This wonderful site has a huge number of free downloadable Japanese garment patterns. This page offers multiple sizes for a jinbei set for kids, men and women.

While I’m not a fan of expending a ton of printer paper on piecing together paper patterns, the site also offers a free cutting layout schema and a diagram that specifies the measurements of each part of the patterns, so you could easily draft one yourself in your size, and adjust the cutting layout for best usage of the fabric.

It offers layout options for three widths of fabric: 90cm, 110cm, and 145cm.

There are also patterns for Hakama (traditional japanese trousers) and jinbaori (traditional over-vest)

The post Free Jinbei Pattern Download appeared first on .

A jinbei is a set of garments: a top which crosses over to tie both inside and outside, and either a pair of shorts or long pants. The waist of the shorts/pants are either elastic or with a drawstring. These were clothes meant for lounging around the house during the summer or for sleepwear, and originally only for men, but in recent times they’ve become popular with women also. Muji has some for sale if you’re not interested in sewing a set up:

I’m considering trying to make a set, and figuring out a good pattern for it. Essentially, the bottoms are any length you’d like, and the top is a variation of a haori, with the front-piece crossing over more like a kimono, but there is no okumi (front flap). Instead, the front part of the body pieces are somewhat wider than the back, allowing for the garment to close neatly at the front. I did find a free downloadable pattern online, but I really don’t want to expend masses of printer paper. However, the site provides both cutting schemas and cm measurement charts for each of the sizes they offer, and I think I can work it out from there, without having to print out the pattern.

The ‘fabric needed cutting diagram’ is a little confusing, because there’s a Japanese character I don’t understand, but I’m guessing it is the width of the fabric in cm and then the length of the fabric. I’ve downloaded the Ladies Medium size diagrams for fabric and detail size.

Having used a translation tool, the Japanese character in black, to the right of each of the numbers in black, is indeed the fabric width, and the numbers in orange are the length of the fabric needed.

If we step back and think about measuring for kimono, there is a bit of variation here. We can assume that each body panel piece back width is going to be a half-yuki size. The cutting size for the sleeve is slightly wider than a half-yuki, which I think I will ignore. I’m not going to bother tapering the sleeve pieces either, since I like a wider/shorter sleeve myself.

Frankly, I am not going to bother with using this schema for the shorts, as I have a tried and true method for sewing up a pair of shorts with an elasticated waist. And, to be honest, I’m not a big fan of matchy-matchy sets – so I will probably sew a couple of pairs of shorts up in plain white cotton.

However, I found this lovely cotton voile fabric on sale at Ribes & Casals, and now I’m wavering about it. Maybe I could live with a matchy-matchy set of pjs with this.

The post Making a Jinbei (part 1) appeared first on .

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.

The post A Simple Haori Pattern appeared first on .