Modesty's Costume Closet

The year is drawing to a close and I will be traveling for the holidays. I plan on doing a bit of blogging on my break, but likely will mostly be knitting and trying to really solidify my loom knitting patterns and what I want to do with them.   Things I did from my 2023 list :  Unicorn Ren Faire became Unicorn Dance Kitsune became Fox Shrine Maiden  Demon Slayer in Yarn - Finished the sweater started a 2nd sweater. Made 1 leg warmer and intend to finish the 2nd in the next couple of weeks. (update: Finished both leg warmers!) My socks got eaten by moths. So that was abandoned. Things I did not do were:  Goro's Tails Polish Vest  Mermaid Tail Projects I did in 2023:  St. Patrick's Dance Dress Flame Dance Competition Dress Goro the Puppet Projects I started and need to finish:  Knitted Wrap Belt Zelda Sweater Demon Slayer Sweater take 2 The 6 Kimono and Obi projects Plans for 2024 Now this year's plans will mostly center around the six kimono proje...

 Finally an original design for once. 😜 This was because I wanted to use my embroidery machine and I saw someone else do a nice folkart style embroidered kimono.  Placing the patterns I am going to pair it with a haori that will also have embroidery on it.  Juban  This will reuse my white cotton nagajuban that I made. However, I am making a haneri to attach to it that includes some embroidered ribbon I got on Etsy. The ribbon feature hearts and edelweiss flowers as a nod to Sound of Music and Austria which is part of my heritage.  Kimono This will be a hitoe kimono with tomosode sleeves like the others but made with a polyester linen in hunter green. If I have enough fabric, I will make a reinforced back seam. The embroidery includes a paper-cut style flower in the corners of the front panels and another tulip floral pattern in the corner of the sleeves. A single tulip will go along the back panel in the middle flanked by two folk art style horses.  There ...

 More Roses! More Ruka!  My belly is also that big...but with a food baby! This all happened because I purchased a set of an obiage and obijime that were very similar to the colors in this screenshot. Then somehow I ended up with purple cotton polyester and pink silk dupioni in my shopping cart. No idea how that happened. 😝 Juban  The juban will reuse the white nagajuban from Gothic Rose and use a plain white han eri.  Kimono The plan is to make this a hitoe kimono with tomosode length sleeves. It's made of pink polyester dupioni and will include stencil painted Rose flowers in a darker pink and pale green. The flowers will be placed similarly to the flowers on the Yukata: Back and top of sleeves, over the chest on left front panel, on the bottom corner of the left front panel.  Obi I'm making a Nagoya obi in purple cotton with some sections done in leftover purple satin fabric. I think I might keep it all one width all the way through, but I may make it half h...

 Two of my kimono projects are men's kimono which are constructed and worn differently than a women's kimono. But the projects are so similar that I'm going to talk about them in one post.  These are "formal" or semi-formal because they will include a haori and hakama. Despite making two they are the same design. I will refer to Kyojuro's Kimono as "Red" and Shinjuro's Kimono as "Rust".  Juban and Kimono For these outfits, I'm using the same juban! A black cotton hanjuban. The length of the juban should be around my hips and the sleeves very short!  You'll note that the sleeves on both kimono are short in length and height when compared to female kimono. Because we're busy fightin' and can't have sleeves in the way! The length of kimono will be above my ankles, but as you may imagine needs to be hiked up to wear hakama. This is often done by tucking the back hem of the kimono into the obi.  Hakama Speaking of Hakama ...

Some of the blogs and videos I've been watching use this kind of folding board that was long and narrow. Perfect for cutting, marking, and sewing Kimono and Obi. I come to learn it's called hera dai. (Google translates it as Spatula Table). Basically, when you use this with a tool called a hera (it is like a resin spatula) you can make indent marks on your kimono fabric instead of using chalk or markers.  From Morio-Hobby.com The closest thing I could find that was similar for Western sewing was this Dritz's cardboard pattern making mat. (I have one!) I like it and just realized I can put pins in it (game changer) but it doesn't stay as flat as I'd hoped. Also, it's made of corrugated cardboard which bends easily and can't get wet.  You might be able to purchase a hera dai by going to a shop in Japan. I did see some online stores, but I don't think they ship these internationally. I haven't seen them on eBay or Etsy either. So, that means I have to m...

 All the fabric I need for this project has arrived! So the plan is to make this a casual everyday, but nice kimono. And I loved the colors of these roses and wanted to do something with purple roses as a dress of some kind. So I decided to make a kimono out of this fabric.  Got this in a polyester silk. It feels so nice!  Kimono Parts The main body of the kimono will be a female cut kimono with tomesode length sleeves. (About 49 cm). It will need a juban underneath it and I plan on making a nagoya obi that I can tie into an O-taiko musubi. In order to tie this particular knot, I require an obiage and an obijime.  Nagoya Obi This is what the more formal, wide obi are called. They're usually about 4 meters long or more. I got a black taffeta damask fabric with a little felting on it to really get into the Victorian goth style. The plan is to follow the construction style according to the Nagoya Obi construction available on Billy Matsunaga's Patreon. So most of the ob...