Everything in this doll, other than the faux fur, is some sort of natural material. The stuffing is natural wadding, the fabric is all cotton, the threads and embroidery floss was all cotton, and the bindings for the hair are all cotton. While silk would have been more Period, cotton was available in the 1550’s, if extremely expensive. As my persona is that of a daughter of a high-ranking samurai that had recently done very well for himself in several major battles, it is not out of the real of possibility that my persona would have had access to enough cotton material to be able to dress a doll in the same fabrics she herself was dressed in.

Books:

• Lisa Dalby’s Kimono

  • This book helped give me an idea on how historical kosode were created, and had several construction diagrams.

• Alan Scott Pate’s Ningyo: The Art of the Japanese Doll

  • This book broke down how various Japanese dolls were made, the processes for them, and how they were dressed. It also discussed the various different cultural usages for the various doll types.

• Murasaki Shikibu’s Tales of Genji

  • This novel references how dolls were treated by children in the Heian period, and how they were dressed.

• John T. Carpenter’s Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama

  • This book discusses the Momoyama Era in Japan, roughly 1550-1603. It covers pottery, paintings, clothing, and other crafts produced during this period, as well as discussing why this era was considered Japan’s second Golden Age. It was used for choosing fabrics.

• Ishihara Tetsuo’s Nihongami no Sekai Kamigata/Kamigazari (The World of Traditional Hairstyles and Hair Ornaments)

  • This book covers primarily Edo period hairstyles, but also has several Period depictions of hairstyles It was used to guide both the shape of the hairline and the subsequent styling of the hair.

• Melanie Bouvet’s A Practical Guide to Wig Making and Wig Dressing

  • This book was used to learn about wig making, how knots can be tied, and how the hair should be laid in order to make it look as realistic as possible.

Websites

• Wodeford Hall

  • This website discusses how many different Japanese garments are made, as well as a discussion of the various differences between garments from different time periods.

• https://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/japanese-dolls/hina/

  • This website details the history of the Japanese Hina dolls, explaining the various different types and items required. It also talks about the early history of the Hina dolls, referencing the Tale of Genji.

• https://www.iz2.or.jp/english/

  • This website has hundreds of photographs of Japanese outfit reconstructions, separated out by time period. Each photograph has a line drawing of the items used, and an explanation of what kind of person/outfit is being recreated.

• https://sengokudaimyo.com/

  • This website covers many aspect of Japanese garment reconstruction, as it discusses both male and female garb, as well as accessories and armor. It was used for this project to find appropriate colors and layer organizations for the robes.

Once I had the pattern printed out, I traced it onto some spare muslin I had lying around that happened to be the right color. Traditionally, Hina dolls would have been carved from wood and then painted white with gofun, a paint made from ground up oyster shells, so that they would be the correct pale color that was aesthetically pleasing for people of the nobility to wear. However, this muslin was pale enough that I didn’t need to do that, and I knew it wouldn’t hold up on a doll meant to be used. I cut out all be the face pieces, so that I could start sewing them together.

For the front face pieces, I traced them on to the muslin and then left them large, so that I would have enough fabric to tension to embroider the eyes on. I tracked down a pattern for the eyes that I liked, and then traced that on to the face pieces as well. Once I had the pattern traced, I used a variation of the satin/brick stitch to lay in the color for the eyes. Because I wanted them to be more than just basic single-color eyes, I used the threadpainting technique to lay in layers of different greens, so that the eyes would look more realistic and pretty. Once I had the eyes embroidered, I cut out the face pieces and started sewing.

In order to construct the doll, I used a running backstitch, a very old stitch and one of the strongest ways I know to sew two pieces of fabric together. After several days of finagling and piecing everything together, including adding in a zipper for ease of stuffing and cleaning later on, I then sewed the two front pieces of the face to the forehead, so that I could embroider the eyebrows on. I had tried to sew them on beforehand, but the placement ended up needing to be over the forehead seams, so I had to fight the curves of the fabric in order to trace and embroider them as well.

Once the eyebrows were embroidered on and the head finished, I sewed it onto the body. Unfortunately, I realized that the eyes were too fat apart, and the expression looked odd. I unstuffed the head, ripped out the seams from the eyebrow embroidery to the nose, and cut that piece smaller. Once that was sewn back together, the doll was ready for her extra appendages.

I had a piece of lovely faux wolf fur laying around in my scrap pile, but as it was a pale grey color and I wanted black, I attempted to dye it. That didn’t work out too well, as while the fabric backing went black, the fur itself went purple. As a replacement, I ordered a faux fur rug. Had I the spare money, or were this project being done in Period, real fur would have been used instead for this part.

I used the faux wolf fur I had for the very tip of the tail, and used the black faux fur for the ears and tail. I used a whipstitch to bind the seams of the tail, as I have found from experience that it works best for furs, as it keeps the edges from pulling or getting damaged, and keeps the amount of hair locked into the stitches at a minimum. I then attached it to the body with a curved needle and whipstitches to sew it over what would have been the spine and buttocks of the doll, hanging down low enough to act as a third point of support when standing.

For the ears, I left the backing exposed, as it was the closest I could come to the velour of a real ear without using real fur. I used a curved needle and whipstitches again to attach the ear to the head, folding the edges down to help give the ears some structural support.

Once all of the extras were sewn down, it was time for the hair. I had decided early on that I wanted to make this doll look as realistic as I could, so I wanted to use as close to a hair analog as I could, and after scouring my local craft stores, I settled on black cotton button thread.

Once I had figured out what I was going to use, I needed to determine the hairline I was going to follow. Using the images in both the Hairstyle and Wig Making books, I decided on a significant widow’s peak in the front, and a mildly curved hairline at the nape. I used a pencil to trace those parts, as well as gentle curves for where human ears would have gone if the doll had had any.

To measure out the hair, I used the longest knitting loom I had as a jig, roughly forty-four inches in circumference, and wrapped the button thread around it to create the individual strands. I folded each of these strands in half, and using a curved needle, sewed it in a loop stitch onto the head of the doll according the way that I wanted the hair to lay. For the hair that would make the bangs, I took chunks of the standard-length strands and cut them into quarters, using the same stitch to tie them to the fabric of the scalp.

As I laid the hair, I made sure to keep the tensions and directions even, gently altering direction as I worked my way around the head of the doll. I spent a significant amount of time laying the hair around the ears, as that area had several complex directions changes due to the structure of them and the shape of the head. I also made sure that the hair would pull back the way it needed to, and would have enough strands to completely cover the scalp when styled at the end.

Once all of the hair had ben laid, I brushed it out and trimmed it so that would lay evenly before styling. This would help it look better once it was in the correct style, and helped even out all of the various strand lengths from the sewing process.

To decide the final hairstyle, I reviewed the appropriate styles in the Hairstyles book, and settled on a low ponytail pulled back from the scalp, as well as the majority of the bangs pulled back and tied into the hair contained by the ponytail, as per the historical reference. I left about a third of the bangs to either side of the skull to help hide the fact that this doll did not have human ears. This hair could also have been pulled up around the ears from the bottom and then tucked into the ponytail, but I chose to leave them loose.

For the clothing, I wanted to create a replica of the garb that I usually wear at events, as that would have been something that a doll of this type would have been dressed in. Therefore, I needed to make sure that the fabrics I used were of the right type. Luckily, I had a bunch of scraps from when I built my current wardrobe, and was able to use those for the doll. During Japan’s Momoyama Period, artisans had discovered how to use lacquer and glues to add metal leaf to fabric and other mediums. In addition, they had discovered how to create metal thread that was flexible and strong enough to be sewn down onto fabric, so garments from this era are often depicted as covered in gold and silver. This historical usage means that I can use fabric that has had metallic paint added or printed on, as it is a cost-effective and very similar effect as what fabric from the period would have had.

For the robes, I first close what fabric colors and patterns I wanted to use, and laid them out in a colorway according to the records that survive still, many of which were from the Heian Period. Once I had those fabrics decided, I measured the doll to figure out the pieces I would need to cut. As the dolls’ wingspan was roughly eleven inches, I calculated that I would need a panel width of three and a half inches. As the doll is roughly eight inches tall from the nape of the neck to the floor, I made each panel eight inches long. I cut four panels at those sizes, to create the front left and right, and the back left and right panels. I then cut four more panels at four inches long by three and a half wide for the sleeves. Next, I cut two panels at half width and six and a half inches long for the fold-over sections. Lastly, I cut a long piece of fabric for the collar, half width and about twice as long as one body panel. Specific formulas to calculate exact numbers can be found at Wodeford Hall. I cut all of these pieces for each robe set I made. All pieces were sewn face to face and with a quarter-inch seam allowance unless otherwise noted.

Once I had all of my pieces cut, I drew a small curve on the corner of each of the sleeve pieces, so that I could curve them later on. I also measured and cut out the curve of the neckline on the back two body panels, so that I could sew just to the edge of it when I went to put the pieces together. After cutting that and the sleeve curve, I first sewed the left back and front, then the right front and back body panels together at the shoulder seam, using a quarter inch running seam. I used this stitch for all of the seams, because according to the many different vintage Japanese garments I’ve taken apart, that is typically the stitch used to construct clothing when done by hand.

After both body panels were sewn together, I sewed the left front and back, and right front and back sleeve panels together at the shoulder seam. I then folded the sleeves together to find the middle line that would be parallel with the dolls’ waist, then folded it again to find the upper quarter point. I marked those with pencil, and sewed the sleeve to the body panels from one marked point to the other, centered on the shoulder seam. Once the right and left sleeves were attached to the left and right body panels, I sewed the fold over panels to the front left and front right body panels, the panels that did not have the neckline cut out from them.

After those were sewn on, I then measured the distance from the nape of the dolls’ neck to the top of the tail, then marked that distance from the top of the neckline on the back panels of the left and right sides of the robe. I then sewed the back halves of the garment together, from the neckline to the marked point.

After that seam was finished and tied off, I laid the garment out flat and marked a straight line from the neckline shoulder seam to the body panel and fold-over panel uppermost point and then continuing on to the farthest edge of the fold-over panel. Once both sides of the garment had that mark, I cut those extra triangles of fabric off, creating the line to sew the collar on.

To sew the collar on, I found the centerline of the collar panel, and aligned that with the center back seam on the garment. Working from the center seam to the edge, I used a very small running stitch to sew the collar on flat. Once I got to the edge of the fold-over panel, I folded that edge over to create my tidy edge seam, then locked that fold over with the collar seam. I then repeated the process on the other side.

After the first collar seam was finished, I folded the collar panel in thirds, hiding the edge of the panel at the top of the fold. I cut off any extra fabric I had at the edge of the collar, leaving enough to fold inside the collar when finishing it. To lock this in place, I used a blind stitch to use the first seam to hold the second seam in place, switching to a ladder stitch to close up the ends of the collar. I have seen this blind stitch used numerous times to hold the collar to the body of vintage Japanese garments, and can only assume that it both reduces the number of punctures to the fabric, but also creates a beautiful and hidden seam.

Once the collar was attached, I tackled the sleeve and side seams. As the dolls’ hands were roughly two inches in circumference, I marked out two and a half inches down from the top of the shoulder seam on both the body panels and the left and right sides of each sleeve, so that that hands would be able to get through every opening. I then sewed all of the remaining seams closed, up to that mark.

Now that the construction seams were complete, I lightly folded and pressed all of the edges down to mark them, and used an eighth-inch running seam to sew down all of the hems. Once those were done, I pressed each of the seams flat, and then laid them all out so I could create the obi.

During the Momoyama Period, narrow obi were still being used, as they were considered a simple way to keep clothing tied closed for women. As such, a simple belt would work for this doll. Following the color scheme that I had picked, I chose a black fabric with a simple golden geometric design on it, tying it back to both the color and metallic accents in the robes, while the geometric design contrasted nicely with the floral and fan pattern displayed on the outer robe.

To create this belt, I tested out strips of fabric in varying widths against the size of the doll, eventually settling on one that was roughly three-quarters of an inch wide. I doubled that and then added seam allowance, ending with a fabric width of two inches. I cut enough panels in that width to go around the doll almost four times, and then sewed each of the short edges together to get a very long and narrow strip. I then sewed one of the short edges and the long edge together, leaving the other short edge unsewn so it could be used to turn the tube. After turning the obi, I closed up the seam, and pressed the obi.

Once all of the robes and the obi were finished, I started dressing the doll. As I did not have time to create the traditional undergarments for the doll, such as the white juban and red hakama, I omitted them. I laid out all of the robes, starting from the outermost robe. I nested the next layer within that outer robe, tucking the sleeves inside the outer layer and adjusting the collar as needed. I did this with each layer until I had no more to set, then laid the doll on the robes. I pulled each arm through, making sure that the robes sat where they were supposed to, as well as allowing the hands to just slightly peek out from the robes. I then folded each robe closed, left over right, starting from the innermost layer and working out. This left over right folding is very important in Japanese dressing, as unlike in Western culture, only corpses are ever dressed right over left. Once all of the robes were folded and settled, I wrapped the obi around the doll just about the tail, and tied it in a half-bow on the left side, as I tie my own self in my garb.