marking the fold with a pin, then use that pin marker to run out the two sleeves like you did for the body panel. You will have 10 layer of fabric set out at one end of the roll, and four at the other. Cut across the fabric at the end with the original cut end, and you have the main pieces for your kimono. Of course, you will need to cut the length for the collar, collar cover and okumi in half lengthwise (if you are making a larger width kimono you might want to cut the collar part slightly narrower), but basically the kimono is now cut out.

It is a good idea to check the length before you start - some older bolts are only about 11.5 metres long, whereas modern bolts are typically about 12metres. I cut out a pink komon asa (hemp) and polyester summer bolt on Sunday, which measured 12 metres, and have managed to make the sleeves around 60cm long, more like Taisho kimono than modern komon length - the body panels were 162cm long for me.

The sleeves will be more like those on the yellow and purple 1920s komon kimono (left in last photo & detail below) - longer length.

Altering hitoe kimono

As the weather is colder than I expected, I've had a change of plan re Sunday's kimono possibility - wool should be cosier! The wool hitoe (unlined) kimono above is halfway through alteration to fit. I love the shaded effect, but there are marks on the right front "skirt" section, just about visible in the photo, so I need to make sure the front overlaps well, so these are hidden when I wear it.

Refitting wool kimono is easier than silk and should, in theory, be quicker as there's no lining to resew, but there's more neatening off of seams inside, so it works out about the same. I unpicked one side seam, unpicked the sleeve (sode) from the body (undoing the hem at the back of the sleeve first) and restitched that side seam before doing the same with the other side. This kimono is handsewn (some modern wool kimono are machined, for the seams anyway) so unpicking was easy and I salvaged the silk threads to reuse. I will also move the front overlaps (okumi) a little - although they are sewn in the right place, they ought to be about 1cm wider, and it will make enough of a difference to bother doing it! Once I've dealt with those, unpicking just enough of the collar to move the overlaps, I'll resew the collar and the collar cover. Then I'll replace the sleeves. Adding width makes the kimono fit better and the sleeves won't look like they are only 3/4 length.

I'd like to wear it with this tsuke (i.e. cut) obi, a great Bingata stencilled design on heavy chirmen crepe. The idea with the tsuke obi is the doumawari (waist section) wraps around like a belt and ties with tapes, then the otaiko (drum) bow hooks onto the back. Everything is held in place securely by the obijime and obiage cord and sash. The advantage for me is I can tie the doumawari and hook the otaiko in place once I arrive at the gallery, or even drive wearing the doumawari only. I find the otaiko is awkward when I drive, as it's like having a cushion in the driver's seat. The obi is brand new, and doesn't have the wire "hook" normally used to attach the otaiko (in the photo) to the back, so I will have to improvise with some coathanger wire and pliers, wrapping the wire in bias binding. If I don't have time to do this, I can always wear a hanhaba obi tied in a flatter style.

I've looked out a deep salmon pink obiage and a shaded red and pink obijime to go with it. The obiage is from my very first kimono esemble. If the red & pink obijime doesn't look right, I have couple of other pink obijime that might work better. The other option, a blue set, was a bit too close to the kimono, for the obiage anyway, although the obijime might be a possibility. Most of my other better obijime and obiage are in the exhibition cases...

Although you might think an exhibition needs something a bit more formal, I decided to go for a less formal look to contrast with the kimono on show!

(Still having formatting problems - why no paragraph breaks? Must read up on writing HTML!)