Samurai Costume

Step 5 Watagami (shoulder straps)

This part got a little tricky. I settled on making 2 kidney bean shaped pieces. This is the piece that everything is attached to. The front and back of the Do, and the Sode(shoulders). I got some nice decorative gold lace from Wal-Mart to put these all together. You can see in the picture how I did it. I would recommend trying some shapes with poster board and seeing how it fits before committing to cutting and shaping this piece. The back part of the watagami attached directly to the back part of the do. The front piece had around 2" gap from the front of the Do to the watagami.

This was tricky, because I had to finish the Do and the Sode so I could try them on and find where to drill the watagami so it would look right. So before knotting down your pieces, see how they look hanging off the watagami!

There is another option though. Traditional samurai armor connected these pieces to the watagami by loops and frogs(wooden toggles). I didn't want to do all that though because it is easy enough to get on and off with out the extra attachments.