Oversized hakama

[LarsCW]

If you have a dryer you could put your hakama in for part of the program. The only risk you have doing this might be that it only shrinks in a certain way.

For example that the width would shrink more then the length or the other way around. So it would be really important to check atleast every 10 to 15 min.

I've done it with my hakama which is #8000 weave and it shrunk to a perfect size so no hemming needed.

[GothMelancolia]

hmmm, i don't have a dryer, but i'm going to experiment on my hakama this weekend. I'll let you all know about the rezults

[Django]

... Methinks my mom washed mine in warm water by accident. I swear it's a few inches shorter than it originally was. ): And I kinda killed the pleats by accident.

So yes, warm water should work?

[LarsCW]

I bought my hakama at ebogu and they come with seamed pleats. The nice thing about that is that you never lose your pleats.

I iron my hakama smooth and after that I iron back the pleats.

I always use cold wash, max 40C on my coton hakama. When you use a warmer program you can't controll the amount of shrink as the washing machine can't be opened in between programs. That way you could lose inches in length or width.

Most of the times a hakama looks wider on females because they tend to have wider hips. Please keep that in mind when trying to shrink it

[GothMelancolia]

The shrinking hakama project

Well I found the time and energy to try the methods you guys thought me so here are the results:

The procedure

Kendo noob arms herself with a bottle of vinegar and some kitchen salt and lots of patience.

Measure the hakama (for scientific purposes of course)

Take the hakama you season it with salt and vinegar (my poor noose has seen better days) and you live it inside the bath tube for about 30 minutes in cold water.

After 30 minutes you take the hakama and (be careful not to make yourself too blue) put it inside the washing machine.

Set the washing machine to a short program with hot water and some detergent (in order to get rid of the vinegar smell)

Wait and watch from time to time at the water your washing machine gets out (hm it’s ok… there’s a lot of that indigo dye)

Take out the hakama (and have palpitations why you’re at it for fear of loosing the pleats and the dye).
Set your pulse right and notice that the pleats are ok and the hakama it’s still indigo-blue (siuffff)
Put the hakama to dry taking extra care for the pleats (it was last night so there’s no danger of letting it on direct sunlight). Here I used some of the stuff you guys suggested like clothes peg (I think it’s the right expression-the things we use for hanging our clothes to dry) to get the pleats fixed in its place

Measure the hakama after it’s dry


The results

Well after all this I learned some valuable lessons

1. cotton hakama can be washed inside a washing machine without loosing the pleats (as long you’re extra-careful with the pleats and the drying process)
2. vinegar smell disappears if you machine wash the hakama afterwards ( it rather smelled nice this morning)
3. indigo dye it’s not so sensitive
4. indigo dye stains everything starting with the bathtub, your skin …
5. I have to buy some salt when returning home
6. all ends well when you finish with a little shrinking session for yourself (a nice, hot bath)

And finally ….
My hakama did shrink with about 2 cm

[Fonsz]

I hate to say this but ......................I told you so!!!
Has it shrunk enough to a better fit?

[GothMelancolia]

I hate to say this but ......................I told you so!!!
Has it shrunk enough to a better fit?

NO way you're enjoying this,
Nop it's still a ball dress

[Fonsz]

Give it another go. My first cotton hakama was the right size but too long. After a few times machine washing it didn't shrink anymore and it was the right length. I can't recall about the width though. I trust that it's still deep blue and hasn't faded?

[GothMelancolia]

Well it's still blue I don't see any fading, I'll give it another try, and next thing is the scissors or I’m goint to buy a new one (the proper length this time)

[MikeW]

An alternative to using a dryer is after it has been washed again but is still wet use a hair dryer on it on a fairly warm setting. You can selectively dry the 'pants' portion that covers the legs but not the waist portion so the waist won't shrink too much. Cotton shrinks more during warm drying than during warm washing. It will take a bit of time however to dry it this way.

[b8amack]

You could try ironing while it's wet... That's gotta shrink it!

[1prettygirl]

...next thing is the scissors or I’m goint to buy a new one (the proper length this time)

Instead of cutting the material why don't you try to fold them up and stitch them? That's what I did and mine look mighty fine. To me that is

[Neil Gendzwill]

You can get a tailor to hem them for much cheaper than buying a new one.

[LarsCW]

Give it another go. My first cotton hakama was the right size but too long. After a few times machine washing it didn't shrink anymore and it was the right length. I can't recall about the width though. I trust that it's still deep blue and hasn't faded?

I had the same problem then I put my hakama in the dryer for short periods at the time. As the program was running just stop and check the length and it's a perfect way to shorten without having to hem it.

If it doesn't get shorter then make sure it's not shrinking in the width.

[GothMelancolia]

Considering that everyone around here keeps encouraging me, I’m not going to give up the fight. After all it’s just a fighting skirt it’s not going to defeat meeee.

An alternative to using a dryer is after it has been washed again but is still wet use a hair dryer on it on a fairly warm setting. You can selectively dry the 'pants' portion that covers the legs but not the waist portion so the waist won't shrink too much. Cotton shrinks more during warm drying than during warm washing. It will take a bit of time however to dry it this way.

About this method, well I don’t think I have enough patience to try it.

Instead of cutting the material why don't you try to fold them up and stitch them? That's what I did and mine look mighty fine. To me that is

Well, at first I did that (you should have seen the tailor’s face when I shown it to her) but it was to much material involved and it was quite heavy, now I think it would work better since I’ve lost in length some centimeters). Plus it was quite funny looking, very stiff. Lots of stiffness was lost during the treatment I applied.

Actually I noticed that the shrinking was both in length and in width (witch is a god thing because it was really large). Funny thou, right now I have the slight impression that some of the pleats are longer then the others, guess the shrinking didn’t go the same for all the material.

I haven’t ironned it yet, I just applied the shrinking method again and left the thing to dry during daylight (away from direct sunlight but still at high temp).

You can get a tailor to hem them for much cheaper than buying a new one.

I noticed that , well for now I’m not giving up until this gets wearable, buying a new one it’s not an option. (On the other hand don’t this guys know it’s an economic crisis out there-gosh).

In conclusions, I applied the same treatment again, I think this time it shrinked less but still it did.
This time I can notice some fading in the material so I’m going to stop for now. Next it’s ironing and a short visit to the tailor.

On a more positive side I can see my toes from underneath it now.

Thank you all for helping me in this experiment. I’ve got very good advice here and I’m going to follow it, and most of all I’m not going to give up

(ok you Fighting Skirt the war is on… you might have won a battle but you didn’t win the war )