着物 / Kimono – Japanese traditional clothes
実家には母が結婚したときに作った着物が数枚ありますが、本人曰く、結婚以来一度も着ておらず、何枚かは洋服や鞄にリメイクしたし今後も着る予定はないとのことで、もったいないなと思いました。
here are several kimonos which were made when my mother got married, and she says she has never worn them since her marriage, some of them have been remade into clothes and bags (done by her as she was a tailor ), and she won’t wear them in the future, too.
These are made of silk and now it’s expensive to make new one, so I thought if I can somehow wear them.
母は私より背が10cmほど低く細身なのでサイズが合いませんが、調べてみると、着物というのは一反の布（幅が約36-38cm、長さが12m程度）から作られていて、各パーツは全て四角形なので、ほどいて繋ぎ合わせると元の布に戻り、サイズを変えることができるようでした。
これはいいなと思って早速お直しのお値段を調べてみましたが、やっぱり高い… 背丈、裄丈（腕の長さ）、身幅などをお直しすると10万円くらいかかるようです。
子供の頃、実家の近所に和裁が得意なおばあさん（おばあさんの年代では和裁は女学校の必修科目だったようです）が住んでおり、私にも着物を作ってくれたりしたので、まだお元気ならお直しをお願いできたのですが、もう100歳とのことで、さすがに無理です。
これはもう自分でできるようになるしかない！と思い、和裁教室の体験レッスンに行ってみました。
The size doesn’t fit me as my mother is about 10cm shorter and slender than me, but I found that the kimono is made from a piece of cloth (width about 36-38cm, length about 12m) and is not cut that much, rather being adjusted when sewing. Also, each kimono part is square, so if we untie and join each part, it will return to the original cloth and we can change the size.
I thought this was good and immediately checked the price of the repair. As assumed, it was expensive… It costs about 1,000 USD to adjust the height, sleeve length, width of the body, etc.
When I was a kid, an old lady who was good at Japanese sewing lived in the neighborhood of my parents’ house (Japanese sewing was a compulsory subject for girls’ schools of her generation). Sometimes she made kimono even for me.
If she was still fine, I could have asked her to repair them, but I heard that she is already 100 years old now and seems to be impossible.
Now that what I should do is repairing the kimonos by myself. I decided to have a trial lesson in the Japanese sewing class.
和裁というのは、ミシンを使わず、全て手で縫うようです。（生地が絹なので）
中指の第二関節に指ぬきをはめ、親指と人差し指で針の先端を持ち、針のお尻は指ぬきにあてて縫い進むようで、簡単そうに見えてすごく難しい！
In Japanese sewing, it is done by hand without using a sewing machine. (Because the fabric is silk and a stich by a machine is too strong.)
Put a thimble on the second joint of the middle finger, hold the tip of the needle with our thumb and index finger, and the butt of the needle is set against the thimble. This looks easy but actually very difficult!
先生が縫った見本（一番上の緑の線）と私が縫ったもの（その下の緑や赤の線）の美しさがはるかに違います。
これができないと何も縫えないので、練習あるのみ！で夜な夜な練習することにしました。
The beauty of the sample sewn by the teacher (the green line at the top) and the ones I sewn (the green and red lines below) are much different.
I won’t be able to sew anything without mastering this skill. What I should do is just practice! I will do this every night.
