bookmark_borderBlue Stripe Hitatare Sugata

I completed this project back in early May of this year. I wore it to War Practice and to court at Pennsic, but I am only just now getting around to documenting it. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of me actually wearing this outfit. Anyway, I wanted a less-formal and lighter-weight hitatare than my others. This one is made from a mid-weight linen, instead of the heavy-weight linen and hemp from which the others are constructed. I painted some white stripes on the fabric so that it wouldn’t look like a bedsheet. Here is the view from the front:

The assembled hitatare sugata

From the back, you can see that there are also stripes in the back, and that the hakama do not have a koshi-ita panel on the back. Some hitatare of late period had these panels, but since I do not tend to add them, this garment does not.

The hitatare sugata from the back

The sugata part of this post’s title of course means basically “outfit”. The hitatare itself is the upper-body over-garment. You have to make the body panels quite long if you don’t want the tails pulling up out of the hakama waistband.

The hitatare alone

Here is a close-up of the painted stripes. I have stopped using the “Jacquard Neopaque” acrylic fabric paint for most things, and I have switched over to “Jacquard Textile Color” fabric paint. This does not have the same vinyl-esque feel as the Neopaque, but it works well and still resists bleeding into the fibers. I applied the paint after the garments were constructed, so the stripes would match across the seams.

The stripes

At the sleeve ends, the sleeve cords run through “belt loop” style attachments. There’s a hitatare in the Kure red book that uses these attachments, and I have found them to be durable.

A hitatare sleeve end
“Lower-Class Samurai” on page 29 of the Kure red book

Here’s a close-up of one at the bottom of a sleeve. You can clearly see that I have not bothered to braid my own cords yet for this outfit. It uses store-bought cotton braid. The belt loops are made by starting with a rectangle of fabric that is twice as long and four times as wide as the eventual loop. The ends of the rectangle get folded in to the center, followed by the sides getting folded in to the center. The loop is then folded in half along the length to make a short 4-layer strap, and stitched along the long edge to hold it closed. Stitching it on to the garment seals the ends of the loop.

Detail of the hitatare sleeve

Similar loops are at the cuff end of each leg. I only put loops on the outsides of the pleats, so they hold the pleats in place. I’m not sure if this is historical or if the exemplar just has narrower legs.

The hakama cuffs

I also made a kataginu that matches the hakama so that I don’t have to roast if it is very hot. A kataginu is basically a sleeveless hitatare.

The matching kataginu

So there, now I have four hitatare sugata. This one went through the post-Pennsic laundry without falling apart, so I consider it to be a success.

bookmark_borderMore Kaminari Kataginu

After I made the two Kaminari kataginu last year as prototypes, I ordered a whole roll of red linen so I could make more. This linen sat in the closet for basically a whole year while I worked on other stuff. With the news that there might be some SCA activities in the medium-future, I realized that I had to get started on this project.

So, I made six more kataginu and embroidered them with the Yama Kaminari clan mon. They are the six you see on the left in this picture. The two to the right are the prototypes from last year.

8 Kaminari Kataginu

The ones that look smaller folded up are 36 inches from shoulder to hem. The larger ones are 48 inches to accommodate those who are taller or otherwise larger. I seem to remember that the prototypes used 54-inch wide fabric, so the panels are 18 inches wide on those two. The new ones are constructed from 45-inch fabric, so they use 15 inch panels.

I can’t wait to seem them adorning my firends in some kind of procession!

bookmark_borderFirst Garment

First complete garment from block-printed fabric is this kataginu vest. I have a much larger project I’m working on, but this garment enabled me to do a batch of test prints like the one I posted the other day. Later, I was able to make a garment from some of the tests.

Front
Kataginu front
Back
Kataginu back

It’s really super difficult to get all the wrinkles out of linen this thick. It’s great stuff, going to make awesome garb, but wrinkly. The printing came out good. I had to print back mon on both pieces before sewing, because printing across the seam with allowances on the inside would not have worked as smoothly.

bookmark_borderKaminari Kataginu

Recent experiments applying the mon of Clan Yama Kaminari to fabric have demonstrated to me that I am most happy with machine embroidered versions. They are durable, attractive, and can be made by a robot. This last is handiest because I want to embark on a project to make probably several dozen of these so that when we do something like march in a festival parade or rocess into court as a group, we can have a uniform look. Here are two prototypes I made over the last few days.

Embroidered Kaminari Kataginu

Even with a robot to do all of the embellishment work, it’s still labor intensive to get the fabric loaded onto the machine just right to get good results exactly where you want them. It also takes about ten minutes to complete each mon, so that’s going to be a lot of time if we make a whole bunch of these.

bookmark_borderSCA Portrait

Here’s a picture of me from our Baronial 12th Night event wearing a Kataginu Kamishimo of mostly new-for-2020 garb.

Kataginu Kamishimo in blue linen

I’m wearing a kataginu vest and hakama pants in matching blue linen, printed cotton kosode, white linen kosode, white linen kyahan shin covers, black linen tate eboshi hat, and purchased jika tabi shoes. Sagemono belt-hangers are a belt favor of the three baronial orders to which I have been inducted (Order of Copernicus, Order of the Blue/Silver Comet, Order of the Gold Comet) and a kinchaku made from the same black silk brocade as my elevation garb which has been machine embroidered with a Laurel wreath.

bookmark_borderKataginu Kamishimo in Blue Linen

It has been a while (like, more than a year) since I made a basic medieval Japanese men’s garb outfit for myself, and my old stuff has started to look a little worn. So, I decided to make these hakama pants and kataginu vest out of some nice dark blue linen.

kataginu kamishimo linen blue
Hakama and Kataginu in Blue Linen

When the tops and bottom of an outfit are made from the same fabric, it is referred to as a kamishimo.

Sorry this photo just shows them hanging together on a hanger. I’ll try to wear them sometime soon and get a better photo.