Kimono patterns

[Collette]

Hey does any one have a good one .. I've been looking and most do not
go up to my size ( Plus sized gal here) any help would be greatly
appreciated .

Collette

[Diana Lievsay]

Hey Collette, 

Two things about kimono. They're really easy to make (I don't know your level of sewing skill, but they're pretty low on the list); basically a bunch of rectangles. I'm told this are reasonably easy patterns on the interwebs. 

More importantly, though, if you can get up to Madison, you can visit State Street and the magical store known as Ragstock. Ragstock sells Kimonos, obi, etc for cheap (like $8.00) and you can usually find something that matches your clan's colors. Which clan are you playing?  If it's Phoenix, I have a kimono you can borrow for 3 out of every four sessions. 

Also, if you have questions about L5R feel free to talk to me. I'll be running a one shot/3 hour L5R pick up next Monday, and I'd be thrilled to have you in that. 

Diana

--
"Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw", that showy, dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does." -- Donna Tartt, The Secret History

[Diana Lievsay]

....You are in Madison. Not Beloit. My bad. :D 

[Akira Barnes]

Actually she's in the Twin Cities.

Akira!

[Matthew]

Here's the pattern that Penny originally gave me. It's roughly the right size for me, for reference. The rectangles at the bottom are for the sleeves, the trapezoids are added to the center of the front to allow for the crossover that give the kimono it's look. The really long strip along the side is the trim (for lack of a better term) along the neckline and front of kimono. I use it all the way along it, but most people don't.

I think you could probably get by with adjusting the width of the main body part if you wanted; you have up to an additional 16" if you move the trapezoids and the long strip. If you needed more, you could probably add a seam along the back and piece it together with larger pieces.

the second one is the current pattern I'm using for mine. The two rectangles on the left are the front parts. (They should really be trapezoids, but I don't have the actual diagram that I sketched out on me. They will crossover, though.) The next rectangle is the back piece (also should have a little semi-oval cut out, like in Penny's diagram), and then the two smaller ones after that are the sleeves. The dimensions aren't written in there, but it's 1" per 10 pixels.  The long rectangle along the bottom is the trim. This one should be easier to adjust the width of the panels, but the overall length of the kimono (which is about 37"). The width of the two front panels (at their widest part) totals about 12" more than the width of the back panel, so there's 12" of cross-over. This version requires a shoulder seam.

Hope that something in here might be helpful!

Matt

[Collette]

Thank you Diana . We have Ragstock here in twin cities but their
kimono selection is very icky and not anywhere near my size.
And thank you for the invite to monday *G* but getting there little
problematic *G* I play one of the Unicorn clan twins

On Jan 17, 6:57 pm, Diana Lievsay <lievs...@beloit.edu> wrote:
> ....You are in Madison. Not Beloit. My bad. :D
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Diana Lievsay <lievs...@beloit.edu> wrote:
> > Hey Collette,
>
> > Two things about kimono. They're really easy to make (I don't know your
> > level of sewing skill, but they're pretty low on the list); basically a
> > bunch of rectangles. I'm told this are reasonably easy patterns on the
> > interwebs.
>
> > More importantly, though, if you can get up to Madison, you can visit State
> > Street and the magical store known as Ragstock. Ragstock sells Kimonos, obi,
> > etc for cheap (like $8.00) and you can usually find something that matches
> > your clan's colors. Which clan are you playing?  If it's Phoenix, I have a
> > kimono you can borrow for 3 out of every four sessions.
>
> > Also, if you have questions about L5R feel free to talk to me. I'll be
> > running a one shot/3 hour L5R pick up next Monday, and I'd be thrilled to
> > have you in that.
>
> > Diana
>

> > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Collette <collettesmith1...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >> Hey does any one have a good one .. I've been looking and most do not
> >> go up to my size ( Plus sized gal here) any help would be greatly
> >> appreciated .
>
> >> Collette
>
> > --
> > "Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw", that showy, dark crack running down
> > the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't.

> > Now I think it does." -- Donna Tartt, *The Secret History*

>
> --
> "Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw", that showy, dark crack running down
> the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't.

> Now I think it does." -- Donna Tartt, *The Secret History*- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Becca Noe]

Additionally, please don't feel you have to be constrained to really exacting accuracy in costuming.  Got a wrap-around shirt, flowy Thai style pants?  Use a kimono that won't fit around properly as a jacket or loose vesty thing (and when you buy vintage kimono like I do, man, having boobs at all can be too big.  Japan, you're small).  You might also want to look into patterns for hanbok, a Chinese garment that seems more size-flexible from the little I know.  Penny made one, you might ask her.

Becca

[Penny Bierman]

Actually, hanbok is Korean.  And though they are awesome, that's not what I made.  Mine is simply a wrap jacket, cut shorter than a kimono, with an underskirt.  It's an mish-mash of chinese history that I designed myself.  Like Becca said, historical accuracy is not a priority here. 

 

Hanbok (as seen below) is probably not too hard to make, it's a high skirt with a short jacket.  It has the added benefit of allowing you sit and walk normally, a huge improvement over kimonos.  And the loose-fitting should make it more forgiving to girls who aren't japanese sized . .

 

[Jason Wray]

I guess I'll also drop into the this craft-girls-and-matt discussion briefly. (hopefully briefly enough to avoid alerting those who want me to fix problems with the character management system that I haven't had time to look at since Xmas -- I'm... "getting" to it?). 

As a Unicorn, remember that you even have more leeway than most.   If your character's motivation isn't something like "I want to integrate fully in Rokugan," Indian and Central Asian dress would also be totally appropriate.  A sari or a deel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deel_(clothing)), perhaps?

[Matthew]

Rush brings up a good point. I partly think that part of being a Unicorn is to bring in weird things to confuse the Rokugani peoples. I have a kurda that I occasionally wear, to throw people off.

(Also, Rush, if you want to give me access to the source code I can look at maybe making some superficial changes, mostly for formatting.)

[Collette]

Working on my dummy version ( hey I'am not experimenting with
expensive brocade)
so far I have accidently sitched sleeve closed and inside out .. for
got that I don't have to sitch the sleeve all the way and well it
kinda too big ( color me surprized at that )
But is a work in progress ..

On Jan 19, 4:35 pm, Matthew <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rush brings up a good point. I partly think that part of being a Unicorn is
> to bring in weird things to confuse the Rokugani peoples. I have a kurda
> that I occasionally wear, to throw people off.
>
> (Also, Rush, if you want to give me access to the source code I can look at
> maybe making some superficial changes, mostly for formatting.)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:25 AM, Jason Wray <jwr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I guess I'll also drop into the this craft-girls-and-matt discussion
> > briefly. (hopefully briefly enough to avoid alerting those who want me to
> > fix problems with the character management system that I haven't had time to
> > look at since Xmas -- I'm... "getting" to it?).
>
> > As a Unicorn, remember that you even have more leeway than most.   If your
> > character's motivation isn't something like "I want to integrate fully in
> > Rokugan," Indian and Central Asian dress would also be totally appropriate.
> >  A sari or a deel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deel_(clothing)), perhaps?
>

> > On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 7:35 AM, Penny Bierman <plbier...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >> Actually, hanbok is Korean.  And though they are awesome, that's not what
> >> I made.  Mine is simply a wrap jacket, cut shorter than a kimono, with an
> >> underskirt.  It's an mish-mash of chinese history that I designed myself.
> >> Like Becca said, historical accuracy is not a priority here.
>
> >> Hanbok (as seen below) is probably not too hard to make, it's a high skirt
> >> with a short jacket.  It has the added benefit of allowing you sit and walk
> >> normally, a huge improvement over kimonos.  And the loose-fitting should

> >> make it more forgiving to girls who aren't japanese sized . .- Hide quoted text -

[Jason Wray]

Good luck!