Kama pattern and instructions

[Larcwide]

Hi all,

As I made my own soft goods for my Shoretrooper build, I thought it would be nice to make the pattern pieces I drafted available to the community to use, along with instructions on how to piece them all together to make something you can wear.

I would class this as a beginner skill level requirement, it is mostly straight stitching. Somebody with no sewing experience should be able to do this without too much trouble.

Before making your kama, I highly, highly recommend you make a muslin first. A muslin is a making the garment using very cheap fabric first. This is for two reasons, one it lets you go through the instructions to make sure you understand them, check how much fabric you need and more importantly, lets you check the sizing and make adjustments as necessary before using your nice fabric.

You can use any cheap fabric, or make sure of old fabric to make your muslin, just so long as you don’t use stretchy material, as the real thing won’t stretch! For example I made mine out of some green fabric I had lying around from a previous project:

Preparation

What you need

The pattern pieces file from here
~2m of black cloth canvas (I used waxed canvas for a preferred look)
Sewing machine
Thread - black
Optonal: Black upholstery thread for top stitching
Velcro
1” nylon webbing
14mm eyelets
Iron
Pins

Getting the pieces ready

The pattern pieces have been created entirely with me in mind. I am tall and skinny, so as-is they will be the wrong proportions for everybody else. To get a good start point for scaling the pattern pieces I recommend using the “Back” piece to measure from the waist of your breeches to the top strap of your shins. Using the front (straight) edge of the back piece, measure this distance and add 4”, then scale around that to start.

Start by washing your fabric, using what it recommends. This will help clear any excess colour off as well as potentially shrinking the fabric slightly (which you don’t want to happen after you cut it or stitch it).

Next cut out all of your pieces. You’ll notice that all of the pieces need two copies of each. The easiest way to get these is to fold your fabric along the selvages (this will be the long edges), then lay your pattern piece on top and cut through the two layers, getting two mirrored copies.

Once you’ve cut the pieces out you will want to iron them (carefully if using waxed canvas!) and then optionally finish the edges. I say optional, as these instructions will mean that all but one raw edges are hidden and safe from fraying, but for added safety you can do it. I didn’t as the waxed canvas I used will naturally protect against fraying, combined with the raw edges hidden.

If you do decide to finish the edges, this means putting an overlock stitch over the edges to stop them from fraying (which this fabric will). While this is an optional step, I would highly recommend it. It will be a long and boring process, but is well worth it to keep your garment nice through many troops! If your sewing machine doesn’t have an overlock stitch, you can just use a normal zigzag stitch.

This is from my breeches as it’s easier to see the stitch in contrasting colours.

Once you’ve finished the edges of your cut pieces you’re ready to start putting them together! You should have these pieces, plus the waistband facing:

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The front

Take the main front piece and lay the middle front piece on it, matching the bottom edge of the middle with the top edge of the main, with right sides facing. This means the side that will face out. If you’re using plain canvas fabric there probably isn’t a right side, so just make sure you mirror what you are doing for the two halves.

Stitch the pieces together 1” from the edge of the fabric. We’ll mostly be doing 1” seams to allow us to hide the raw edges later.

Once folded open it should look like this:

Trim as much of the middle piece seam allowance as you can (this will reduce the number of layers we’re trying to fold and stitch through later):

Press the remaining seam allowance up against the middle piece. Pressing is different to ironing as you won’t be moving the iron, just putting it down for a few seconds then lifting it up. This helps create nice clean folds and sets the stitching too:

Match the bottom edge of the top front piece onto the top edge of the middle front piece, right sides facing. Stitch them together, stopping when you reach the middle/main stitch line:

Trim the top piece seam allowance, as we did before and press the remaining seam up towards the top piece:

Fold ⅜” of the two seams you’ve created over towards the inside and press them (you should be left with a ⅝” allowance, but with a folded edge and the raw edge is sandwiched between the seam allowance and the main piece):

 

Top stitch the seams in their correct position. Topstitching is stitching that holds a seam that will be visible on the outside of the finished article. For the kama I used a thicker upholstery thread for the top stitching to try and match the look of the screen used ones. You also want to have a longer stitch length for the top stitching, somewhere around 5mm.

You should do two parallel sets of stitches per seam, one close to the fold and the other about ⅜” away from the first. This is why we left ⅝” seam after folding it, as that should be enough for both sets of stitches to catch the seam. The two sets of stitching should cross each other around an inch from the front edge.

I forgot to take a photo at this point, but see later for how the topstitching should look (sorry!)

Fold 1” of the front edge to the wrong side and press it (ignore the shiny fabric you can see, I was added myself a small pocket to the inside of the kama for a key, which you can try if you want!):

Then, as before, fold ⅜” of that under again and press it:

Open the front edge back up and take some 1” nylon webbing. Lay it along the outside of the top seam (see the topstitch on the bottom seam). Trim the edge of the webbing to match the front edge (tip: you can use a lighter to melt the cut edge of the webbing to stop it fraying) and stitch it within the front 1” seam allowance. You can see I’ve stitched it twice for security. Make sure you have plenty sticking out the top to attach to the waistband later:

Fold the front edge back over (don’t forget to refold the ⅜” that gets folded back over) and top stitch the front edge as you did previously. The two previous seams should reach a point together on the fold:

This is how it should look from the wrong side:

Match the bottom edge of the front waist to the top edge of the top front, right sides facing and stitch them together:

Add a strip of velcro to the right side of one of the halves:

Press the waistband up:

 

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Adding the back and finishing the waistband

Match the front edge of the back piece to the back edge of the front assembly, right sides facing (this shows a good example of right/wrong sides looking different):

Stitch the pieces together, 1” from the edge and press the seam towards the back piece:

Fold ⅜” of the seam back over, as you’ve done before, and topstitch again:

Add the other half of the velcro to the right side, front edge of the waist facing piece (make sure it’s the piece for the opposite side that you did the velcro before!). I would also recommend overlocking the bottom edge of the facing as it is the one piece with a raw edge not stitched:

Fold the waist band down (so its right side and the right side of the front assembly face) and lay the nylon webbing over the top of it (the nylon webbing should be around 4” from the front edge):

Lay the waistand facing, right side down on top of the waist, sandwiching the nylon webbing:

Stitch just the top edge, from the waist/top front stitch line to the front edge (ignore the stitch holes going all of the way round, I definitely didn’t get this wrong, nope).

Pull the long, free part of the facing so that it is on the front side of the kama:

Fold the waist back up and you can lay the facing and waist pieces right side together:

You can now stitch the long and short edges together, ⅝” from the edges. Be careful that you don’t accidentally catch the nylon webbing in these stitches, as it will bunched up between the pieces. 

Once stitched, trim as much of the seam allowance away as you can and clip the corners at an angle. This will make turning the waistband a lot easier:

Now you will need to pull the waistband the right way round (use a long, blunt object to hlp push it through) and you should end up with this (don’t worry how crumpled it looks, its just weathering!):

Fold ⅜” of the unstitched (bottom inside) edge of the facing over and press it:

Pin the seam in place where along front top/waist seam:

Then stitch in the ditch (stitch in the seam so that the stitch will be hidden) through:

The stitch should be almost invisible:

But catches the folded edge on the back:

The rest of the waistband facing lower edge should be left free.

At this point you should have two mirrored halves that look like this, almost there!:

Fold the free part of the waistband facing up (but leave the ⅜” folded back) and place the two halves right side facing. Stitch along the join, 1” from the edge, stopping when you reach the “corner”:

Clip the corner, this will allow us to fold the different angles of the back without creating a big lump of fabric:

Press the seam you’ve just stitched open, then press 1” of the unstitched edge over:

Then as before, fold ⅜” over again, press and topstitch:

Now try the kama on and figure out the length you need. There should be about 3” of fabric extra at the bottom to hem. Fold the amount up for the correct length and press. Then fold it back on itself, leaving around 2”. Then do a single topstitch 1¾” from the bottom edge.

Finally add a 14mm eyelet close to the front edge top stitching, following the instructions for your eyelets (note that you’ll be cutting 3 layers of canvas fabric so the included cutter may not be up to the challenge!)

Now sit and admire your creation!
 

[KOtrooper]

Fantastic work, thank you!