June 2, 2012

Ultimate kimono making update

So today when I woke up I started sewing and I sewed and I sewed and I sewed... and then I ate dinner and then I sewed some more. It took me the whole day to make Ichito's kimono; I'm finally done and I'm so happy I managed to get it done in one day.. but I'm not so happy about the fact that my back now hurts as fuck from all that sitting and bending forward when sewing...

Note! This is not authentic but it looks okay for cosplay purposes! (also the sleeves are male style)

I'm tired so I will not explain every single thing I did, pictures will have to do for most of the how-to's today. Oh, and the first two photos were taken a few days ago and I have no pictures of the first cut out fabric step, not like there was anything to show because it was just rectangles anyway...

Panel cut out and ironed in the middle (shoulder part)
Sketching neckline cut ideas on fabric
Neckline cut out...
... and also backside sewn together
Ironed shoulder part again to make life easier before attaching sleeves
Pinning sleeves in place (ironed sleeves too and aligned shoulder and middle seam folds)
Sleeves attached, testing it on
ALL MY HATE TO SEWING ARMPITS CLOSED. ALL MY HATE ...
... and this is why. FFFFFFUUUUU Mega wrinkle derpherp durr
(had to redo it three times before it was not-that-bad)
Armpit sewing, third and final try (still wrinkle-ish on right side but didn't bother to fix it...)
Sleeve 'bottoms' and side seams closed
Folding in and pinning sleeve openings
Sewing sleeve hems...
Looked like this. Need to fold in sleeve opening once more...
Finished sleeve opening
Spread out kimono panels and took a look... what is this I don't even
Cut the shit straight
Cut out okumi panels (used double fabric) and ironed them
Ironed side seams and back seam open (looks better!)
Attached okumi panels
Cut out and ironed collar pieces
Sewed collar pieces together at one end to get one long piece
Zigzaged okumi panel ends before attaching collar (collar also zigzaged around the edges)
Pinning collar in place before sewing it on
Folded in end of collar and okumi panel and hemmed them
Finished kimono, trying it on
Showing sleeves
Kimono laid flat on my bed lol my feet can be seen (sorry bad lighting, it was late)
Sorry for the lack of detailed explanations and that I didn't show photos of every step.. but I guess it's easy to follow anyway. *shrugs* Oh, and I made it shorter for ease of wearing with hakama.

That's it for today and tomorrow my plan is to make Okita's yukata from start to finish afdghsah.

June 1, 2012

How I made a fake kimono collar

 Sup everyone!

When you can't be bothered (or have a lack of time) to make a full kimono just to have only the collar showing around the neck... then you figure out a way to fake the collar. I did and here's how:

Note! This is not authentic in any way, just for cosplay purposes!

I had very pale blue leftover fabric from the time when I had made Ukitake's yukata that I figured would work for Ichito's innermost kimono.. or well, probably juban in that case. I cut out a semi-long 14 cm wide piece that I thought would work for my plan. Then I went and zigzaged around it and ironed it so that I would get a nice middle fold.

After being zigzaged and ironed
After that I went and got some interfacing fabric to stiffen it. I didn't bother to cover the full length, only used enough to cover most of the middle part, meaning the part that will be closest to my neck. You can skip this but it makes the collar sit nicer and not be as floppy.

Ironing on interfacing
After that I took the fake collar, folded it in middle and folded inside the edges and started to sew it closed.

After sewing
Close-up
The interfacing helps it keep forms such as this...
When that was done I had to find a way to attach it. I didn't want to sew it on the dark blue kimono's collar (which I haven't started sewing yet) because I'm not fond of  how the fake collar would have gone all the way down instead of ending where it should.. like for example on those bad cheap mass produced Bleach cosplays.

(photo from Google)
So I definitely didn't want it to look like that because it screams fake to me. I wanted to do the illusion of actually having another kimono layer underneath and not just an obvious add-on collar.
After thinking for a while I figured I could try using some wrap-around tie fastening method and see if it worked as well in real life as it did in my head. I went and got some wide cotton ribbon.

After I had cut out two same length pieces of the ribbon (no, it's not that yellow IRL)
I used around 130 cm long pieces. You can use longer or shorter if you want, personal preference. I wanted long ones so I could wrap them in my back and back to the front again for extra hold.

Then I just zigzaged the ends of the ribbons and sewed them on close to the ends of the collar. It makes life a lot easier if you wrap the collar around your neck and keep it folded the way you want it to be when you wear it with the final product, this way you can easier see where you will need to sew on the ties. I had to redo the ties twice before I got them placed right. I had to make sure to wear my collar reversed instead of left over right because Ichito wears his kimono like a dead person would... and that's because while he is not dead himself he's an immortal spirit, who lacks a physical body of his own because of a curse, so he needs to kill someone in order to have a body he can use...

Ties attached
And now some "how it works" photo. Please don't mind that I used a purple kimono as a substitute, I have yet to start sewing the dark blue one...

With kimono on over it (feels so weird to wear it right over left...)
Front without a kimono.. it's just tied over my chest
Seen from back
I guess that's it for today. Tomorrow I'll continue sewing on the blue kimono.. or at least that's the plan.

See ya!

Finally fabric for Okita's yukata!

 Hi!

Mom had promised earlier that we would visit neighbor town Kemi's fabric store on Friday or Saturday so today after she had finished work we went there.. in hope we'd find a suitable fabric for Souji Okita's yukata. I had earlier checked all three fabric stores in my town (well, there's four actually but I didn't bother to check the fourth because they only have curtain fabric etc) and none of them had what I wanted. That particular pale violet is so hard to find... always too dark.
So when we got to that fabric store we went around, checked all fabrics and it started to look dark... until I passed one of these metallic stands with like three baskets with random last meters of fabric from sold-out bolts. I believe. I saw that behind some darker fabrics there was something that looked like it could work. I pulled it out from the basket and mom started to 'finger measure' approximately how many meters it was. She measured it to about 2,5 meters and for a moment we thought if it would be enough.. think so. But then came the other problem: it isn't so thick and probably won't fall as prettily as my other kimonos and I might have to line it... even though yukatas are always unlined originally.
Oh well, I figured it would probably be the best find I could manage in this short time frame (under one week to make the yukata + Ichito cosplay) so we bought it. It cost around 12 € and was actually closer to 2,8 meters. Yay.

Fabric and... red... drink..
Before we went home mom got a sudden "Let's go to Kemi's Lidl before we go home!" whim when it appeared in front of us and I was all "lol, okay sure". We normally pretty much never go to Lidl nowadays.. used to go quite a bit many years ago though.
When we were walking by that milk and juice part of the store I looked up and almost stopped. I saw this very red blood orange juice that screamed ochimizu to me... so I looked at mom and went "mom I need that juice for a cosplay. I need to put it in my glass bottle and take it to the con... yes, the con next weekend..". She probably thought for a second "the fuck" even though I had already mentioned looking for some kind of red liquid for a costume... oh well, she said I could use it as my 'train drink' too so she bought it. Rasetsu-time in the train trololo... ~ For a moment I loved Lidl. x'D

That's all, bye!

May 30, 2012

Ichito cosplay tekkou pt.3

I finished my tekkou today. Let's cut right to the chase!

So the push-button fastening method didn't work in my taste so I had to cut yet another tekkou, boy I've screwed up two now... oh well, this time it went well so it's ok, practice makes perfect.

I won't show you again the first steps of tekkou making because those have been described in part 1 and 2 already. But after I had cut out and decoration stitched around a new tekkou and folded in the sides I went and got the leather fabric again and drew two 50 cm long and 2,5 cm wide ties on the wrong side of the fabric with an ink pen. I made sure to check that the fabric stretched horizontally so that the ties would stretch a bit if needed. I used one tie per tekkou.

I've drawn out the ties...
Cut them out
After that I just made a middle fold on both the tekkou and on the middle of the ties and sewed them on. I just made a single straight vertical seam on the middle of the tie.

Testing it on.. ties are just wrapped around once and tucked under
No retarded side buttons hihi
And they overlap closer to the middle, yay! (I didn't bother to get them to be aligned lol)
Now there was only left to do that finger ring thingy. Mom earlier got the idea that I could use two of those curtain ring hanger thingies if I just removed that hanging clip part. Easily done.

Former curtain rings, they'll soon get a new more exciting use ~
I made a small loop for the rings to go through and hand-sewed it to the underside of the tekkou. Machine sewing won't work for obvious reasons...

Hand-sew to and fro for strength
After that I was pretty much finished. Yay, no more errors! I'm glad my "use ties to fasten" idea worked as well as it did, when I do it my way it doesn't derp ~ *coughyeahrightcough* Well, not always as this proved! D:

Finished product (sorry it bunches, it does that if I move my hand certain angles)
Under arm <3
Finished tekkou, front and back side
Hmm... what's next? Probably make the blue kimono ~