Men's Haori Jacket Sewing Tutorial | Step By Step Guide For Making The Kimono Jacket

Have a look at that. I'm going to make this men's halloween. You can make one too, the pattern is in the description. Come along. Let's have a look at this incredible fabric. I'm using this woven fabric, so it's a cotton viscose polyester blend. It is 150 centimeters wide, 60 inches, and I have two meters or 2.2 yards roundabout. Get your pattern, it's in the description, and make a haori to go with your yukata. I have wide fabric, and this fabric is woven with this incredible print. Now, I'm not going to cut the body pieces into two different pieces. First thing we would usually do is fold our fabric in half and cut straight down the middle, and from that you do get two body pieces, and then you get things like the sleeves and all the other pieces. But I'm going to leave this attached because the first thing we do when we start constructing is sew the center back seam. So this is a seam you can omit if you want to. It's really useful to use as well if you want to make something for a larger size. We still treat the fabric as if it's in four quarters, so the middle two quarters are the body, one side is the sleeves, and the other side are the things like the collar and the side panels, which we'll go into in a minute. I'm going to fold this into four, and then I'm going to cut the two outer quarters. I now have a body piece like this. So you may have two pieces, two long strips of this cut in half, or you might have it my way where you have like that, so two of them, but I've left that little center back seam uncut, and that means that I don't have to sew it up. It also means I don't have to cut into this beautiful pattern, and instead of a center back seam, I've got these diamonds that will be running down the center back, which I think look really cool. So that means what I need to do is find the exact halfway point, which is what we do with our body pieces, and with our sleeve pieces, we find the exact halfway point, and we're this. This is the Katayama on the body pieces, and the Sodeyama on the sleeve pieces. Can you see it on that? Oh, you can see it with the shine of this linen, and what they are, that means the sleeve and shoulder mountains. So Katayama is the shoulder mountain, Sodeyama is the sleeve mountain, because they resemble a triangular mountain if you look at them from this way. This is your midway point. It's not your center back neck, that's a couple of centimeters, a couple of inches the other way, but it's a way that we line up all our pattern pieces in the end, so it's great to fold them in, press them hard, and get them in there, because it's also how you then fold garments once they're made, and once you start wearing them, you fold them along these lines, but it really helps with your measurements, and for lining up as you're putting your garment together. So I'm going to do that, and then I'll be able to cut up to that point to create the center front opening, so I'll cut straight up the middle of these diamonds for the front of it, on which the collar will then go around. We need to cut the collar's path, I call it, and it is just that. It's the path on which the collar travels, the midway point, the katayama. You see this line here that's been pressed in? That is where we're going to be cutting the back neck from, so the the curve that the collar will go around, and then we'll cut out of this a little bit more as well, so the collar sort of sits, well, almost in the position of this at the moment. Right, I'll be about that wide, and I'll come down here. So we need to cut this path, and know where that is, because that's, we use that to be able to put ties on these. The best way to do it, so you only have to do it once, to line up your two fabrics, your two body pieces, like so, and then we'll make our markings, which will go like this, and cut it once, and you cut through both layers at once. You have your template, it's in the description, this is what it looks like, and that's it, that's the long and the short of it. It's quite simple, straightforward, and easy to do. You don't need to print out the template to do it, you can just do this. We're going from the center point, so there's your katayama, there's your center back, and here's your center front as it stands at the moment. You're going four inches from that center point out along your katayama, and you're going four inches the other way on your katayama, and we go two inches down, so to the top of that diamond. Now, that is, by the way, five centimeters and ten centimeters respectively. This part here, the ten centimeters, is followed just straight down, like that, and the back part is where we curve, and you just curve up and around to get a beautiful curve around there, and if you can't do it by eye, you can always use something round, like the top of a pin box, or a saucer from your cups, something like that you can use to just create that round shape, and you make sure that the top is lined up with your two inch mark, and the side is lined up with your four inch mark, and you scribe around that, and that will give you a nice round curve, and we cut, and there you have it. There's the body, so we've got center back, and opening for the collar to pass around. So, we just talked about the body. On the sleeves, we do the same. I'm going to cut this directly in half. This is my whole sleeve piece. In this, there are two sleeves. That's two meters long, 80 inches, 2.2 yards, and I'm going to cut that in half, and then each of these halves make up one sleeve. So, it goes over your shoulder arm, like this, about there, and you see it's about the same, almost exactly the same length as it is on my yukata. So, if I turn to the back as well, you can see it there. So, once this is sewn, this sleeve will fit nicely into it. Can't you see that pattern? Doesn't that look fantastic? And that's the length. Obviously, if you want longer sleeves, you need more fabric. You need to get longer fabric, and you can make your sleeves far longer. This one here on the door, that has sleeves that are a meter long, so it's as long as these sleeves are, as the whole piece. So, this is that whole sleeve, like this, and it's really cool. Like, that's how long those sleeves are. So, you can make them any length you want. You can make them a little bit shorter as well, and not have this, what's called the doll, the little bit that hangs down there, but it's all up to you. In the pattern, I have them made to about this size, because this is the size the men's yukata is made to. It's also the size that we make the men's kimono, so your kaori will fit your kimono and your yukata within all the other patterns. Just like the body piece, I'm going to press in my soda yama, my sleeve mountain, so I know how to line them up and where to measure for, to say, to make the cuff, so the arm opening. So, I'm going to get pressing and cutting. This is my collar. This just needs to be pressed in half, but in this case, I'm going to press it in half down the whole length of the Now, I've got a really cool pattern on this, and what I have to do is decide which side I want to be the outside. So, one side will be this side, the outside, the right side of the collar if you like, but it's turned over, so it's an interesting part of the garment to talk about. So, it's either going to go like this around my neck, or it will go like this, and I think that's the key, because I've got the diamonds again. The diamonds are the star motif of this textile, so I think I'm going to use them like that, and I love that they just peer into the inside as well, and that will hang down like this on the whole, once it's all done. It's going to look really cool. I've got this piece from which I take the side panels and the ties. In the pattern, I discuss the fact that traditional haori aren't worn with ties made themselves, so they're not usually made from the fabric. In a ryokan, when you're wearing a haori with a yukata, and most of it's mostly all made of cotton, so it's less formal, made from going from onsen to onsen, they might have self-ties made out of the fabric. Usually, on a traditional Japanese haori, you have little hooks, they can be made out of fabric or thread or metal, and they're put in place here, then attach the ties to then tie up a haori. So, a formal haori has proper jime, and they have tassels and all kinds of stuff on them. You can get beautiful ones made out of jade or coral, but in this case, I've made it in this pattern, so you have fabric to make the ties with, so you can be wearing it straight away. So, that's what this last piece is for. In your pattern, you will see that there's side panels and ties. So, I cut a bit of that last strip, which looks like this, in half. So, now I have little strips like this. So, you can see I've got two with diamonds on them, and I've got two with stripes on them, like that. So, I've separated these out, and I've got two sides and two bits to make a tie with. The ties first, you can make these however you want, but use the best part of fabric. So, if like me, you've got this beautiful fabric, I might make it so the ties have these almost teeth on them, and do it that way. And they'll tie at the front here, so there'll be two of them there. And the reason I've chosen these to be my ties, rather than my side panels, is because they're very white, and if you are going to put anything on the side, you always make it darker. That's just a rule in all fashion. The sides is where you put darker stuff, you put lighter stuff in the center. Makes you look slimmer, basically. So, there you go. So, that's what I'm going to do. These are your side panels. In Japanese, they're called machi. So, let's have a look at what their use is. If you're very slim, you can omit these altogether. You don't need them. So, they're not crucial for a men's garment. They go like this on the sides. In fact, I'll show you with the body piece. So, I've got the body piece here, in a sort of poncho form, and that will sit like this, which all the frayed pieces just magnetize to this linen, which is fun. So, the side piece is here, and it basically joins up the side. So, it's a little side panel. And it's so that the haori sits loose. The haori isn't supposed to be fitted like a blazer, or wrap around you like a kimono or yukata. It sits open, and it sits loose down like this. And the reason we have these side panels is to just facilitate that and let it hang down. So, the back will hang down loose as well, and it just hangs like that. Much more prevalent on a female garment, because they have a really big obi. So, they'll often have an obi knot on the back here, and need to incorporate that underneath a haori. So, they will always have a far wider one. Men don't desperately need this. If you're a really slim guy, you won't need this at all. This will come together like this, and sit beautifully still down there. I need a little bit of help, so I'm going to use one of these and put it in. And we'll look at how we make these. We taper them and everything. But that's the point. These are really great, because they do get tapered. And you can taper them to fit your body type. So, make them triangular, so they come out as they reach the hem, to then incorporate larger glutes and waist and bellies and stuff. But also, you saw earlier, we have extra fabric, so you can make these far wider, if you need extra around here. And then that's not going to affect this front panel. It's just going to fall down beautifully there, while this is doing all the work under your arm. So, that is the great thing about these side panels. And that's how you use them. You use them, not so your garment is fitted, but so your garment is loose and hangs, as if you've just placed it onto your shoulder and it just falls down. Falls down your back, over your bum, it should just glide over the top of it. It shouldn't be sort of coming into here, and then going over the curvature of your behind. It should just fall straight down like that, and be left open like this. So, that's why we have those sides. All right, I'm going to go and pick all these little flyaways off here, and get to some more pressing. You want to prepare your collar, and make it as neat as possible now, so it goes on easier later. And the main part of that is pressing. So, we're pressing up the seam allowance by one centimetre on either side, and then you've got your centre here. So, it should all line up absolutely beautifully. And you can test to make sure that it does just that, the whole way along. And you press it, you press it so well, so then when it goes onto the garment, it goes up in a stream. Because you've done it so well, you know exactly where you are at any point on the collar. Do you see there? That's perfectly aligned all the way along. So, when I come to sew through all of that, I know that the other side is just there the whole way through. All that preparation is for that. That makes it so much easier in the end. So, here are my machi, and what I'm going to do now is taper them. So, bring them like that down to the hem, and I'm going to taper them as a pair. So, you can see I've got them facing each other. So, they'll both go like that, and then they'll be put into the into the hole as a pair like that as well. Now again, you don't have to taper them, you don't have to add them if you don't need the extra room. But if you are tapering them, I'm going to do it the way it says in the pattern. You can taper them any way you want to suit you. It's about how they fit you, but this will work for a lot of people. So, what I'm doing is finding the center point. This is 10 centimeters, so I'm going to go 5. So, that's the exact center point of this machi, and then I want to go 1.5 centimeters or three quarters of an inch out from either side like that. I'm going to put a snipping so I know where I am. So, you see I've done three quarters of an inch either side of the center. So, it's three quarters of an inch that way, three quarters of an inch that way, which is 1.5 centimeters, 1.5 centimeters. And now what I do is I want to go from that point down to the end in a diagonal, match those two up like that, and then on here is scribing along here. It goes from here to here on a diagonal like that. And you end up with a tapered machi like this. And now what I do is I come in and I do half a centimeter turn, so quarter of an inch, and then half an inch. And I'm going to follow that up along this diagonal line. I'm going to go nice and slow so I don't stretch the fabric out, but I'm going to bring it all the way up here, and what that will do is if you take that three quarters of an inch off each side, because we should end up with a nice little point at the top like that. So, now I'm doing raw edge management. This is written in the unlined version. We talk about it a lot, and we talk about it a lot in a lot of my patterns. These are long straight pattern pieces, and if you don't have an overlocker, a great way to deal with your raw edges is to fold them once, then fold them a second time, and you sew that down, and that becomes your edge instead of a frayed raw edge like that. Now, it's up to you if you want to do this, and there's lots of things you can do instead of it. You can use an overcast stitch. Some fabrics, like say this, actually fray quite beautifully, and you could leave that, press that, and have no problem with it, but I am going to double turn these, and you do literally turn it back by a quarter inch, and then by a half inch just to contain all the fraying bits, and this fabric is fraying a lot, so this will be quite useful. So, this isn't applied to the collar. We do it to the... we just did it to the machi. That was the diagonal sewing that we did with the machi there, and we do it to the body pieces and the sides of the sleeve. Now, when it comes to the body piece, you want to treat the raw edges of the sides. So, here's our shoulders. You want to treat these sides, but then not the center front as it is at the moment. So, this central opening, that doesn't need to be done. If your body piece is in two pieces, so if you're going to put in a center back, you would sew up the center back. You would turn over each side of the center back, so you see why how much you save, especially if you're using this raw edge management. This would be cut along here, and then you would turn that back and turn the other side back, so we're losing those diamonds all together, and you would turn it back in the same way that we do the sides. But, once you get to the shoulder point here, you see these shoulder lines coming through? You would stop doing your raw edge management there, because this, the front, this part here, that's going to be caught as we pass across it with the collar. So, that doesn't need to be treated down here, but the sides and the center back, if you have a center back seam, should be done in this way, if you're doing it in this way first. We're now ready to start adding our machi, our little side panels. These, again, I said before, you don't have to have them. So, if you don't want them, you don't have to. They're there to provide extra size, and you might make them bigger than this, but this is a great size to start with, and I'm going to sew literally just along there. So, I've double turned this. Can you see that? Yeah, there's the double turn. So, my seam is going to go just along there, with like a millimeter, far less than an eighth of an inch, a sixteenth of an inch, along the side of it. You see that? I've lined it up, right sides together, lined up the hems, and I'll sew up here, and I sew into this little point. So, where these two meet, there's like a little triangle in there. It's actually quite hard to see. I'm sorry about that, because of this patterned fabric, but it's so lovely, I had to use it. So, I'm going to sew up into here. So, I'm sewing along the side of this double turn. I've done to about there, and that gives me space to play with this and be able to keep this obscured once it's sewn into the garment. And just along here, you can see the marking. You can just see that it's just here. This is 16 inches from the Katayama, so this is where the sleeve will meet the body. They come to exactly that, and then what we're going to do is just turn them back like this once they're in. We'll sew that down with a hand stitch, or a little or a little stitch, but what we're doing is creating a little bit of room between the junction of the sleeve that's meeting the body and the side seam, because this is going to get quite bulky in there, because it's going to be also done to the back as well. And the thing is, is to have a little bit of space between the two. So, if you see, we'll sew to about here, and then there'll be a little bit of side seam there, and then there'll be a gap, and that's the key to keeping the bulk out of the underarm. Because that is one of the biggest things about making a garment like this, is that the underarms get a lot of bulk, because there are straight seams going in and all meeting at 90 degree angles, all together at once, all in one place. So, you want to release some of that bulk. Now that we have the machi, the side panels, added to the side, on one side each, we move to the sleeves, before we then do them to the back. Get your katayama, that middle point, and these are so simple, we're literally bringing them out, lining them up, their markers, so we've got the 40cm or 16cm down each side seam, like that, and you literally sew A to B, and that is it. Now that our sleeves are attached, we can bring together, if I can find them, our side seams. So, these are interesting because we have the machi. So, first of all, here's your machi there, there's the body. There you go, so you have a machi running down here. It's only small, it's tiny, but it does make a little bit of a difference, and of course, you can make it far larger, and that's with your measurements that are in the pattern, talking about your ushiro haba, the width of your body pieces, and working out how big they need to be. I've worked out mine, so what I need to do is line this up with the other side, and I'm going to come to this point, so where that has been stopped there, I'm going to do the same thing, come down to that point, like that, so all the way down there, so then we're going to have the machi will be this little side panel in there, and you can see why I've been talking about the bulk under the sleeve, so there is the sleeve up the top, and we're just trying to relieve the bulk that's under there, so the machi, you can see, is stopping about an inch from the sleeve, and then we'll have a tiny little side seam that we just go, we do like half an inch, one centimetre, maybe a centimetre and a half of sewing just there. We're not going all the way up to the sleeve, we're not going all the way down to the side panel, the machi, we're just filling in a little bit and leaving about a quarter of an inch, five mil, from the machi, and from the sleeve, so then this can all move, but it's still closed, and you don't have a hole. So your machi is in place, we press it open, so the seams are both closed, but they pass back to each side, so this seam goes that way, this seam goes that way, so then it'll bulk up in here. You can see here, this is the end of the sleeve, so that's the sleeve bag heading off that way. This is the hem down here, and this is the body moving down there. This gets turned back, so we roll it back like this, and you can just whip a couple of stitches in, either by hand, which is quite easy, because you'll need about four stitches to hold that down, or you just run across that with the sewing machine really quick, and that's holding down just those raw edges of the top of the machi. You see, like that, it sort of springs back up, but that will be kept down by just a few little strategic stitches in there, and it looks like this from the other side. Tiny little panel, and you see it on Japanese, traditional Japanese haori. These can be absolutely minuscule. It's because of Japanese fabric, and it's uniform width, so all Japanese fabric is the same width, and thus to create the shaping you need, for just that little bit of curvature, they need to add tiny little strips like this, or bigger strips if the person's bigger, but that's why that's there, because all the fabric is 16 inches wide, and it doesn't vary from that ever, so we have a little bit of a side seam there, from here to the end of the sleeves, we put in just a little bit about there, so that's a centimetre, half an inch of stitching, and then that's the side seam done, then we can get on with our sleeves. I'll show you how to do this little part on machine. Get everything as flat as possible, and we're just getting that little knot there, top of the machi, folding it down, you sort of fold it in on itself, and down at the same time. So you see what I've done there, it's just a tiny little stitch, and to remove all the raw edges from the inside of the garment, that's a tiny little thing just in there, and on the back, obviously that's undetectable, those stitches. Now you might have fabric where that would really show up, in that case I would do the same, fold it down like I did, clip across the little hand stitch, just to hold that in place, like that. That is the machi underneath, and so the sleeve together, closing the sleeve it's called, and this is all quite simple, it's just you sew along the straight line. Now I'm starting a good centimetre, half an inch, from all the other seams that are coming into that junction, to let it all have some room to breathe. So I start nice and far away, and then you literally sew down here, across the bottom, and up to your cuff marking, and at here, at your cuff marking here, it's good to sort of do a couple of rounds of backstitches, because this is a real high use area, and needs a bit of strength to it, so you do two sets of backstitches, just for safety there, and then to do the cuff, we flip this back one and a half times, just like we did with say the raw edge management, and whip around on that. Now we lift the hems, lift them by half an inch, and an inch and a half, or a centimetre, and three centimetres, so you're going one, and two, like that, and then we sew that down, then we put on our ties, and attach the collar. We're now going to place the ties, this is the Hauwaii jacket, here is the front openings, and before we put the collar around the collar's path, we need to add the ties, and they go in 20 inches, or 50 centimetres, up from the hemmed edge, so I'm going to measure 50 centimetres, or 20 inches, then what we do is we secure this down, so we want to secure it within the collar's path, and the collar will pass with a one centimetre seam allowance, along here, so you want to secure it down five mil, or a quarter inch, from the edge there, so it's caught when you then pass over it again, when you put on your collar, so we have our ties in place, and it should look something like this, they should be heading in to the inside of the garment, so then when we see that, so we're on the wrong side at the moment, and they're going into the garment, so not coming out, which seems the wrong way around, but it makes sense, because you want to pass over this then with your collar, and then they'll hang down like that, so if you don't want to use them, they're actually tucked inside a little bit into your jacket, and when you do want to use them, you bring them across, and tie them like so, now it's time to attach the collar, so you can do this in a number of ways, the thing that we have to think about is that we have an enormous, this is a big seam, that goes six feet all the way around, and the best way to deal with a really big seam like that, is to split it in half, and you do centre back down one side, centre back down the other, with all your actions, when you're pinning, when you're sewing, when you do your second pass, all of that, you treat your collar as two parts, and you work on one side, and then the other, always one side, then the other, then the next step is one side, then the other, but it splits it up, and it means that your collar won't walk, because this is so long, if you were to start down on one hand, and sew all the way up, and all the way over, and all the way down, the chances are, is that the collar will walk, as you go around with your sewing machine, and by the time you get to this end, it will be completely uneven, to the other hem, so the best way to do it, is start in the middle, and work out, pin down one side, and then I'll work on down the other, so I just leave the other, the other is just this mess over here, so I have the room, and the ability to manipulate this, in the way that I want it manipulated, you cannot use enough pins, so use as many pins as you need, and as you want, and take them out, re-pin, and just get that going around that curve like that, this is a hard part, it's hard every time, so don't worry about that, and then once you're onto this straight, you're actually doing all right, it's just pinning something to a straight line, but that's, that's the hardest part, and it can take time to get that right, so it says in the pattern, to stop about eight centimetres, around three inches, before you get to your hem, down here, and that is so, we can fold up your excess, and create a really great, and straight line with your hem, and the reason for that, is because this is such a long seam, it's a, it's a six foot seam, so you're going a long way around, and because a lot of people will be using, like I am, something with a polyester blend in it, or a viscose, whatever it is, your fabric is probably going to move, and shrink, just with usage, so as you're pressing it, I saw this shrink, every time I pressed it, it would just shrink a little bit, so it's going to be a different size, and this means, that you can line everything up at the end, and make it all flush, like that, and then what we do, is we come in, I'll press this really well, and then I'll come in, and I'll continue the seam down to here, and then go across the bottom, and it just means there's less mistakes, so something is a bit off, at the end of all of that, you don't have your collar, not meeting up with your hem, and making it all funny, along the bottom, this means that you'll always get a nice crisp look, along the end, no matter what you do, and no matter what fabric you're using, so it can sort of shrink a bit, this might not shrink as much, there's so many factors, so you just want to get it like this, so see, there's the end of the hem, and there is the end of the collar, and I've just pushed that in myself, and then checked that it's all flush, and it's all straight, going along the same line as the hem, and you get that really good press, and you finish it up, well that looks pretty damn fine, I'm really happy with that, it looks amazing, with the black linen yukata as well, it feels good as well, there's a nice heft to it, with this fabric, that woven fabric, you can see how thick it is, because all the white on the outside, is another fabric on the inside, I've got the ties as well, I'll tie them up in a minute, and show you then, I wanted to be able to sort of show you it all, so you can see why I didn't cut the centre back, when you see it like this, isn't that cool, with that incredible diamond going straight down the centre back, really does have an impact, and also the choice of having the diamonds coming down here on the collar, the collar could have been this way, oh that would have been cool as well, having a stripe, but I think having the diamonds coming down here, to sort of frame the entire ensemble, works quite well, we put in the machi just here, which does let it just sit, I have quite a big behind, and a big stomach, and it just lets it fall nicely over everything, when it's sitting like this, this is how a Hori should be worn, sits nice and flat, you don't pull it closed like this, you leave it to fall like that, and then once it's fallen, you grab your ties, tie them in the middle, notice though, I'm not applying any more tension to it, it's just holding it in place there, and that's how it sits, I hope you've made one, I hope this has inspired you to make one, or is helping you as you go through your pattern, you can get your pattern right now, it's in the description, come along and make your own Mensa Hori, I'm Kemono Alex, this is House of Kemono, follow me for everything about Kemono.