How to Sew a Kimono Dress | Easy DIY Sewing Tutorial for Beginners

I'm going to make this kimono dress using this sewing pattern. Look at those incredible sleeves. You can get the pattern, it's in the description. Come and sew along with me and let's make an incredible dress that goes with anything. I'm making this a far longer version with longer sleeves to really get that evening wear look from this very simple pattern. First of all, let's have a look at the fabric. This incredibly fluid rayon polyester crepe. So, have a look up close. You see it's got that sort of just light sheen of a polyester or a rayon, but also, there you go, you can see it there. It's that matte finish, oh that's lovely, of the crepe. And it drapes so beautifully. It is 150 centimetres wide, which is 60 inches, and I have 3 metres, 3.2 yards of this. So, this is going to make an ankle length dress. It's going to look incredible with that fluidity. You're really going to get the drape of it and the folds in the skirt especially. It's a sort of an olive green, I think, can you, yeah, it's showing up, it's olive-y. It looks actually a bit brown on the camera, but it's actually quite green, and I bought a wool blend to make a coat to go over it, and you'll see that in the next video. I'm going to iron this and then I'll get to cutting. This is where the simplicity of this sewing pattern comes into play, and I made it like this for its simplicity. It's so much fun to sew, so if you've got some fabric, you can make an ankle length dress, you can make a top out of this exact pattern. It's just about the length that you cut. In the pattern, I've noted a sleeve length, which is about 30 centimetres, so around 12 inches from here to here, and that's about that wide, as it is on my yukata right now. I kept it at 30 centimetres so we could go up in sizes and accommodate as many sizes as possible, but if you have the extra space in your fabric, you can make something with some really gorgeous long sleeves, so this is going to be this wide. The sleeves are going to come out to here on this garment. I'm literally using the whole piece. I'm going to cut my T-section from this, and it is as simple as you find your halfway point down the selvedges like that, so you fold it in half one way, and then you literally fold it in half the other way, so you end up with it in four quarters like that, and we come into this point down here, where all the folds emanate from. I've got my selvedges down here, I've got all the raw edges down there, and here is where we cut our neckline, so there is my fabric folded into its quarters, just get that flat, and I'm going to keep it a little bit bunched up down here to keep everything in position at the top. What we focus on first is this corner down here, where all your folds emanate from, and you can see your selvedges over here, so this is the top and the middle of your fabric, the very middle of it. What we do is we come down the back, so remember over here is the selvedges, so I'm going down the longest fold by two inches, or five centimetres, and mark that off there like that, two inches, five centimetres, and then I go across this way, so again across to the selvedge over here, and I come across twelve point five centimetres, which is five inches, two inches this way, five inches that way, five centimetres this way, twelve point five centimetres that way, and what you want to do is create a curve up here, so you can box this out, you can actually draw across and create lines, so you can see there is a box there, what you want to do is get a curve, so I've got this side of a, just any kind of circular thing, you can use that, you could use a saucer from a cup, you want a line, one side up with the measurement along the shoulders, and one side with the measurement going down the back, and all you're doing is using that to give yourself a curve in your neckline, get out your scissors and cut, once you've done that, come in and cut your centre back and centre front, got a little clip there to know where the centre is, now that my neckline has been cut out, I now move across to this side with the selvedge running along it, and I'm going to use the whole piece, I'm making a medium sized garment, and in the pattern the medium size comes out to about here, I'm going to extend it just a little bit more to just get slightly longer sleeves, and that just makes a bigger better garment all the time, so I'm having a look at the size chart, and because I'm resizing it, I actually look at, I'm looking at the section that tells you what to do if you've got fabric that's 43 inches wide, instead of the fabric I have, because what that does is tell you how wide your body piece needs to be, the body piece needs to be 28 inches, so because there's a fold here, the body piece is now 14 inches either side, which makes 28 inches, and that is about 35 centimetres, round about there, that will make a really great medium sized garment, this is going to fit a US size 6 to 10, and this will fit a UK size 10 to 14, now what I need to do is find the sleeve, so the sleeve is going to come in like this, and we're basically making a t-shaped dress, so I measured down the selvedge up here, and this comes down 50 centimetres, or 20 inches from the top, and that's going to have a really beautiful wide sleeve, swings around and it has that kimono look to it, that's for sure, and what I need to do is square this off with this point, so I come down by 50 centimetres, or 20 inches, like this, mark that point, make sure that that is squared off, and that is nice and exact with the other side, so this is 35 centimetres, or 14 inches, so it's a little bit of a longer sleeve than it says in the pattern, but any extra length you can get on your sleeve, you should take it, because it just makes it better, it really does, that is the length of sleeve, and this is the width of my body, out to there, what I now need to do is create this T, and I'll continue to mark 14 inches, or 35 centimetres, from the selvedge, all the way down, so I can make a nice big cut along there, square that off, now we cut up and across, we now have a lovely T-shaped piece of fabric that we're going to make into this dress, and you'll have some beautiful long rectangular pieces just like this, and from these we're going to make the belt, the sash that then cinches the whole garment together and makes it look incredible, so you can do this any way you want, you can make, you can take three, four of these, you can fold them just in half, and turn them into really wide sashes, you can take just a few centimetres, like half an inch of it, and turn it into tiny little rulers, you could cut a whole bunch of them, sew them up, and then plait them to make a plaited rope, or you can use something altogether different, you could use a golden chain, anything, this is up to you, you've got a lot of fabric to play with, to do it with as well, so that's really exciting, I'm going to make some rather slim ropes, so instead of just dividing, in the pattern we talk about just dividing this into three, from this we're also going to take our belt loops, so we're going to put little belt loops at the side seam, so these can pass through, and in the pattern what we do, I'll take this away, is you divide this into three sections, one, two, three, and then you take your belt loops from the top of the middle one, so the middle piece is a little bit shorter, but there's three of them, so it all looks quite symmetrical, once you put it together, I'm going to make smaller sashes on here, so I'll be able to take my belt loops from anywhere I want, and I'll have a whole lot of fabric left over, to do whatever I want with, recut, so there's the cutting done, lovely big t-shaped garment, with a nice neck hole, and some spaghetti to sew, and we're going to do that now, I always do this part first, and you're going to need this as you're sewing the rest of it, so let's get the small pieces done, starting with our belt loops, best hack for turning loops, I like to use a chopstick, so this is just from any takeaway, and I have a loop turner, but I always find this works better, this is a real personal preference with your sash, and there's so much you can do with it, the fact that it isn't attached to the garment, means that there is even more scope, because obviously you can use any belt or sash to tie this, so have fun with it, I'm going to do something quite sort of slim, and more like a tie, than something big and flat like a sash, I've done with this pattern with other fabric, you can do contrasts, a satin against this crepe, would look incredible, so have a think about what you want to do, and also if you can find some passer mangerie, so some rope or cording, in the same colour as your dress, that will look incredible, then you can do like little gold rope ends and all that kind of stuff, my belt loops are done, and so is my cord, which I'm using instead of a sash, so you see it's a really lovely long cord, so they're done, now I'm going to start focusing on the actual garment itself, first thing I want to do is double turn the neckline, so I'm taking it, I'm turning it once, and I'll sew that down, and then I'll turn it again, and sew that down, and you might need to clip in when you get to around the corners and stuff, where the curve gets quite sharp, but what I always try and do is go around twice, so I do a line of stitching for the very first turn of just a quarter inch, so half a centimetre, and then I turn again, and that's holding it down, and you'll find it turns back, if you want of course you can bind this, that's a great way to deal with this, and you can face it by just making a facing piece, which will also hold back this raw edge, but it is quite simple, throw it on the machine, and just go around it twice, so I'm going to do that, it is really quick, so once you've done all these little minutiae, it just goes and you're done, let's get going, there you go, I've marked in the centre back, so I had a little clip, which you can see just there, but I've also marked it with chalk, the reason I want that is because they are the same either side, and if I start and finish both of these seams here, it means I know where the back of the garment is, because there's nothing else that can tell you which is the back and front of this garment, you don't desperately need to know, but it does help to to know, and it is just turning it back by five mil, quarter of an inch, sewing that down nice and slowly, going slowly around here, and you can even clip into this part to help that turn back, I think I'll be alright with this, because this is a polyester rayon fabric, so it's got a little bit of give to it, but we'll see how we go, because of that give of course, I need to be careful and just take my time, because I don't want to stretch this and get a cowled neck, so I'm just going nice and slow around this curve, all nice, sewn twice, and now we press again, and there you can just see here, and of course you could put a little tag or something if you really want, but I've got my stitching starts and finishes for each seam here, and that way I know that that's the back, that helps me as I'm putting the the dress together, and if you want you can put your own little thing in there, maybe maybe sew a little tag or something in, if you want to know what's back and front, but to be honest, unless you're putting pockets in, it doesn't really matter, because the pockets will face forward obviously, but even then they can go either way, so it's a very simple dress, this is why I love it so much, marking your belt loop in, we've got the sleeves going that way, and the body going this way, come down four inches, which is 10 centimetres, we mark on the right side of the garment, so this is the outside, and we pin so our belt loop goes outside, starting at that mark, and coming down and out again, so we start from that four inch mark there, and the belt loop carries on for however long you want the belt loop to go for, with the tails in your seam allowance, and the loop out of it, now bring your right sides together, just like that, and we sew from our hem up, at this point you cross over your belt loop, and you just make sure everything's sitting right, that when you're coming across with your seam allowance, that the belt loop still comes outside enough, that it will actually function as a belt loop, then when you get to here, the junction of your sleeve and body, we literally perform a right turn, and then carry on all the way to the edge of the sleeve, that's how simple it is, so that's one lovely seam up there, now because this is a technical kimono sleeve, literally means that it doesn't have a seam that joins with the body, so it is inset, it's not set in, that is the technical term, and this is what is called a kimono sleeve in fashion, so it's just a sleeve that doesn't have a seam to the body, what you have to do on a right angle like this, on a kimono sleeve, is clip in just to your stitching, and what that then does is allows this to move, and releases a knot from here, that would happen if you didn't release this, so that's what you do with this area, and then I'll just come back and overcast that area again once I've pressed it, to keep it secure, so it's like this, and now it fully opens, and articulates without causing stress into the underarm, that's what that's for, then we're turning up the hems, so one centimetre, and four centimetres, or half an inch, and one and three quarters of an inch, this is a point where you can really make decisions about the length of your hems and cuffs, the depth of your hems and cuffs, the narrower you make them, the longer the sleeves and the dress, and the deeper you make them, the shorter, so that's a personal preference, all up to you, and there you have it, what a beautiful dress, see these sleeves as well, it's incredible, liquid quality to that rayon and polyester crepe, it is a stunning dress, so you can see, can you see, it is that long, so it comes down to the ankles, I'm five foot eleven, and it comes to about the mid calf, so for the average height of a woman, which this is, it comes down to the ankles, it's ankle skimming, and that is because I use three metres or 3.2 yards of fabric, and the other difference I made on this, is this rope tie, it's far more like a rope than a sash, but it really does add to it, especially in this olive green, makes it much more about style and less about loungewear, and it's a great way to do it, but imagine this with a gold chain around it or something like that, that is where you can really take this garment and make it into anything you want, because with little accessories like that, I think this is fantastic, look at that, really simple, really simple to wear as well, you literally throw it over and then hike up the waist to get this, and then you just arrange your sort of, your pleats, the gathers here, I think it looks good with an asymmetrical, so they all come down from here, and you have the strings of your tie coming out as well, and then that blouson front, which is created by bringing everything up, is just incredible, I think it looks fantastic, and I think it would be quite comfortable as well, so there you go, the kimono dress, made in under an hour easily, and looks absolutely stunning, you can style it up to make it totally, completely chic as well, so there you go, I hope this has inspired you to use this pattern, and to tweak the pattern as well, once you've got it, and once maybe you've tried one, you can really start to play along with it also looks really good as a top, and of course playing around with the accessory, that sash can really change this entire garment, the pattern for this dress is in the description, you can get the pattern, and sew along with me using this video as your guide, that's what this video was made for, to be a companion with the sewing pattern, I hope you've enjoyed this, and I hope you make something beautiful for yourself, I'm kimono alex, this is house of kimono, follow me for everything about kimono.