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!

Happy 2013 Everyone!

Hope everyone had a great New Years :)
Personally I've been down with the flu since Christmas so I didn't do anything special.

I haven't been uploading to Flickr lately (bad me) but I did put up the 1968 Calendar scans:

See the rest here

I've still got a massive bunch of odori to upload and I'm slowly chipping away at it but I've recently been working on some sewing projects.

The first, while not impressive to anyone but me lol, is the 50's style dress I made for my friends wedding:

I'm not a sewing person so I was quite proud of myself! The bodice I had a lot of trouble with as I made my own sloper and it just wouldn't work for me :(

The skirt is just a simple pleated rectangle skirt that I found very easy to make and feel confident enough to do again.

The shape probably isn't quite right as I'm only wearing one 

petticoat and to get the real shape I probably should've worn another one as well... but I only have one and the petticoat I tried to make is a total mess : /

Then next dress I'm going to try is very similar to the above dress, except I'll try a sweetheart neckline in this super cute doggie fabric!

Another project I've been working on very slowly is restyling this katsura. I bought it off YJA years ago and tried styling it once See here for the sad result. This time I'm going to do it properly and slowly and hopefully get it right this time.

So the totally awesome photo you see below is of the wig and I've just finished washing it, section by section, so it wouldn't get all tangled and me frustrated. 

Its really big and puffy! So next I'll be sewing in some hair pieces I bought to fill in any holes and fix up the netting on the inside. I don't expect to be finished this before the start of next year, it took me the best part of two months two wash it so I'm definitely taking my time on this one...

Another project I have been taking my sweet, sweet time with is sewing a maiko hikizuri... Coming up to 

2.5years now... I was trying to get it done for 2 years but I've had a lot of trouble with the lining *sigh*

The design is fans with different flowers inside and grass on the background.

Really pretty and I'm nearly done!

I've just got to finish the lining, attach the sleeves, sew down the collar and add the tucks!

Still sounds like a lot but in comparison to the kimono as a whole its nearly done!!!!

I will seriously be very happy to have it finish, although I probably haven't done a very good job at sewing it correctly at least it will be altogether.

I've given myself until March to get it done....

Then I'm working on sewing one of my maiko han'eri onto a emon-nuki to help when wearing it:

Here are the instructions I'm working off, kinda making it up as I go along because I'm not sure of certain things but so far its looking good! 

The deadline for that is February....