The Fantail Kimono

The Fantail Kimono

Inspired Completely by the Sew4Home website

When sergerqueen first posted the link to this kimono over on the Stitcher's Guild website, I was hooked. I liked everything about it. Here's the inspiration photo:

 Image from Fantail Kimono, Sew4Home website

Well gosh, I thought, what's not to like about that? So I went to the website, found out about the fabrics used, ordered the fabrics from Etsy and Ebay, and set about making my very own:

 

Ohmigosh, I love this kimono. If I was a more generous person, I'd give it to my daughter, but actually I'm keeping it for myself and will make an octopus-themed one for my daugher. She's big into octopusses anyway.  

There were several pluses about this pattern, copied/downloaded from the tutorial found on that Sew4Home website linked to above. For one thing, it used the concept of negative space, so there were only a few pattern pieces to download in the PDF; the rest were rectangles.

Secondly, the directions were some of the finest I've seen anywhere. Not to sound uppity, but those folks on Sew4Home sew like I do--that is to say, from an anal-retentive perspective. They were careful, for example, to seam the sleeve at the top (not usually done on a kimono pattern) so that the fish in the print swam rightside up on the front and back.

They were careful about fussycutting so that the pattern matching was perfect. They quilted the obi to deter it from rolling. What can I say: they are smart.

Plus I love the fantail shape of the kimono hem. It gave a larger space to show off the print and it's a bit different.

I only found one error in the tutorial and that was in the photo for showing how to attach the lower hem's border. They had the border placed wrong end up. But I knew what they meant.

I only made three changes. First, I cut the lower hem border with the pink edges to match that of the sleeves  where the border was printed on. In the original, the pink lines of the border print were cut off for the lower hem. This is probably because the widths of the pink of the lower border were not the same on each side of the border print fabric, so it would have taken a lot of explaining and a more complicated bit of instruction.

Secondly, I added a lining of Ambiance rayon. I really don't like cotton kimonos much; for one thing they have to be ironed after washing and for another they're pretty grabby, especially with my fuzzy winter nightwear. So no grabby cotton for me in that kimono--the lining headed that problem off at the pass. Now if I could just find someone to do the ironing.

And finally, I didn't add the tassel in the derriere area. I didn't want a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey look for me. It looks great on the young model, but for a woman of a certain age, well, you get the picture.

I am absolutely delighted with the way that the whole project turned out.  

I'm on to the next kimono in this production line: one for my daughter in a different print. And then, hopefully, there will be enough of that octopus-themed fabric left over to make one for the grandbaby so she and her mama can swan around in matching kimonos.