New obidome designs!

Finally!
Something fun to share with you.
Here's my new obidome styles that  worked on over the past few months:

Here I've got a bunny rabbit, pine cones, mushroom, snow capped mountain and a cute little leaf.

Also you may have noticed that I'm still in my metallic phase but also dark brown and white colours just suit so many of the new designs.

There's a few other designs coming soon.

I'm very pleased at how they all turned out, I am in love with the little gold leaf ( will have to make one for myself!) and the pine cones look amazing in the bronze colour and in the "snow covered" version ( does it actually look like snow on a pine cone? I wasn't sure it would turn out right...) 

All the obidome pictured above will be available in my Etsy store Kofuji Kimono very soon!

What I've been up to lately...

Nope, no kimono I'm afraid.
My grand plans of doing kitsuke sometime this year... well doesn't look like it'll be happening here soon. Not with summer upon us. I could get away with a mannequin kitsuke but that's not as fun now is it?
Ah well...
On a positive note I've started making obidome again! Yay! I'll have more spare time now because I refuse to paint the house over summer and its prime resin season anyway so I bests make the most of it.
I've got a few new designs that I made from scratch from clay and made moulds from those and I hope to have the new designs in my Esty shop in under a fortnight. ( ambitious time frame? maybe knowing how well I get distracted...)
Hopefully I can get a few made sooner and share some photos.
Cuz let's face it, my blog's been very boring with photos lately huh.

Well I have garden photos to share!
(Maybe not what you were hoping for but it's all I got right now...)

Jack be little miniature pumpkins. These look so cute, hopefully I can get them to grow right.

I've gone a bit pumpkin mad apparently as you'll see...

Little persimmon fruit! My little tree has three tiny fruits, I know I should cut them off so the trees energy goes into making the whole tree strong but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Full shot of my persimmon. Was only planted about 3 months ago and its already doubled in height.

Sunflowers. These are actually little baby sunflowers that grew off my giant flower ( which has already flowered and I'm just waiting to collect the seeds.)

Beans in the front, silver beet in the middle and snow peas at the back.

Off to the left if you can see is more beans and corn.

Pumpkins.... butternut variety. Yum. I actually had about 60 seedlings because I was too impatient for the 10 seeds that I started first to grow so I just chucked the rest of the seeds in.

Went away for a week and came home to a pumpkin jungle!

Now I've got pumpkins all over our front and back yards.

Tomato jungle. The tomatoes just exploded with growth and I've been lazy and didn't stake them up.

On the far left of the tomato jungle I had 5 watermelon seedlings doing their thing.

Small shining light variety which is supposed to be a small plant and fruit. Its my first time growing a lot of this stuff so it's all trial and error for me.

Watermelon flower! I think its a male flower but I'm excited none the less. 

My first tomatoes!

Like my two varieties of pumpkins weren't enough I've also got two birdhouse gourd plants on the go!

The other birdhouse gourd.

There is also separate beds for raspberries and asparagus. Citrus trees, pomegranate tree and I'm pretty sure the fig tree I put in over winter has died...

Everything I started from seed except the corn and some of the tomato varieties.

Not too bad if I say so myself.

So there you have it, why I've done very little kimono related in 6 months... 

Re-discovered goodies

Ha.
About two days after my last blog post the bf and I decided we (I) should paint out my craft room. I'd only just got my room back and we pulled everything out again!
Luckily it was a slow week for me at work so I had plenty of time to get it painted and started organizing everything to go back into the room yesterday.
While I was sorting through all sorts of interesting things I came across some old maiko postcards and vintage posters that I haven't had a chance to scan yet.
Here's a few quick photos:

The posters seems to be just larger versions of many postcards I've seen.

Nevertheless I'll try to scan them anyway.

In this last photo I've got two of the same Kamogawa odori however you can easily see the difference in the colour of the two covers. Obviously the one on the left has been stored with care as the colours are still bright and vibrant as opposed to the right one which is faded and dark.

I've also got some pre-ww2 Miyako and Kamogawa odori, really need to get back into my odori programs! 

Bad Blogger! Bad!

Whoops! Apparently three months passed since I last blogged!

Nothing much has happened though, kimono wise at least.
I feel that if I don't do anything kimono-y I don't have anything to blog about, which is silly I know.

But who really wants to read about my adventures painting bedrooms and making curtains?
Or what about making a veggie garden and growing things from seed? ( pumpkin, mini pumpkins, gourds, beans, snow peas, silver beet, beetroot, tomato, watermelon, carrots and onion just in case you were interested...)
Actually the veggie garden has been heaps of fun!

But anyway, now that my kimono/resin room is nearly back in order ( when I was painting the other rooms my room became the dumping ground, yay) I can get back on track with selling and making things!
I've got some new obidome designs made, just need to start production.
Which will be exciting, I get bored of making the same design in different colours all the time...

I might even practice some kitsuke before the heat of summer sets in! I haven't worn a kimono in.... too long.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to show you soon :)

New kimono for sale at Kofuji Kimono

Hi everyone,
Hope your winter/summer is going well :)

I haven't been up to much in the kimono world lately as most of my time has gone towards stuff around the house.
Recently we've cut down a huge gum tree that was right on the fence line between us and the neighbours, as well as being dangerous it drops a lot of branches and then replacing the back fence.
We tried to time it nicely so the tree would go down on the Friday and the fence crew would start work Monday but unfortunately that got delayed by a week and a half...
Not much you can do about that though.
Plus my parents came down for a visit right in the middle of that drama.
Long story short: I've been busy.

But! I have managed to list a few iromuji kimono for sale on Kofuji Kimono's Etsy store

Purple iromuji  is getting a lot of love

Pink iromuji  is a bit quieter.

I haven't been doing any obidome work lately as resin and winter don't mix very well and my bf doesn't like it when I take over the living room (where its warmer so the resin can cure) so I'm going to try in the next few weeks to get out my clay and design a few new pieces ready for spring.
I've got a few ideas in mind already, is there anything you'd be interested in seeing?

New purchases

Kimono wise I've hardly bought anything for myself this year, I suppose that's partially because once you've been collecting kimono for a few years generally you start to create a well balanced collection, one or two of everything.

I've bought a few dance programs, a few pre-ww2 Kamogawa and a couple 1970s Miyako and Kyo odori. I really need to make time to scan a few of those in.

So a couple of dance programs and also something special!
A few weeks ago on YJA there was a couple of maiko hikizuri up for auction ( also a few han'eri and one darari!)
I was incredibly lucky in those auctions.
I managed to snag a han'eri and a hikizuri!

The three han'eri that sold went cheaply, I think that's because most people were throwing the big money at the hikizuri and darari.
The han'eri has seen better days, it has heavily dirty with red marks... Perhaps it could be spot cleaned?
Has anyone had any experience cleaning embroidery?

The maiko hikizuri isn't in good condition either, it does have some slight discolouration on the body and some prominent stains on the front, nevertheless the actual design is beautiful, subtle and elegant.

Enough talk, photos!

Sorry for the lame photos, I would like to sew the collar up and dress up my mannequin later :)

Yeah I was really having a bad photo day huh? Blurry as...
Anyway, I tried to capture all the subtle shading on the leaves, I must seriously have a thing for autumn leaves on my kimono...
The combination of ivy and bamboo is a bit different, or at least I haven't seen it many times.
Bamboo is a pretty common theme on kimono as is ivy I spose but I guess I just don't see it as much.
Plus the purple background really makes the greens and reds pop :)

The han'eri is a senior maiko collar, my first, the others I have are more for younger maiko. But like I mentioned before it'll need a clean somehow, we'll see how that goes.
Because if I'm honest with myself it'll take me 4 months just to sew it onto a chikara-nuno/emon-nuki.
Poor time management skills? I gots them.

To top it off I'm going to make an ivy obidome!
It'll look all matchy-matchy like my waterlily ensemble
(In a good way I hope)

Which darari obi do you think I should use?
Black with gold ume
Orange with gold kiku and kiri
or the white and gold two piece obi

I personally think all would go ok, but the black would really make a strong impression (junior) or the white and gold for a more subtle look (senior).

Waterlily hikizuri ensemble

Woah! Nearly two months since my last blog post..... Geez that's bad...

The other week I sent off a waterlily obidome I'd made to a friend, I'd made it with large loops on the back for vintage obijime for a retro style or for use in a maiko henshin. ( she was happy with it :) ) but then I thought I should dress up my mannequin in my waterlily hikizuri to match the obidome!
Timing is just about perfect because this hikizuri was worn by then maiko Fukuhina in the 2009 Miyako-no-nigiwai performance:
Here
This kimono is one of my favourites in my collection, I must admit though because I treasure it so much ( and because it cost a lot too) I rarely take it out to display.
I'll probably keep it on the mannequin for a week before packing it away...

Photos!

I had such a hard time tying the obi! Tough work, I was sore afterwards.
The obi is a two piece that I bought in late 2011. I originally bought it to go with my formal black maiko hikizuri but the mon are different.
I should really put them together and see how they look...

Anyway so the obi isn't in very good condition, the gold is a bit faded, the white has turned that slightly grey-ish colour that white goes and has permanent fold makes( maybe you can see that) but nevertheless I think it looks great with the kimono!
Here is my crappy stock photo...
Actually I'm surprised how well everything matches each other, no where near maiko quality but I'm happy with it.

The han'eri is a maiko han'eri that I'd sewn onto a emon-nuki/chikara-nuno:
Here
I really need to get around to sewing my other han'eri onto them for easy use.

The obiage and obijime are just "maiko-esque" looking so I bought them.
By the time I got around to putting on the obiage and obijime I was knackered so that's why they're a bit messy... I didn't position the obiage very well, the pattern is grass leaves.

Then a bronze waterlily obidome.
I'm of two minds with the bronze obidome. On one hand I like it because it matches the gold in the obi and the haneri but on the other hand I feel like it needs to contrast the obi in a strong pink and greens?

Overall I'm very pleased how it looks :) Hope you liked the pretty pictures!

Looking forward to Easter!

Easter this year means four straight days off work for me!
Working two jobs and an on-line course is starting to take its toll a bit as I haven't managed to juggle all my tasks. Need some organization I do.
Plus my boyfriend will be home too so we can spend some quality time together, usually when he's at work I have time off and vice versa.
It would be really good if we could do something on the house but I think we'll be catching up with friends and watching movies :) which sounds awesome too!

I've been a bit slack lately on my Etsy shop, I haven't had as much spare time as I would like to devote to it at the moment but the March sale I had was great! I sold a few tsuke obi, some more obijime bundles and I had another custom order for obidome! I made two lily of the valley designs and a bright red camellia.
I switched to a better quality resin and the pieces feel a lot nicer too. It is a bit more tricky than the previous type but the results are worth it.
I've also managed to source a type of flat wire to use on the back which I'm using now and looks great as well, the thin, round wire served its purposed but didn't look very nice, but I'll use that on the small designs for the thin obijime.
Which leads me into...
I've started making up a few obidome designs for the vintage thin and really wide obijime.
I only have a couple of designs for both right now but I plan to sell them with the obijime as a set.
Hopefully I can get that up in a few months, I'm still sourcing the obijime.
The last things I've added to my shop are some obiage bundles: Here all in lovely colours :)

As mentioned in my previous post I've been experimenting with some metallic colours and those are coming along nicely. The pewter and bronze colours look fantastic!
I hope to be able to photograph some of the things I've made over the Easter weekend and get them ready for my shop :)

And now some photos, if you've managed to read all that without clicking away in boredom ;)

The pewter and silver colours.

Pewter is the darker one in the back and silver is in the foreground.

Bronze and gold colours. I was surprised how well it turned out when I put the two together on a piece.

I imagine the same could be done with pewter/silver as they share the same "cool" tone or "warm" tone for bronze and gold but I don't know how well a silver and bronze obidome would look, for example.

No doubt I'll give it a try at some time ;)