Individual post from "Nothing In It"

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Proud of Myself

Finally finished up my "five white kosode" project over the weekend.

When I first started sewing Japanese, I wanted to be interesting. I stayed away from the "black hakama and white kosode" look, not because there's anything wrong with it but because too many people already dress like that. So, I made blue, brown, and green hakama. I made kosode in whatever color of linen I could get my hands on.

Later, I started "spiffing up" my wardrobe. I made fancy kariginu, and comfortable suikan. Then I realized I didn't have anything plain to wear underneath those fancy garments. My colorful ensembles looked slightly out of place. Plus, they didn't quite match. Sigh. What do *mean* that I still don't have plain black hakama and only a couple plain white kosode?

So, last year I made a pair of black hakama and a matching kataginu for it. This year, starting in January, I made five white kosode. I made two in linen, two in some excellent cotton, and one in silk. Now I have 7 plain white kosode to go with my more than twice as many colorful and patterned kosode.

I'm so proud of myself that I can actually feel like I have a respectable Japanese wardrobe. Not jst a bunch of clothing, but a wardrobe of various layers and levels of formality.

Next up on the to-do list:

1 black linen kataginu to be decorated with Baronial comets
1 red linen suikan for Kingdom occassions
1 red linen kataginu to be decorated with Kingdom populace badging
1 more linen kosode using shibori dyed fabric
1 green linen hitatare kamishimo
1 green linen katatginu to go with the hakama from above
1 set of white linen underlayer for the hitatare kamishimo

I hope to get the first few items done before Pennsic, but I probably won't have that whole list finished until the end of the year.

2012.05.07 at 10:45am EST

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