In Japan, kimonos were traditionally made from narrow bolts of fabric called tanmono. These were more than 12 meters long and wide enough for a generous 1/2 yuki. What is brilliant about these bolts, is that you get selvage on both sides of almost all the largest seams, so finishing the raw edges was almost a breeze. Also, the selvages of a tanmono might easily be considered to have a kind of wabi sabi beauty all of their own and could easily be a pleasure to see in their raw state in a yukata or an unlined kimono. It is possible to buy tanmono bolts online but I always worry about the condition of the cloth and storage problems.

So what are we to do outside Japan? Well, it turns out that 3.5 meters of 140 – 150 cm wide fabric, cut into four pieces, will break down into 4 wonderful strips of tanmono. The plan below will give you a sense of how this works out. It is possible to work with narrower fabric, and House of Kimono has a brilliant video on how to do this, as well as patterns, cutting and sewing guides available on Etsy for very reasonable prices.

But before you decide what width of fabric will do, please find out what your yuki measurement is. That will help guide you with your decisions. I have only ever worked with 140 – 150 cm western fabric. Below is a layout and cutting guide based on my own practice with this width of fabric.

If you would prefer to download a printable pdf version of this, click here.

Before doing any cutting at all, wash your fabric first and then iron it well. Fold the fabric lengthwise in half, so that the selvages meet, and iron a nice straight crease all the way up. Then fold it in half again, and add another good crease along the length. That is going to give you a good head start and a visual guide for how you cut up your pieces.

The black dotted vertical lines represent the four strips of tanmono – with the very last section also halved for the overlaps and the collar parts. But if you are making one for someone with a fairly big yuki, you can save 2 cm of width by leaving the back of the centre body panels uncut at the back.

The white dotted lines indicate the shoulder and sleeves folds. They become extremely important to putting the garment together, so once you’ve divided up the fabric, make sure you re-iron those crease marks back in, or you could mark them with a very loose running stitch in a bright thread colour.

You’ll notice that the sleeves and the collar parts end up with one side with selvage. This is very nice because you won’t have to finish those raw edges!

Practical scenario:

I’ve measured my yuki and it’s 63 cm. My height measurement from shoulder to top of foot is 137 cm.

Doubling my yuki (126 cm) and adding 20 cm (2 cm per piece edge) means that a fabric width of 150 cm will more than accommodate my needs with a generous 2.5 cm seam allowance on everything.

Doubling my height measurement will give me 274 cm. So, I could purchase 2.75 m of fabric to cover all my needs.

Contingencies:

But say I notice that my hips are wider than my shoulders, or perhaps I have a really magnificent butt? My yuki measurement doesn’t really represent my whole body. Not to worry! Because a kimono wraps around your body but isn’t very fitted, I can either add a few centimetres to my yuki, or make my okumi (front flaps) a little wider by taking half a cm off every seam allowance.

House of Kimono has a really helpful video for cutting out on narrower fabric, which might actually suit you well if you wanted to widen the front flats more. In any case, his “Paperless DIY Kimono Yukata Pattern – Easy to Sew with Western Fabrics” covers absolutely every contingency you might face.

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The prime reason you won’t find a legitimate kimono paper pattern is because you don’t need one. As there are only really two measurements you will need in order to calculate all the rectangular pieces that make up a kimono or a haori.

The single most important one – the one that determines how you will measure everything else – is the yuki. This is the length from the middle of the nape of the neck, along the shoulder and down to where you want your sleeve to end on your arm. Most kimonos have a 3/4 sleeve length because they’re long and they’ll get in the way of everything if you take it all the way to the wrist. Because the width of the sleeve is exactly half a yuki, and so is each body panel, there will always be a pleasing architectural balance between body and sleeve, no matter what your yuki measurement is. However, you can of course make the sleeve reach to beyond your hands if you like, but it will really change the balance of the garment.

Click here for a downloadable pdf of this image for your convenience.

Once you’ve established the yuki measurement, double it, add on about 10 cm and that is the width of fabric you should be aiming for. Similarly, once you’ve established the length you want, double that, add 10 cm and you know how many meters you need.

Practical scenario:

I have found out that my yuki is 64 cm and, since I plan to make a kimono that falls to my ankles, my height measurement is 127 cm, I will look for a fabric that is approx. 140 or wider in width and I will need about 3 meters of it. This not only gives me enough for a generous hem but also gives me the option to make a sash in the same fabric for it. If I want to buy lining, too, I am looking for the same width, but might do with 2.6, since I won’t be needing the collar pieces for the lining.

As you can see, we are not making a very fitted garment, and we can make fairly substantial adjustments just by messing with the seam allowances on the body panels and the sleeves. Also please note that this way of measuring gives you a sleeve bag that is half your height – which is very dramatic. You could certainly make them shorter by allowing a more generous seam allowance for the bottom of the sleeves, or simply cutting the sleeves shorter and using the extra fabric for a cute little string purse.

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This is just a simple PDF you can download and use. But first, you will need to measure your yuki and decide how long you’d like the haori to be. I strongly advise you to choose a fairly wide fabric, as this will allow for you to cut the body piece alongside the collar (which needs to be 15cm wide and the length of the body piece plus about 20 cm). As long as you don’t have to match any patterns at the seams, you can easily make this out of 3 meters of fabric or less, depending on the width. If you’d like to make a lined version, simply cut the same pieces as the outer fabric, except for the collar (Or you could use the lining fabric as the collar for accent. See my Ballet Pink Haori for this)

Once you’ve cut out your body piece, which should be your Yuki plus 4 cm for seam allowance, the collar (which, if you have a nice wide fabric, you should be able to get just to the side of the body piece, you should have enough spare at the bottom to cut two sleeve pieces, which should be 1/2 a yuki wide each, plus 4 cm for seam allowance, and as long or short as you want. Remember that, like the body piece, they are folded over the arm, not seamed at the shoulder.

You need very little in the way of tools to make this. At its most basic, you need scissors, needle and thread, pins, a ruler and fabric chalk or marker. But the one thing you cannot do without is an iron. Getting those dotted lines ironed into the fabric will keep you oriented, so re-iron any time you feel the need.

Once you’ve cut out all the blocks, fold your body piece in half, iron in that centre line, and cut out the neck and lapel hole on the fold side. So, 3.5 cm above the shoulder fold, and 6 cm in along the body. Now you can see that the back has no seam, and the front drapes over the shoulder with the neck and lapel cutaway.

I advise you to finish all the raw edges, except for the neck and lapel edges, before putting the garment together (the collar is going to enclose the neck and front lapel edges). It’s going to make your life a lot easier.

There are only two difficult parts of this garment. One is getting the collar piece on straight and neat, and the other is getting some ease under the arm, so the fabric doesn’t bunch up. If you follow along with Billy Matsunaga’s video tutorial, everything will become clear.

You can either right click the image above to save it, or download a pdf version here.

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Like any kind of craftsmanship that’s been around for centuries, kimono-making has built up an enormous vocabulary to refer to the various parts of a kimono, the various types of kimono, and the techniques used for creating them. I do not want to overload you with new terms in a language you may not speak that are so hyper specific. That being said, I found it was helpful to learn some of the terms for certain parts of a kimono because they stick in my mind and remind me of their importance – things I should be mindful of while I’m in the process of making garments. There are many places on the internet detailing every single term associated with the kimono construction, but I find them a little overwhelming. The diagram below might be helpful for you. These were terms that were helpful to me.

Sode-yama and kata-yama: Yama means ‘mountain’, and so the sode-yama is the sleeve mountain and kata-yama is the shoulder mountain. I find both these terms useful and worth remembering because these folds, either ironed in or marked in in some other way, are incredibly important to the construction of either a kimono type or a haori type garment. They each represent the half-way mark of the fabric piece and stand in for a shoulder seam in western garments.

Eri and tomo-eri: These are the collar and the collar ‘friend’. I just loved the idea that a collar would have a friend. It anthropomorphises the garment in a delightful way. In kimono or yukata construction the tomo-eri is placed on top of the eri, with a graceful little tuck at each end. This collar’s friend can be removed if it gets worn or too grubby exactly where skin oils, sweat or contact is most likely to mark the garment, and reveals a new, pristine collar. Haoris traditionally don’t have tomo-eris but I often add them to the collar of those garments too because it just tickles me for them to be there. Maybe they deserve a friend too?

Se: This is the back seam/centre lengthwise fold of the garment. Its importance is similar to that of the two ‘yama‘ folds; lacking a paper pattern, it is vital to orient the construction of the garment, most especially the spot where you place the collar’s midpoint. The se has a lot of symbolic weight, also. Long before the evolution of the kimono, the se was, and still is, an element in the construction of all traditional Han Chinese coats, jackets and shirts too. It is the spine of the garment and carries a sense of rectitude, integrity and uprightness.

Sode and migoro: The sode just means the sleeve. The migoro refers to the body pieces of the garment, both front and back.

Okumi: These are the two front flaps sewn onto the migoro on either side to widen the front pieces of the garment so your legs aren’t exposed as you walk. I have found that it is useful to think of this particular pair of pieces as more flexible width-wise. If you’re making a garment for someone with quite wide hips, increasing the width of the okumi, either by minimising the seam allowances or actually cutting the pieces a little wider, can really help to address the reality of the human body.

Uchiage and miyatsu-guchi: these are parts of the kimono that are traditionally gender-specific. The uchiage is a seam, sewn across the back and front panels of the body pieces to hide the excess length of the migoro. This is traditionally only done for male garments. But what I imagine is that perhaps a kimono is made for a teenage boy, and as he gets taller, the uchiage can be unpicked, and more length can be added to the robe. Conversely, as a person ages and loses some of their height to spinal compression, the uchiage can be a place to store that excess length while not cutting any excess away – because that kimono might be handed down to someone else. The miyatsu-guchi is where the sleeve is not joined to the body piece, but finished and left open to allow for someone to reach in and adjust the undergarments or obi ties. It traditionally only appears on women’s garments but I find it one of the most heart-tugging and graceful parts of a kimono. It’s lovely for ventilation, and if the garment is lined, it offers a pretty peak at the lining. It is also, like the high side-slits on a Vietnamese ao dai, a seductive little window onto skin.

I am explaining what’s traditional, but my personal ethos when it comes to making garments is not one of absolutism or nostalgia. I almost always construct a miyatsu-guchi in a kimono I’m making for a man, because it’s simply a delightful aspect of the garment. Why shouldn’t men have it? On the other hand, I will often close the seam where the sleeves and body meet on haoris I’m making for either gender if they are meant to be worn for warmth. Because those openings can be a little draughty!

Similarly, because I sew my kimono for women without the extra length that is used to hike up the skirt beneath the obi, if I were constructing something for a young person of either gender, I would most definitely add some length to the height measurement, and construct an uchiage for them so that, as they grew, the garment could be lengthened to celebrate growing taller.

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