Let s Talk about Kimono Sewing Supplies

When you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have made a major purchase for kimono sewing. And I have asked you if you want to see a video about kimono sewing supplies. And surprisingly a lot of you said you want to see that. So here is the promised video. For me kimono sewing is a pure hobby. And I will never ever probably take a certificate in kimono sewing. But I really enjoy it as I enjoy sewing in general. Kimono sewing is still when you do professionally 100% handwork. And they have a lot of different techniques than you would use in western style sewing. But there are similar techniques in western style sewing. I'm probably going to do another video on that if you want to see that. Definitely leave it down below in the comments. Having that said, let me set up my sewing space in my dining room. And then let's talk about the supplies I use for kimono sewing. Let's go. I'm so hoping this is focusing. Yeah, this is my sewing space. Welcome to my sewing space. You can see it is the dining room because I usually want to work where people are. Where my husband is. And the dining room is perfect for that. Okay, let's just start. I think let's start with the small things. This is my sewing supply bag box. Whatever you want to call it. And this is what I usually take to my sewing schools. And this is also what I take with me when I go traveling. Because all my essentials are in here. Let's put this away for a while and go into detail later. Same with this. So. In here. Starting with the threads. I have 100% cotton thread I use for a recent project. My husband's kimono. Then I have a very old silk thread that is breaking very easily. I got from my sewing school for sewing technique practice. Then I got polyester thread in orange. That is what I use when I clean kimono. So you will see this one in the future. And white polyester thread that I usually just use for sewing polyester haneri onto my nagajuban. Then I have several silk threads that I'm recently using for projects. A kimono for me. A kimono for my husband. And white is just something you always need. So white silk thread. And a white basting thread that is also silk. And I talked about kimono basting in one of my previous videos. Basting silk thread is usually thinner than normal silk thread. And it breaks easily. So you can easily pull it out. As I show you in the video. This is a kimono hand sewing thread. Which means it's two ply. Which means it consists of two threads. That were spin together to one thread. And very important is the direction. It's an S direction. Which is very good for hand sewing. Today usually threads are made for machine sewing. That's why they're spin in a Z direction. On the western market two ply S direction thread is very hard to find. Especially 100% silk. And in Japan you can get it in any color you want to. Super cheap. This is my little silk thread collection. You can see I have several colors in here. For projects I might sew in the future. Or just already finished projects are in here. Tailor's chalk. Very important. Then I just totally forgot the name. Pins. Usual pins. I'm not allowed to take this amount of pins out in my sewing school. So I always have in my pin cushion counted 10 pins I'm allowed to take in my sewing school. I have to count them before I go. Or when I arrive. And tell them how many of them I have brought. And also sewing needles by the way. And then before I go home I have to count again. And then tell them that I have all my pins that I have brought in my pin cushion. And will bring them home. This makes sure because it's a retailering school where actual kimonos are going to be sold. Or they are already sold. They're just tailored there. Are made. So it could be that I lose a pin and one kimono picks it up. And then they have a pin in the kimono. And if it's a abase. The worst case it could happen is it ends up inside between lining and the upper fabric. And then you can't actually find it. And this is how it will go to the customer. And the customer would find it. Because it picked him. Or her. And then they would call my school and be very angry. So this is what I have to be very careful about. My pin cushion by the way is very special for me. I made it by myself. I filled it with komenuka. Which is rice skin I would say. And this is what pin cushions were traditionally filled in Japan with. And it's said to be very good for the needles. It keeps them from rust. And it keeps them sharp. So it's said to be very good. And I'm really fond of it. And I'm probably making some more of those. And give it to you as a present. So finally we'll get into the more specific stuff. The thimble. This thimble is more like a thimble ring. And it should sit in the middle of your middle finger. And this is what you use for the kimono sewing technique called unshin. You hold the needle like this. And yes I'm going to make a video for that. And yes please wait a little. I don't know why I haven't made that video yet. Because it should be pretty straight forward and easy. But it's gonna come. I promise. And last but not least. Is this thing. A lot of people already asked me about this on Instagram. When I post some sewing scenes in my Instagram story. And yes this is called kakebari. You put this onto the table. And this little thong here is to actually hold the fabric. And then you can pull while sewing. If you watch a lot of sewing youtubers like I do. Especially like historical sewers. The so called costubers. Like Brenda Banner. She also says it's so much easier to get a very straight stitch when you pull the fabric. And it's true. And I'm already using this technique for years. And this helps a lot. At home I don't use this too often. Just when I want to sew in front of the TV. We put it on our couch table. Usually I use this thing here. I'm gonna talk about that later and how that works. I also have a bunch of sewing needles here. For kimono sewing you use these needles. They are very delicate, very thin and pretty small. It probably will take a while to get used to them. In the Japanese size they are called yon no ni. So when you're going to Japan and you find a sewing supply store. I would recommend yon no ni for you. This is what I'm used working with when I do sewing techniques. Japanese sewing techniques. Next up is my marumi. They come with a three piece set. And they are actually just round corners or tamoto on your kimono. I always carry around that one you use most for casual kimono. And then I also have one of course for furisode and even bigger kimonos. That was my sewing supply box I always bring with me. So that was it. Let's go into little bigger ones. Scissors. These are those really nice traditionally Japanese super expensive ones. I found them in the stores and they cost new usually about 80 dollars or 80 euros. Super expensive, right? I bought this in a second hand kimono store for 10 euro or 10 dollars. You probably might have seen this a few times in my DIYs already. I only use this for nice fabrics by the way. I have a cheaper one for cheap fabrics. Then I have a ruler made of bamboo. And you can see it has two sizes on it. This side, the bigger side, is of the Japanese size that is called kujira shaku. And the whole length of it is ni shaku. So two shaku. A shaku consists of ten sun. Ju sun. And every sun consists of ten bu. My ruler or how my school calls it monosashi has also the centimeter on the other side. I don't use centimeters at all on this. But it's just nice to know that you kind of could tell how much ichibu is. Ichibu, that's what you usually just know, is about 3 mm by the way. This was by the way a present from my first kimono sewing teacher. Probably she got it somewhere else for free. So she gave it to me for free. And they just taped away the name of it. But yeah, I really love this one and it is very traditional and nice to have this. If you want to sew a kimono to the Japanese standard size, then you should definitely have one of these. Next up is... Should we go with this one first or this one first? Okay, let's start with this one first. This one is a so-called heratai. And it consists of paper, which means you can actually pin pins into this. Which is very, very, very convenient. And this is actually how I do pull my fabric when sewing. I just pin it onto here and then I can put it up and sew a straight line. It's just super perfect. This is what I am using at home. This is what my first kimono teacher was using. And I just kept using it because I'm really fond of this. And I love it because it can turn any table into a sewing table, which is just really nice. And you can also use it for western clothes sewing. For example, when you want to mark out patterns, you can just pin the pattern onto the fabric like this. Which is very, very, very convenient. And I think a lot of people know this. Because we also have in the rest of the world, we have those sewing tables you can pin stuff into when you're used to them. They're super convenient, aren't they? And yeah, you can also use them for kimono sewing. Okay, last but not least is my major purchase. A so-called kote. This baby. Oh, it's so hot. Yeah, you actually should get used to that it's going to be pretty hot when you use it. But okay. This is actually just a Japanese styled iron. And yeah, they are actually used to mark out seams and so whatever. And of course, it's also for ironing. Usually when you would mark out things, you would use your monosashi. And then, for example, you want to mark out nibu from the bottom. You can't see really nicely, but I can see it on the back. Yeah, that's how you mark out anything you're going to sew on your kimono. I, by the way, got this used and they're freaking expensive even used. They still cost about from $100 to $200. This one is obviously a little older and it's obviously a little dirty. I couldn't get it any better. It's unfortunately like it is. So it was a little cheaper. I got it for, I think, $90 with the shipping. And yeah, the reason why I actually got it used is because they don't produce them anymore. Because obviously no one is buying them anymore. But they're so essential for kimono making. It's crazy that they're not produced anymore. These kote are, by the way, super, super hot. You can work super hot on silk fabric. I think the silk mode is like the coldest or coolest mode you can use on a normal iron, I think. And that is so wrong. You have to work with the hottest thing you can have for silk. And just don't be afraid to burn it. And because those are so hot, this has to be made of bamboo. Because if this would be plastic, it would just melt away. And you can see that on the hair that that's actually still marked out. That's why you shouldn't actually use this on your usual table. This will just destroy your whole table. Another thing why I use heradai at home. Just love the sound when I put this back in. Yep, that was it for this video. I hope you found it a little interesting. I'm a little bit scared. When you made it until now and you're not subscribed to my channel yet, you should consider subscribing to my channel. And yes, more sewing content is coming. It just really takes a while to sew all the stuff and also film it. And to be honest, I often forget to film when I sew. Which is awful. I'm so sorry. So more traditional sewing videos are definitely coming because I'm always sewing one or two kimono at the same time. And of course, look forward to some easy makes. I always share here on my channel those DIYs you can make easily on your own sewing machine. And thank you so much for watching this probably not so boring, probably hopefully not long video. We will all know after editing. And I talk to you in my next video. Bye!