Update on Kimono

Over the weekend, I worked on re-dyeing the fabric for the kimono and practicing sashiko embroidery on a scrap of the fabric that was dyed the first time.  I had to re-dye the fabric because there were several spots where the fabric bunched up and the dye didn't settle evenly.  When I re-dyed it, however, I didn't use the same mixture of dye that I used the first time, as I didn't have enough of the Red Wine Dye. 

This time around, I used a 1/4 a cup of a mixture of Red Wine and Light Red Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes, and a 1/4 cup of the Black Cherry Fiber Reactive Procion Dye.  Also, to help prevent uneven dyeing, after mixing in the dye and salt into the washing machine, I laid the fabric flat on the water and circled it around the agitator.  I also used less salt, about half of what is suggested on the instructions.  I was worried, because there is really no way to take the fabric out mid wash and see if the dye is adhering. 

I set my alarm on my phone to go off every five minutes, and kept resetting the washing machine so that my dye bath didn't drain out.  I initially had it set for every eight minutes, but when it got to six or seven minutes, I heard the dye bath start draining and decided to set it for a shorter time, even though it meant more trips to the machine.  I left it in with the dye for twenty minutes, and then stopped the machine and added the soda ash.  Since I had circled the fabric around the agitator, I couldn't get the fabric to the other side of the machine, as is suggested when adding the soda ash.  I moved it as far from the wall as possible and hoped for the best when adding the soda ash mixture.  (As the soda is used to fix the dyes to the fabric, if it gets on the fabric directly, it can cause dark splotches.)

After an hour agitating with the soda ash, I put the fabric through two rinse cycles, then a hot wash cycle with Tide Clear Detergent.  Then it was into the dryer, and then back into the washer to get the residual salt off of the fabric.  During the rinse cycle of this wash, I put in some Downy Fabric Softener to get the softness of the fabric back after the dyeing.

I am very excited to say that the fabric took the dye beautifully, with no splotches.  I really like the color that resulted as well - the previous color looked a bit washed out, but this is a vibrant deep color.  I ironed the fabric on the wrong side, and then, feeling motivated and energetic despite it being 10:30 at night on Sunday, I marked the sewing lines for the body according to the instructions for making a yukata from a roll.  A while ago, I had copied this webpage into a word document and added measurements in inches on every step.  This is a great resource, as it provides details for sewing the kimono in the most authentic way possible.  Prior to washing and dyeing all the fabric, I had zigzag stitched all the raw edges to prevent fraying in the wash, so that made it easier to mark.  I did realize, after some frustration in trying to get my top and bottom edges even, that one of my body panels had shrunk more than the other in length, so I attached one end to a hanger, put it on the front door, and then aligned the fabric correctly, and had my husband hold the fabric taut while I pinned the ends together, and then cut the ends even.  Marking the sewing lines for the front and back panels took until nearly 12:30am for two reasons. 1) It took me nearly thirty minutes of fiddling with the fabric to realize that one piece was longer than the other.  2) My cat decided she wanted attention and made herself a fabric weight, which made it difficult to draw lines with my quilting ruler as I had to keep moving her.  Also she kept trying to pull the pencil out of my hand while I was drawing lines, and tried to steal it a few times when I had put it down and was arranging my fabric.  I will post progress pictures later tonight of the fabric and the lines drawn on it. 

I am very excited to have the lines drawn, as that is the tedious part.  Now I just have to decide if I want to embroider the fabric before or after sewing the body.  There are pros and cons of each way.  If I embroider the fabric before sewing the body, it will be less bulky while I am embroidering, but the designs might not match up perfectly when I sew the fabric.  If I embroider after, I can make sure the designs match up perfectly, but it will be harder to sew due to the bulk of the kimono, and also I will have to make sure to embroider all the way to the seam so there is no gap, but not over the seam itself.  That way if the seam rips for some reason, the embroidery will not be ruined.  Due to the fact that the seam lines are drawn prior to sewing, I may go with embroidering first, but I am still not sure.  My main concern is that, as I have made the neck cut, I will need to sew from the neck down, and the embroidery will start from the bottom of the kimono and go up, which leaves the possibility that it will not match up, and that would really upset me.  For that reason, I will probably go with the sew first then embroider method.  I think that the extra work will really be worth it, and I want this kimono to be perfect.

For the sashiko practice, I copied the design using tracing paper, and then transferred it to a scrap for fabric from the first dye job using a yellow quilters marking pencil, which I like because it doesn't brush off easily (you remove it with a wet cloth).  I initially tried the embroidery using a small crochet thread (size 10 I believe), but the needle I had to use (size ten) for that was to thick for the fabric and was not only difficult to get through, but was also leaving large holes.  I went with a smaller needle size (a size six), and used three strands of embroidery floss and got much better results. 

As a side note, I purchased all the materials for dyeing the fabric, and the fabric itself, from Dharma Trading Company, which is a great resource for any sort of fabric art.  They have wonderful customer service as well.  The fabric for the body of the kimono is a Bemberg Rayon Twill, which was unfortunately a promotional fabric.  The lining is Rayon Voile.  I luckily got both on sale, as I bought 12 yards of the twill and 7 yards of the voile.  Instructions for dyeing can also be found on Dharma Trading's website, as can many other instructions and tutorials.  They also have a good selection of books.  (I am particularly interested in the fabric sculpting section of their website, but that is on hold for the time being.)  I was not compensated in any way for saying this, I just really love Dharma Trading Company!

I will try to post some progress pictures tonight.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kristin ^_^

More Progress

First of all, a few years ago, Samantha and I did a geisha makeover at Metrocon.  Here is one of my favorite pictures from it.  I am wearing the blue kimono, as the big sister, and Samantha is wearing the pink kimono.

Next - this weekend will be jam packed.

I was working on my stretcher frame, trying to get the pins bend so that they would create the hooks, and I realized that the pins I had bought specifically for this were way to small.  Luckily, I had some other pins that I could use, but then I couldn't find needle nose pliers.  That was solved when I found a pair of bent tweezers that I used to bend the pins, and I managed to bend about half of them.  So tonight I plan to finish bending all the pins and then, tomorrow, I am going to paint the kimono shell and sew the obi, as I finally bought my obi stiffener.

Also, I bought the fabric for the tatoushi, so I will try and get that done tonight as well.

On Sunday, I will be washing out my fabric, and then, during the week, I will be locking myself in my sewing room trying to get the kimono sewn.  I also need to sew the han-juban, but that will be very easy.

I have decided to not paint on the obi, as, if it is folded in half, I do not want the paint to rub off on the kimono.

My goal is to have the kimono done by mid-afternoon on next Saturday, the 26th, so that Samantha can come over and try it on.  It needs to be by mid-afternoon because I am having a chili cook-off with my mom and my sister's family in the evening.

I will have to work very hard, but I believe that I can get everything done.

Wish me luck!

Kristin

Kimono Progress - Week 2

Weekend 2 is now over and gone, and I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but I did make some decisions that will make this project much easier. 

Things I got done -

• Measured and cut out all lining pieces
• Started overlocking lining and shell pieces - have 1 lining piece left (one of the body panels) and the shell pieces left
• Diagrammed what I want where in the sewing room

My week's plan (a.k.a. things I need to get done before the weekend comes) -

• Monday - 
• I may or may not be able to work on overlocking on Monday, as I am supposed to have a Praise Team practice at 7pm.
• Tuesday - 
• Move furniture
• Measure sewing room to figure out if stretcher frame will fit
• Put hinges on stretcher frame
• Wednesday - 
• Finish overlocking lining and shell fabric
• Thursday -
• Measure and cut out obi fabric
• Create test chemical water and dye concentrations and paint fabric samples.
• Saturate shell fabric in Soda Ash & the air dry them
• Friday
• Rinse out dye samples (first in running water, then in washing machine with clear detergent)
• Decide which dye concentration I like best
• Mark seam allowances of shell fabric with color patterns so they match up correctly.

And here are things that will make this easier - 

• Fixed the problem with my upper thread repeatedly breaking - I had to move the spool to the vertical position from the horizontal position
• Found a roll of fabric I had previously purchased that will be prefect for the obi.  It is an olive green, home decor weight fabric with a woven small basket weave.  It is the perfect weight and length for the obi and the obi won't have seams now ^_^ 

Sometime next week, I want to test out my fabric paints on scraps of the obi fabric.  Also, I found some parchment paper that is 14" wide.  My plan is to fold it down to 12" and create a stencil for the obi in 10" of the 12" (leaving 1" on each side) if I like the way the fabric paints look on it. Next, I would tape the underside of the parchment paper to the underside of the obi fabric to prevent slippage.  I will likely use painter's tape for this.  I would then put another piece of parchment paper underneath the obi fabric (to prevent bleed through) and, after putting the obi fabric on top, tape the top parchment paper to the piece under the obi fabric to secure the pattern to the bottom piece.

Well, that's about it for this week.

Kristin ^_^

Kimono Progress - Week 1

My goal is to have Samantha's kimono and obi done by Halloween so that she can wear it then. So far, I have finished the stretcher frame, overlocked, pre-washed, and ironed all the fabric (9 yd - rayon twill, 2 yd - rayon twill, 1 yd rayon twill, 9 yd - rayon voile), and cut out the pieces for the kimono shell based upon the base measurements from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~weyrbrat/Japan/yukata/ and the measurements from Samantha. (The last one was a bit difficult because I was using a 4" x 14" quilting ruler to draw my lines for cutting).

My next step is overlocking all the edges for the kimono shell and cutting and overlocking the edges for the kimono lining, and then I get to mark the patterns so that they line up. As I am hand dying the fabric, I am rather skeptical of whether the washable fabric marking pencil will actually come out. This is because of the fixative used to set the dye mixture on rayon. There are two methods of using the fixative.


In the first method, the dyer would mix urea (thickener), water, and soda ash (fixative) to make chemical water and then add the powered dye to the mixture to create the paint solution. The only problem with this method is that, after a few hours, the soda ash starts reducing the vibrancy of the dye, so, if you need the colors to match, this will not work unless you exactly measure the dye or do all your work in a few hours. I do have a very exact kitchen scale (from when I was weighing all my food) so this method could work well, but I am still torn between this method and the second method.

In the second method, the fabric is pre-saturated with the soda ash and water mixture, which enables the dyer to just make a large mixture of urea, water, and dye and then use that each time. The problem with this would be making sure that the soda ash and water mixture distributes evenly across the fabric to prevent the dye from taking unevenly, and that if you leave the soda ash on for a long period of time, it can harm the fabric.

I am thinking that I will likely use the first method, because I don't want to harm the fabric, and there is less chance of the fabric marking pencil setting into the fabric with that method. Also, since I have the kitchen scale, I can fiddle with the dye mixture until it is the color I want it at and replicate my results if I want the same color later on. In addition, as I am going to do some test paintings on scraps of the rayon, I can record and correct the consistency of the chemical water by adjusting the amount of urea to thicken or thin the mixture, and then replicate that later on as well.

Even though I am using the first method, though, I am still planning on only marking the fabric in the seam allowance.  I will need to make both the marks for the design and marks to indicate which piece of fabric I am dyeing (body, collar, sleeve, panel, collar reinforcement), orientation (up/down), and location (left/right, front/back).

As for where I am going to be dyeing, I was thinking of the garage, as I would have to do some serious furniture moving otherwise.  It might be worth the furniture moving just to avoid the garage in September in Florida.  Also, if I were dyeing in the garage, I would need knee pads.

The lining will be interesting because I want to do a gradient dye and just have the outside edges be dyed.  I was thinking of dyeing the whole lining, but I am worried that, as part of the kimono shell design is left white, if I dye the whole lining, the lining color will show through.  I could always make the lining less vibrant as well.

As for the obi, I know what color I am going to dye it, I just have to figure out what embroidery I will put on it, if I want to embroider some on my sewing machine (if so, I will definitely be testing this on scraps first), how much I want to embroider by hand, and how I am going to hide the seams (I am making Samantha a Darari-length obi, which will be about 3-4 yards when completed, and Samantha agreed to let me piece it as I bought the last of the fabric that they had and the last 3 yards were broken up into a 1 yard piece and a 2 yard piece.)  My thought is that, if the machine embroidery works, to do a pattern throughout that just happens to line up exactly with the seams.  It will take some experimenting though to make it all work out.

Another obstacle with the obi is that I will have to put the dye mixture in the washing machine and then set a timer so that the machine doesn't drain out to lengthen the time that the mixture is exposed to the dye.  Also, do I want to sew the obi together and then dye it or dye it and then sew it?  If is sew it then dye it, there is less of a chance that my seam will show, however, the fabric could become wrapped around the agitator in the washing machine and could tear.  If I dye it and then sew it, there is a chance, however slight, that the seam could show.  My thought for this is to use a kise (a seam that is not visible because it has a slight overlapping piece of fabric - there is a good diagram in the web page I cited) and then embroider over it, which should take care of any chance of there being a visible seam.  I will likely dye it and then sew it - a visible seam is easier to overcome than ripped fabric.

I am planning on making the skirt portion of a naga-juban, and I have several fabric choices to choose from for that.  I will probably wait until the kimono is done to select the fabric, but I have one that I think would look really good with the kimono, but it is a bit of a heavy fabric so we will have to wait and see.  If I didn't make the naga-juban so it wrapped around so much, and only made it wrap around about 1.25 or 1.5 times, it probably wouldn't be too heavy.  It still might be to hot though, so I might make one out of a lighter fabric too and see which Samantha prefers.

I am unsure now if I will be making the top part of a naga-juban or a han-eri.  The naga-juban would be nice because it would give a proper lining to the kimono, and keep sweat from getting on it, but the han-eri would be nice because it could be washed separately.  I may make both, as would be more proper, but it really depends on how much time I have left after assembling the kimono and obi.  The amount of time I have will probably affect a whole lot, actually, as I want to make  a fabric tatoushi to store the kimono.  (It looks like it is a good thing that I saved that last tutorial, as I can't seem to find it anywhere now.)  Fortunately, the tatoushi doesn't look like it would take much time. 

So far, here is my approximate schedule to be on time for Halloween kitsuke:

Week 1 - Pre-wash, iron, and cut out fabric (still need to cut out the lining and obi)
Week 2 (9/21) - Cut out lining and obi, overlock all raw edges, paint/dye/embroider scrap fabrics, move furniture to accommodate stretcher frame, and finalize dye and chemical water concentrations
Week 3 (9/27-28) - Day 1 - Paint/dye kimono/obi/lining and wash out and iron obi - Day 2 - wash out and iron kimono/lining, sew obi, begin embroidering obi
Week 4 (10/5) - Assemble kimono/lining (machine sewing parts)
Week 5 (10/11-12) - Day 1 - Embroider obi and hand sew kimono collar - Day 2 - Finish embroidering obi
Week 6 (10/19) - Han-eri/naga-juban/tatoushi
Week 7 (10/25-26) - Finalizing/error checking

I will try to make weekly updates.

Kristin ^_^