So I was feeling rather stressed last night, and as a result didn't feel like doing much except sleeping, and my wonderful husband suggested that I do "sewey stuff." I reluctantly ventured into my sewing room despite the fact that I would have preferred to just go to sleep for the night, which my husband (quite understandably) vetoed because it was 6:15pm.
When I got to my sewing room, right on top of my tub of fabric, was this lightweight, sheer if you hold it up to the light, blue bamboo patterned, polyester fabric that would look fantastic as the lining in a haori. This got my creative juices flowing and I dug through my stash and came up with a blue gradient dyed piece of middle weight satin that would pair wonderfully with the bamboo fabric for the haori shell.
I had never made a haori before, but I have used the now out of print Simplicity pattern for a kimono that comes with a haori pattern as well, but that pattern requires that you fold about a foot of the shell fabric on the front and back up into the lining of the haori, which, while it is the correct way to do it, I did not have enough of the satin to accomplish this. With this in mind, I went on a haori pattern hunt on the internet and came up with a sad lack of tutorials that contained measurements, so I reviewed what I knew of haoris and their construction.
1 - Haori are made on the same size weaving frames as full-length kimono, approximately 12" wide.
2 - In order to accommodate for a variety of sizing, I usually make my kimono panels 14" wide.
3 - Haori usually hang to right about the top of the wearer's hip.
With these three things in mind, I hung the satin over my shoulder to see which way the gradient should go. I really wanted the gradient to go from side to side, and, when I hung it over my shoulder, it hit right below my hip, which is good as I am only 5'4".
I folded the fabric in half, wrong side out, with the light side on the right and the darker side on the left, and then pulled out some 14" wide parchment paper and a white marking pencil and sectioned the light side off into two 14" sections, but when I went to the darker side, I realized that if I did four 14" sections, I would not have enough to make the collar as well. Making a quick decision, I decided that body width was more important than sleeve width and shortened the sleeve width to 12". I then used my quilting ruler to mark the sleeves 16" long and cut out all my piece of the shell.
Cutting out the lining was trickier as the fabric is very light, and the bulk kept falling off my cutting table, but I persevered and cut out the two sleeves and body pieces by pinning the shell pieces to the lining and then cutting them out. I also managed to cut the sleeve pieces so that a line of bamboo was close to the edge, and that will be oriented to the open area of the haori sleeve.
Last, I found a matching color thread, wound my bobbin and started overlocking my raw edges on the satin. Much to my chagrin, my upper thread kept breaking even after I adjusted the tension so I pulled out my bobbin and realized that the thread at the beginning of the bobbin had gotten pulled into the bobbin while I was winding it. That bobbin got unwound and then rewound with new thread and I started up my machine with much less thread breakage.
Tonight, I have the rest of the satin (one body panel, one sleeve, and the collar) to overlock and then the lining to overlock to prevent fraying. Then I get to sew the body, lining, and sleeves, figure out what I am making the tie on the front out of, sew the tie to the body, and then sew the collar on.
Then I get to find a model, or figure out if I want to model it myself, take and edit pictures, and put up my first item in my shop.
For the pictures, I am debating whether I want pictures of the haori with kimono, pictures of it with modern clothes, or a mixture of both. I am leaning toward a mixture of both.
I am super excited that I will finally have a listing, and, hopefully, a sale within a few weeks!
Of course, in order to post the item, I have to have my shop go live, which means completing an About Page, Policies Page, figure out shipping costs, and deciding what I want to price the haori at.
But still...it will be my first listing!
YAY!
Kristin ^_^
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