The Making Of The Kimono Begins

Katrina decided that she wanted to wear a kimono for her graduation, so she asked me to make one for her. After buying a 3/4 bolt of brocaded black cloth with dragons and phoenix birds patterned in it, we looked around for a contrasting cloth and found a full bolt of pale gold cloth with the exact dragon/phoenix pattern, so now we're ready to go!

I started out by setting up the patterns so the selvedge is running in directions that will typically place the dragons in the proper positioning to have them all in a standing position. I cut out the patterns for numbers 9, 10, 11 & 12 in order to make the interior dickey (it looks something like a vest) and as I'm working on the inner section I started to realize that things just don't look right for some reason.

This is the picture on the pattern envelope that we are working with. We are planning to primarily use the style shown in light blue with orange highlights, substituting gold for the blue and black for the orange in the picture.

After selecting the patterns I needed to make the inner section and I cut them out, I put a piece of tape with the pattern number on each piece so I could keep track of them. Next, I looked at the sewing instructions and realized that there wasn't one pattern number mentioned in the sewing instructions!

I find I'm having to match up the patterns with the pictures in the sewing instructions, because the names they are calling them, (band, interface, casing, etc) have nothing to do with the numbers on the patterns. Whatever happened to 9, 10, 11 & 12? I know what those are...

The struggle continues...