Japanese with anime voice: episode65
Hello, I’m Sachi.
31 May is 古材 (kozai) day. 古材 (kozai) is written by combining the character 古い (furui) and 材 (zai) from 材料 (zairyou). 古材 (kozai) refers to wood that was originally used for housing. The day was established to commemorate the 31st of May, which can be read as 古材 (kozai).
I don’t have the opportunity to come into contact with wood, so I don’t know the difference between newly quarried wood and old wood, but I think it’s a good idea to reuse it. It’s not old wood, but recently I’ve been seeing a lot of old furniture on social media, like chests of drawers, being repainted and cleaned up, and I think that’s great. It feels like new life has been breathed into them. I think it’s good to change the paintwork and ornaments to make it beautiful, and to rebuild it in such a way that there is as little waste as possible, instead of simply throwing everything away. I’m thinking of doing something like that with kimonos too. I have lots of ideas for remakes, and I can’t wait to give them shape!
Speaking of kimono remakes, I’ve been into hand-sewing for a while now. I was thinking of remaking my yukata into noren (curtains). Noren is a type of cloth with a shop name written on it that hangs down at the entrance of Japanese shops. They are used as sunshades, but they can also be used as blindfolds. When I was unwrapping the yukata, I was surprised at how well made it was. I thought that this means that kimonos are made in a much more laborious way. I was suddenly fascinated by kimonos made by hand, and thought that if I was going to remake kimonos, I had to do it by hand too. Since then, I have been remaking kimonos by hand without using a sewing machine. I’m having a lot of fun doing that. I want to make clothes out of hemp fabric, but I want to hand-sew that too.
Hand sewing is frustrating when the threads get tangled. I used to really hate it, and I used to lose motivation and stop sewing right away, but now, strangely enough, I never lose my motivation. Even if the thread gets tangled, or I get frustrated because it doesn’t go through the needle easily, or it takes a lot of time and effort to sew, I don’t lose my motivation. I used to give up so easily, but I wonder what happened to me. It takes me a long time to finish, but the time I spend sewing, little by little, is very comfortable.
Furthermore, the more time I spent doing so, the more I wanted to make kimonos myself. Even though I have no knowledge of Japanese dressmaking. I really can’t believe that I’ve come to think that way. However, sewing a single kimono is quite a big task for an amateur. So now I’m thinking of starting with a 羽織 (haori). A 羽織 (haori) is something you wear over a kimono, but it has a cute shape. Recently, there are more and more people who wear it over their clothes. If you are interested in kimonos but still need courage to wear one, you could start by enjoying wearing a 羽織 (haori). There are lots of really cute ones. Yes, I think I’d like to try my hand at Japanese dressmaking by starting with making 羽織 (haori).
I have a 羽織 (haori) that was given to me a while ago. I was going to wear it normally, but when I showed it to my mom, she said I should wash it once. I didn’t just wash it, but I untied it and took each part apart before washing it, and then I had to remake it once more. Otherwise, if you wash it as it is, the fabric on the back will shrink and lose its shape. This process is a huge hassle, but I realised that rather than cutting the fabric from scratch myself, it would be better to take the finished piece apart so that I could know the structure. If you know the structure first, it’s easier to understand when you start with a piece of fabric. In my case, though. I think I’m the type of person who wants to know the structure of everything first. It’s easier to get into my head that way.
So I thought I would start by putting the pieces back together, and gradually work my way into Japanese dressmaking. I know that it would definitely take a lot of time and effort for an amateur to do it by myself, but I still want to enjoy the time spent doing the hard manual work. I want to take my time. Anyway, I never thought a year ago today that I would get hooked on hand-sewing and even become interested in Japanese dressmaking. So, how about you? Have you ever become interested in something unexpected from an unexpected place? Please let me know in the comments section!
