Samurai Deeper Kyo's Hotaru cosplay progress part.3

Hi guys!

This here is the third part of my SDK Hotaru progress posts – for the previous parts click here for the first one and here for the second!

Okay so, after I had painted and set the design on the sleeves it was time to actually start sewing the pieces of the white kimono. I zigzaged around all the edges at school and then, for once, I took my project with me during a visit to mom's and I of course took the opportunity to sew while there because, eff yeah, high-tech sewing machine and not some old crap!

I again started by sewing the backseam and then attaching the sleeves. Before sewing on the sleeves though I decided to pre-hem a bit of the end that would be the arm opening, for a nicer finished look. I ironed approximately 27 cm on each side from the center fold of the sleeves and then just straight stitched it down and ironed it again.

I apologize for the crummy cellphone-quality photos ahead; I didn't have my SLR camera with me in school/at mom's during most of this project. Most photos show the colors inaccurately.

Sleeve with the arm hole opening already hemmed. Notice
how the lower half is still raw. (full length of the sleeve is not visible)

After that I sewed the rest of the sleeves and finished them up. Of course when I closed in on the armpit junction I felt the rage coming. In case you've somehow missed it... I HATE SEWING ARMPITS, ESPECIALLY ON KIMONO. The reason for this is because it always ends up looking ugly as fuck, no matter how careful I am. I guess that's what you get from having straight pieces...? Oh well, whatever the reason for why it always ends up bumpy this time it was no different...

I hate you. All of you. 8C

Oh well, I was frustrated so I just started ripping up the armpit and meanwhile I was doing just that the solution suddenly came to me – why don't you leave some centimeters of the back of the sleeves open? That way you'd get a neat appearance, without sacrificing how the final thing will look when worn, because the very top of the sleeves (aka closest to the armpit) will rarely be seen anyway; it's not the end of the world if there's a small "airhole" there.

So I tried that and lo' and behold, it worked wonders! I then just hand-sewed the folds/hems in place (those 7 centimeters of the opening) so that they wouldn't flop around once the ironing "press" effect wears off. 

Oh well, I went to iron all the seams open and then I tried to get rid off some wrinkles that had accumulated over the weeks. This seemed like a good and nothing-can-go-wrong idea at first but nope, of course not. Why can't anything go without problems with this cosplay? ;_; I swear I've been having horrible luck with this cosplay from the start – even things that are simple to sew fuck up for one reason or another; it's really irritating. But yeah, guess what?

...

So I'm just ironing my Hotaru kimono and it's going nicely (for once), until I accidentally iron the front, while the backside fabric is wrinkled right under it and –BOOM!– the back gets some super pronounced wrinkles because I ironed over it! All because I didn't double-check that the back was straight, ugh. ._. Oh well, I thought "no probs, I can just straighten it out" and then I turned the kimono body around, the wrinkles of the backside now facing me, and started to iron... AND THE IRON DECIDES TO BE A DICK AND LEAVES SOME NASTY YELLOW DISCOLORATIONS ON MY PURE WHITE FABRIC FFFFFFUUUUU-- (╬⓪益⓪)

Okay... so I'm definitely not happy at this point because seriously, when it was for once going okay something that is out of my control (aka the iron) screws up my cosplay... and of course when the fabric is a pure white out of all possible colors. (҂⌣̀_⌣́) The worst part is that the yellow discoloration got on those now-very-pronounced wrinkle folds on the back, near the sleeve's lower attachment point...

Fuck everything.

I'm almost panicking but at the same time I'm trying to tell myself "nah, it's okay, it won't happen again" so yeah, I continue in the hopes that it was just a case of one-time-only trolling. WROOOOOOOONG~~ :DD Surprise? No?

The iron poops again and this time on a wide area on the upper half of the right front panel. URRRRGHHH!! I just wanted to ragequit for the day, but I continued so that I would at least finish hand-sewing the other sleeve's backside openings. After neating up the backside openings me and mom went on a quick drive trip to a store to buy some stain remover because holy crud, if this thanks-to-the-iron shit doesn't go I guess I can call my cosplay some sort of ruined... or at least miscolored. But hey! Thankfully the following day I returned to mom's and tried the stain remover and guess what? It did work and my hope on this cosplay was thus restored!

In progress Hotaru's main kimono hanging to dry
in my apartment, after stain removal.

The next time I worked on this cosplay was in school. I cut out the pieces for the okumi panel (yeah, I had left it on purpose so that I could check some measures before) and then, before sewing them onto the main kimono body, I cut the bottom hem straight. For some reason, no matter how identical I cut the pieces and how carefully I measure them, they're never perfectly aligned once they're sewn together. ._. It's kinda annoying that I always end up having to trim them all into the same length (the shortest piece deciding) and thus my final product always ends up a few centimeters shorter than intended. Bleh.

Before straightening the bottom hem.

After that was done I sewed on the okumi panels, after having zigzaged them, of course. I don't enjoy fraying cosplays lol.
I finished this white kimono at mom's on Saturday, 12th December. I cut out a reverse drop-shaped half on each front panel's top (before the okumi starts) to make place for the orange collar, which I then sewed on; I of course ironed on some interfacing fabric, for stiffness, on the inside of the collars before I folded it in half and sewed it on. I finished the bottom hem by folding it twice. I also ironed out some wrinkles and steam pressed the sleeves so that they wouldn't bunch around.

Collars pinned in place, ready to be sewn on.

If anyone remembers on the second progress post I mentioned that the under kimono might have too short collars and well, I tried it on together with the white kimono on top and yes, it does. :( The collars would be okay if the kimono was worn "normally", but since Hotaru wears it rather open in the front (and so it shows his shoulders a bit) it really doesn't work; the collars of the chequered under kimono end before the overlap of the white kimono so, yeah, it just doesn't look okay because you can clearly see that the collars are too short; they just suddenly end way before the white kimono's collars do.
Oh well, the same fabric that I used for the obi was still selling for only 3 € per meter so I went and bought 3 meters of it. I'm not gonna go into detail on how I made it because it's basically the same as the white kimono, except no sleeve painting. -.- I'd feel like a broken record, heh. But I'll just say at least something and post a few photos of it because yeah, no progress proof is kinda boring, right?

Sleeve is done and I'm about to start sewing down the side seam.
Notice the small opening on the very top of the sleeve; it's to avoid
the issues I keep having with the armpits being all wrinkly.

As per usual I cut out all the pieces, zigzaged them (no one in school knows how to fix the overlock, not even the teachers so yeah, no nice overlock seams on this one... ._.) and started sewing the whole thing together. I realized after I had attached the sleeves and sewn them up that I had miscalculated the measures of the attachment point so yeah, I ended up with really narrow-fitting sleeves for a kimono; it feels more like wearing a dress shirt at the armpits than a kimono, lol. When I don't fuck up the collars I fuck up something else; I really have bad luck with this cosplay. OTL I really couldn't be bothered to redo it because I would have had to redo my pre-hems on the backside of the sleeves and, well, that'd be a lot of extra work and I honestly just wanted to get this thing done as fast as possible because yeah, I was sewing it together on 25th December, aka Christmas day. It's still wearable and won't show so yeah, whatever. (u_u)

Sleeves completely done and side seams sewn closed.
Behold my narrow sleeve attachment, ugh.

I ironed and steam pressed all the seams and the sleeves for a nice finish; I really dislike how bumpy big sleeves look after you've sewn them. It bothers me too much if I don't flatten them, lol.
One thing though – always check what ironing settings you need to use for your fabric! I namely thought that my fabric was 100% cotton but, before ironing, I had a scratching in my butt that I should double-check what the fabric care instruction note that came with the fabric says. Luckily I checked it because my fabric was in reality a cotton blend so yeah, ironing it on the three dots setting would have damaged it because the recommendation was two dots. Always be careful! Burning your precious fabric sucks...

Nicely ironed sleeve.

I attached the okumi panels, cut the neck area to round it off and attached the collar. I finished with hemming the bottom.

Sewing on the collar.

I sewed this thing together in a couple hours and it feels quite good because now I wouldn't miss the movie that I wanted to watch from television later, lol. xD With the under kimono completed I'm finally done with all the sewing work for Hotaru – now I just need to finish his sword (I've started it and there'll be a post when I'm done!) and make his tengu geta. I'll also do some kind of wig test and a preview post later, so stay tuned for those as well. ;)

Finished under kimono.

Thanks for reading and see you later!

Shiro Samurai out ~