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First Tekkou Project

Japanese men's upper-body clothing, in particular informal clothing like for travelling or working typically does not come down all the way to the wrist. This can leave the forearm chilly in cold weather, dirty when working, or sunburned when it's sunny. Of course the Japanese have a solution for this, and the sollution is called tekkou, which are forearm covers.

First Tekkou

The tekkou wrap around the forearm, and extend up the back of the hand. In this common design, a loop goes around the middle finger to keep the extension from flapping around. Ties at the wrist and crook of the elbow secure the tekkou to the forearm.

This pair of tekkou is made of white linen. The body of each tekkou is actually two layers. This enabled me to finish the complex curve at the hand end of the tekkou by sewing both layers together and turning the whole thing inside out before attaching the ties.

My ties and finger loop are a bit wide. To make the ties, I started with a strip about 3.75" wide (what I call a quarter-panel width since a full panel is 15" or so wide), folded it in half lengthwise, then tucked the raw edges of the tie into the fold. I think next time I will use eighth-panel ties.

I wanted to get a pair of these done wbefore Pennsic, but I was a bit too busy with the gate to get them done. They'll be ready for winter, though, and hopefully will survive until Pennsic. Here's what they look like laid out:

First Tekkou, Shape

2013.08.20 at 12:00am EDT

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