Not OK Kimono!

Okay, we can all have a little think about What was I thinking? now.   Here's what's up: I did translate most of the kimono pattern into English; at least I did enough so I could use it to make myself another yukata.  And I could have used the measurements in the pattern (it's in centimeters), but for some dumb reason I decided to use the old measurements for my hapi coat.  Which was big & boxy.  I realize that the kimono would have been boxy, too, but narrow boxes, not wide boxes.  Why did I do that?  Now I have a voluminous housecoat that doesn't really look good when I wrap a belt around it.  It looks so bad, in fact, that NO!  You cannot see a picture!

I am however quite pleased with my fabric choices, so I'll post a picture of it so far so you can admire that:

Bella is always eager to assist me! 

I decided I need darts (not exactly a Nobel prize winning decision, I realize), and googled sewing darts and one of the first pages I found was Saraicat's! She did a guest post at Sew Mama Sew about darts, so I'm going to use her information & see if I can add some shape to this box.  I was pleased because I follow her tweets fairly closely (and get hunger pangs at the food-related tweets).

I am also glad that I have the Roommate's yukata to look at; the Japanese pattern book I'm using doesn't have instructions (and I probably couldn't translate them if it did), so I have referred to it many times so far.  The biggest deal is how the sleeves connect to the sides under the arms.  Nothing like what we do in the west for most armholes.  I'll show some photos once I get that figured out...