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Cosplay Knitting: Demon Slayer Haori Jackets and Such

Iconic characters have iconic jackets, aka haori. The nice-ish thing about these coats is that they are very loose fitting, so sizing will be a little easier to comprehend than something more fitted like the shirt and pants. 

Nice, loose kimono-sleeved coat

Focusing on the main characters and the Hashira, there are 3 flavors of haori: 

  • No Sleeves (aka cloaks/shawls)
  • Standard Sleeve
  • Long/Wide Sleeve

Then looking at the color changes, level of difficulty would probably be: 

  • Simple = Kanao, Mitsuri, Nezuko
  • Intermediate = Kyojuro, Tanjiro, Obanai, Zenitsu, Sanemi, Urodoki
  • Advanced = Giyu, Gyomei, Shinobu

The Cloakers

Two of the characters wear a shawl or cloak instead of a haori jacket: Kanao and Kyojuro. 

I've already provided a knitting pattern for Kyojuro. So I will speak no more on this cloak. 

For Kanao, you want to use a crescent-shaped shawl pattern based on how she wears it. You can also knit the knotted pin using i-cord. Although, I might crochet the pin instead. 

Standard Haori

The standard sleeve is a rectangle shape. This Kimono Pattern is a great guide. 

A Jacket consists of five pieces: A back piece, two front pieces, two sleeves. Attach front and back at the shoulders, then add the sleeves, close up the sides. 

Using the Kimono Pattern as a base, you can construct the coats with some slight variations to match the shape of the coats for the characters. In my observation: 

Tanjiro, Giyu, Zenitsu, and Urodoki have what I would consider a standard haori. 

Sanemi and Nezuko also have standard sleeves but the body of the jacket is different. Nezuko's jacket is longer (although her height changes may contribute to that.) Sanemi's jacket is a bit too small for him or fits more like a bolero. You can still use the base Kimono Pattern for these characters but you will adjust the length of the back and front. 

Long Sleeved Haori

I don't know how else to describe these haori but they have different sleeves. 

Obenai has tubular sleeves but the standard size jacket. Closer to this pattern.

There is some flare to Mitsuri and Shinobu's Sleeves. 

So here are some suggested patterns to at least get the shapes right.

Character Color Chart Notes

Okay, the fun part is the color changes and by fun I mean challenging. Luckily, we have some rather simple designs for most characters and several with no color charts needed at all. 

Mitsuri, Nezuko, and Kanao have solid color coats. Hooray. They do not need a color chart.

Tanjiro

In the show/manga, Tanjiro has two jackets; the standard checker and the blue Urodoki Cloudy waves. 

For the Checker Pattern, the best way to go about it is to knit it patchwork style. This does require you to shape some of the squares. Although unlike the video example below, you may not want to knit individual squares but knit "rows" of squares using your preferred color change technique.  


For the cloud/wave pattern, intarsia for the white cloud, fair isle or duplicate stitch for wave lines. This would need to be charted. 

Zenitsu

Use faded stripes for the color change, add triangles with duplicate stitch. The color chart in my Legwarmer post may be of some guidance. 

Sanemi

Knit the jacket shorter than the pattern suggests, use intarsia for the kanji or dup stitches

Obenai

Knit the vertical stripe portions with intarsia after knitting the horizontal stripe portions. 

Shinobu 

Knit the veins with intarsia or fair isle, the dots on the trim are also intarsia. Faded stripes for color change. 

Giyu

The back portion will have a left and right side you can join later. Knit the solid color side first. The crazy design is going to be a mix of mosaic/fair isle and duplicate stitch. I would reference the color chart from this Vest Pattern by Lion Brand to help with the cube-like pattern. (It will need a tinge of adjusting to be show accurate.)

Conclusion

This was certainly a bit more vague but these were my thoughts on how to knit haori or cloaks for these characters. Next post will be my final Demon Slayer knitting post which will cover the other little doo-dads and trinkets that characters have. 
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