Hanayome Uchikake

Or as I like to call it "Pain in the Butt Uchikake." Seriously, I dunno if it's just that it's a lot harder to make uchikake or if this fabric just really didn't want me to sew it, but it seemed like everything that could go wrong in making this thing did (short of me cutting off something important - I've done that before. That's why my camelia houmongi has one sleeve on backwards.) Anyways, first I forgot that uchikake are not lined the same way as regular kimono, so I didn't buy enough gold fabric to line it entirely, I only had enough to do a hakkake. So mine is lined like a regular furisode. Then the lining I did use on this thing didn't work. I measured everything two times over and still I managed to make the trunk lining pieces a good 14 inches too long! So, I wasted 48 inches of high quality lining fabric like that! Then the patterns didn't want to match across the seams. When I got one thing in place something else moved out of place. I pinned things in the wrong spot. My sewing machine started going all tempermental on me too; breaking the thread, rippling the fabric, sometimes it seemed to forget that I had tension settings on it. Then my hand sewing started frustrating me - the thread kept knotting and tangling, and no matter how hard I tried to keep the seems flat they rippled! AAAAAARGH!

Anyways, so after 31.25 hours of cursing, whining and coughing (I'm sick right now) my uchikake is finally finished! I'm planning to use it for a tayuu cosplay. I know that tayuu have short sleeved uchikake, but I decided to keep the full length sleeves - I'll pin them up inside, when I do the cosplay. The reason why I kept the full length sleeves, is because I realised that I already have a bride's furisode and a bride's wig. So I figured with the long sleeved uchikake I've got a nice collection of bridal attire. Unfortunately the wingspan on the uchikake is a little too long for my bride's furisode, because the uchikake was made to fit my arm length and the bride's furisode is vintage. And most vintage kimono don't fit my arm length, by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, the top two images are meant to show you how an uchikake is worn as part of the bridal ensemble. It's like an over coat. If you're wondering why it looks like I tried to dress a midget in those photos, it's because my dress form decided that the entire ensemble was too heavy for it and the adjustable height mechanism gave out. The last photo is sort of a just in case you wanted to see sort of thing. That's what the bride's furisode underneath the uchikake looks like.