Going Hard at the Hitoe

Before I went to sleep last night I made decent progress on the most current version of the hitoe plan, all the way through step 4, sewing the side seams. Ripping out the old seams (steps 5 and 6) was not something I was willing to do at 2am, so I stopped there. I think that’s a decent rule, no seam ripping or cutting after 2am. Maybe midnight.

The longer stitch length is a little hard to keep. I’m leaning heavily toward the 0.7cm side. But it is faster. It feels so weird to make such big stitches, but it does look like the “basting stitch” description.

Something I was considering, my sewing machine can not match this stitch length. That means one thing, I need to hand stitch the uwagi (upper garment). Which means I need to move faster. A lot faster. I am currently 9 days behind my original production schedule. Which isn’t so bad, and I really do think I can catch up.

Redoubled efforts Steadfastness of conviction Mind locked on the task

Banish the thoughts of failure Time must not be wasted

Hmm. I think I might like that format for the poems.

I made it through step 8 today, so tomorrow starts with step 9, attaching the okumi (overlap).

All Hail Dedication

When motivation Waxes and wanes like the moon Dedication reigns Focus, determination, perseverance her subjects.

I was struggling this morning, not wanting to do anything, much less work on something challenging (it’s collar day). So I procrastinated, doing absolutely nothing of value and lamenting my lack of motivation. And then my muse smacked me, and made me work for that poem. I struggled with the last to phrases for longer than I usually have to (my poems almost always roll fluidly from my pen – or keyboard).

I’m glad it took effort. Things that are worth it do take effort, and I needed that reminder.

I finished roll hemming the collar in the wee hours yesterday morning and then proceeded to not sleep at all. I filled yesterday with work on documentation because I didn’t quite trust myself to not make a mistake with my brain stuck on with no rest. It was a weird day. My blogpost felt weird too. But today we have a collar to attach!

The steps for attaching the collar: First I’ll lay out the body of the garment and mark the stitch line for the collar. Next I have to make small cuts along the fold or shoulder line of the garment from the center out 11.5cm. Then I pin the collar to the garment following my stitch lines. Once it’s stitched on, there are a few tucks that get top stitched in place so that the 14 cm collar becomes maybe 6 cm around the neck (7.5 inches down to 3 or so).

I’ll be pleased to accomplish all of that today. If I still have time left in the day, I’ll mark the stitch lines for the sleeves. I’m considering completely finishing the sleeves (stitching the bottoms closed and roll hemming the back edges) before attaching them to the body. That is, I think, how the instructions play out. At least so far as I can translate with an app.

Got so far a marking the collar before a mistake stopped me cold. I marked the collar with a 1cm seam allowance. Then I double checked the patterns. The collar actually takes a 4cm seam allowance. Oh dear. I checked the rest of the seam allowances for the garment. Yup. I’ve messed them up. Sigh.

I am not ripping out all of those seams to redo them. I just can’t. This garment will just be wrong. One day, far, far off in the future, I’ll take it apart and put it back together. For now, it’s a lesson and I’ll make sure the uwagi that I’m moving on to next will be more correct.

Or maybe I’ll rip it out. Ugh. I’ll investigate ripping it out. How about that?

The back seam is essentially right. That’s the only one. The side seams should be 9cm/3.5 inches. And the okumi attachment is just completely wrong. It’s supposed to be sewn on at this gentle angle that allows the collar to lay properly. Double ugh. I have to redo it. The hitoe won’t lay under the uwagi properly if I don’t.

So the new plan is thus: (1) mark the side seams with the appropriate allowance and (2) mark the sleeve attachments while I’m at it, (3) mark the migoro (body) with the angled attachment line, (4) stitch the side seams, (5) rip out the old side seams, (6) unpick/seam rip the okumi (overlap) seams, (7) iron the now removed okumi, (8) mark the proper stitch lines on the okumi pieces, (9) attach okumi, (10) attach collar, (11) finish sleeves, (12) attach sleeves.

Easy Peasy.

<insert joke about regretting my life choices as I choke on equal parts irony and sarcasm>

At least I know my plan for the next however long this takes…

OH! But there is some good news! I spent a little time trying the translating app from scratch. It’s interesting how every time it’s just the slightest bit different. I know now that it translates the kanji for okumi as “company” and that helped a lot. An entire paragraph of instructions now make something approaching sense. And I may not be able to translate the very first line quite right yet, but I got closer. I think it says, “Sew the stitches at 0.7 ~ 0.8cm, the seam allowance is .2cm to do”. The first half makes sense to me, the second part not so much. One of the diagrams shows a stitch line with the gap between stitches called out at 0.8cm. The stitch itself is the same length as the gap but is not labeled. Knowing what I do about garment construction, I am leaning toward sewing things with a 0.8cm stitch length. I have to do it all again anyway, so why not try to do it better? So the good news is I should stitch faster once I get the new stitch length down. And the longer stitch length makes sense. 10 stiches per inch is not all that much like the “basting stitch” I’ve always heard described but about 3 stitches per inch definitely does. It’ll be a major adjustment.

What was it I wrote at the start of this entry, about things being worth it being hard? Yeah. I’m feeling part of that on a deep level. Quite the lesson for the day. But it’ll be worth it.

Crown’s A&S Champions

I did it. I registered for Crown’s A&S Champions.

Not only that, I actually asked for help! I shared my documentation with a Laurel and friend for preliminary feedback. I appreciate her help and that she asked very specifically what types of feedback I was after. I doubt she’ll rip the document to shreds, but even if she does, I know I’ll be better for it. But I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m hoping for at least a little bit of validation. I’ve worked incredibly hard on this project, and I hope that shows in my documentation.

She says I should be proud and gave me a lot of valuable feedback. I’ll use that to polish my documentation as much as I can.

A friend posted a picture of a massively snarled looking tree trunk. I was inspired to write this:

Time rolls across bark / Lolling in great rivulets / Waves transfixed in wood / The wind has created art / Nature’s canvas, gnarled tree.

Inspiration for Documentation

Documentation. A tool to allow others to examine the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the thing you’re making.

I got a little caught up in documentation today. Both as in catching up from being behind and as in lost in the moment, losing track of time.

I’m not quite sure why I opened the document. It may have started with trying to figure out how to sprinkle tanka in to the research. It ended with something approaching a cohesive format and a really good effort at a narrative. I just got inspired, and I know better than to turn down inspiration. I’m using time as a framework for the story, relaying how long it takes to complete each piece in as much detail as I think is appropriate without getting bogged down. And now I know things like I spent 27 days on the hat. The time commitment on this project sinks in every now and again, but I still feel like I don’t have enough time to do it justice.

I’ve a number of tanka now spread throughout the documentation, but noticed I didn’t have any poems for the hat, neither the curtains nor the weaving of the decorative cords as all that work was done in October, before the Tanka Challenge of November, so that’s what today’s poem is for.

Meditative art / A repetition in silk / Facing the mirror / Hands move in rhythmic patterns / Decorative cords produced.

I used poems written to express a certain moment in the project or a specific part of the project. When updating the hitoe section of the documentation, I included the poem I wrote in frustration after miscutting the sleeves as well as the one about the dyepot. It was pleasant to reframe the poems that way, though the tanka that are right for inclusion in the documentation are not necessarily the best I’ve written. Incentive to work a little harder on them…

At the very end of this project I’m going to create a new page on this site with the full documentation, pictures of the completed ensemble, and an embedded link to whatever video I make for entry to A&S Champs.

Oh, and physical progress on the project is also happening! Roll hemming the collar continues. Slowly but surely…

Cutting the Collar

Still two weeks away / the season’s official start / but temperature tells a much different tale / of a winter weary day.

Winter is coming.

I spent a little time with the instructions for the hitoe trying to piece together what the seriously bad translation gives me, and it’s just no use. The diagrams mostly make sense. I’ve pretty much narrowed one character that translates as “twist” to be a rolled hem. But I can’t be positive. There’s still that line that says glue and twist… There’s no way around it, I need to learn Japanese.

Of course I’ve known that for years and just haven’t done it. Maybe this will be the final push I need to get serious about it. There is only so far I can go with my research without it.

I did reread the diagram for sewing the sleeve bottoms, and wow. The stitch length is .8cm or about 5/16 inches. That’s essentially 3 stitches per inch. That’s quite a departure from the 10 stitches per inch I’ve been doing everywhere else. I set the sleeves aside and started working on the collar. I was incredibly lucky to have a scrap that was big enough. I cut the length down by only an inch and a half and the width of the scrap at the narrow end was exactly the 7.5 inches I needed it to be.

I’m not looking forward to all the rolled hems I have to do still on the collar and the back of the sleeves. This is quickly becoming my least favorite stitch.

Blogging & Sewing

Sometimes I write a good portion of my blog the day before. Sometimes I’m scrambling at 11pm trying to get anything posted. Most of the time, I work on it throughout the day, adding little bits as I go, using it as a guide for what I intend to accomplish.

Today I need to carefully think through the next steps so I am less likely to make a mistake. I’m about to recut the sleeves and collar, and I’m nervous. Here’s the process I’m trying to follow…

I’m going to work on the sleeves today, hopefully finishing them, though likely not attaching them.

First I sorted the remaining fabric. I have the two sections for sleeves set aside, the scraps that are going to be the sleeve extensions on the table, and the scrap that becomes the collar folded neatly on a chair.

Next I’m going to iron the sleeve extension pieces and square them up. Then the sleeve pieces will be ironed, marked and cut.

Once all four pieces are prepped, I’ll pin things together and stitch the extensions on then finish the bottom seams.

I’ll need to add sources to my documentation for doing this. I think there’s an example of extended sleeves on a men’s hitatare in the main book I’m using, the Jidai isho no nuikata.

And I think I’ve come up with a middle ground for Crowns A&S, but I’m going to run it by a Laurel or two before I commit. I’m thinking of entering just the hitoe. It’s not what I wanted to do, but it’s what I can feasibly do. I still really want to do the whole thing.

Struggling with a choice / to do the easier thing / or test my limits. Will the pressure reveal a / diamond or a missed deadline?

And I have confirmation from a Laurel in the Ministry of Arts and Sciences (and friend) that I can register the whole thing and switch to just one garment if necessary. That’s a relief. Another friend asked some very thought provoking questions to help me home in on why I want to enter A&S Champs. It comes down to me being almost desperate to share my art and believing A&S Champs is the best way to not only share my art but also get feedback on it. I want to get better, that means I need knowledgeable people to show me additional places for improvement. I actually have a little section of my documentation that talks about the lessons I’ve learned and ways to improve things for the next iteration.

The sleeve extensions are attached.

Poems and Hems

Words and phrases turn / through my head, a tumult of / metaphor and analogy. / Counted out in syllables, / ordered chaos on the page.

My poems usually feel like that, plucked from the ether, phrases turned over and around, substitutions and elongations…

The plan is to eventually be able to compose a poem in less than 5 minutes on any topic I’m given. To test me my partner supplied a very random word. I took a few minutes and came up with this:

Venomous mammal / From an egg your beginning  / And water your life / swimmer of the Southern Isle / Nature’s glowing chimera.

It’s not bad for what it is. I would have much rather preferred a color or object or emotion…but when life gives you a platypus…

I am considering adding my poems to the blog in a different format. I’ve never really liked the slashes for syllable delineation. In period they would just be written in two lines, the first three and then the couplet. My problem lies more in the limitations of my interface with the blog and how little I know about manipulating it. Eventually I’ll find something I like more. Until I take the time to play with format, it will stay as is.

And now, the project progress update:

This little rolled hem is taking a good long while. I can say that I’m more than halfway done with it. It’s actually taking so long to do that I’m seriously considering lengthening the sleeves by adding that strip of fabric just to make them go faster. Because it would be faster (so much faster) to add a half panel width to each sleeve giving me selvage edges than it would to hem them both. I’ll still have to hem the collar either way.

Well, I have the rest of this hem and then the collar during which to consider my dilemma.

Dyeing Again

The other dye showed up this morning. Currently the fabric is in a wash cycle having already had it’s blue-green bath. It looks kind of bright, but I won’t know until it’s dry in another hour or so.

A cold autumn rain / tapping on the window sill / keeping me from sleep / the sky weeps for fallen leaves, / unabashed melancholy

The rain this morning around three launched me out of bed until I wrote that poem. The rain has since given way to snow and wind. And I finally made it Facebook Official, so I’ll say the same here, I intend to keep up daily tanka for at least a year. That also gives me something to share daily after I finish the travelling outfit and before I move on to the hitatare kamishimo (that’s a men’s ensemble).

The okumi overlap panels were finished last night, and today I’ve been working on a lovely rolled hem while attending a few classes at a virtual SCA event.

Moment of truth for the fabric…nope. It’s noticeably different. The first round of dye was done with old dye, and I suppose that is what caused such a difference. There was also about a yard and a half less in this batch. It is a pretty color. It’ll get used for something else.

I have enough scrap fabric to make one sleeve and can turn the piece that was to be the collar into the other sleeve. I’ll use one of the okumi off cuts for the collar. This is the only way to complete the garment. It means I have to hem the sleeves and collar instead of using the selvage edges. Boo. Unless I enlarge the sleeves…it was done. Eh. I think I’ll just keep the miscut sleeves in case I decide in the future to lengthen them. And by lengthen I mean the dimension moving from the shoulder to the wrist horizontally across the arm. Heian ladies were known to exaggerate their sleeves, to the point that some ladies had their sleeves on only one side cut extra large for hanging out of carriage windows. I believe Sei Shonagon of Pillow Book fame lists this as a distasteful thing.

Almost Attached

The okumi or overlap panels for the hitoe or green garment are almost attached.

The rest of the dye I ordered should show up tomorrow. If I work really hard, I may have the okumi attached and hem done before it arrives. At the very least, I’ll have all that finished by the time the fabric is done being dyed. The one good thing about having to dye more fabric is the collar can now be recut so that it is also on a selvage edge.

I’m considering making a doll and using off-cuts to make her clothing. It would be a lovely way to display different outfits…great, now I want to research period dolls. I mean, I did before, but I have the urge to find out now, and there are other things to do… It figures that I’d get a little distracted by toys. Back to sewing!

As sunlight dances / dappled on the window pane / I let out a sigh. / Would that I could capture this / gold drenched beam for stormy days.

Another Primary Source

I’ve been gravitating toward documentation any time I feel down about this project. The research makes me happy…specifically learning things makes me happy.

Very specifically, I’ve been trying to track down a source for a bit of knowledge rattling around in my head. At one point I knew the name of the particular floral lozenge pattern that is seen on the hitoe of the modelled outfit from the Costume Museum. I swear I learned what the pattern was and that all hitoe use that same pattern. I have yet to come across that tidbit again so I can document it properly. Grr.

But I found something else.

I found another late Heian period (second half of 12th century) image of an ichime-gasa! In one of my own books no less. You can see the image here. It’s a section of Lotus Sutra that depicts a street scene, specifically the market in Heian-kyo (now Kyoto). On the far left of the image in the link above, under the calligraphy, is a woman wearing an ichime-gasa with mushi no tareginu. This same fan actually depicts 3 of the hats, only one of which sports curtains. I’m thrilled.

It’s also fascinating that the lady depicted in the center of the image is wearing her robes over her head and wearing geta. The same outfit at the Costume Museum wears zori. A fair number of the people pictured are actually wearing geta. Geta are wooden thong sandals, frequently with 2 ha or teeth protruding from the sole. Zori are thong sandals that are made of some other material, modernly foam or rubber. This is a modern definition that I can not certify as accurate for way back in the Heian period though, so take it as you will. Hats and footwear.

When at once it seems / the darkness overtakes us / and all hope is gone, / revisit the beginning / find yourself in what you lost.

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