Mannequin kitsuke- Slytherin kimono and hounds-tooth obi

Ah, so I chickened out of making one of my nagoya obi into a pre-tied obi...

In the end it seemed like far less work to just make a pre-tied obi from scratch.

That whole sentence is to be read sarcastically.... I don't know what compelled me but once I had that thought ( and the fabric) there was no changing my mind.

Houndstooth in kimono is one of those pretty rare, usually expensive, Western motifs that you see now and then on some Japanese blog, with super stylish ladies and generally makes me jealous and wished I had something for myself.

Well now I do ( although if I'm being honest I would still love an oversized houndstooth print on a kimono or yukata...)

I already had the fabric in my sewing stash, originally intended for a skirt or dress but I needed a stiffer interfacing. The one I had used previously for pre-tied obi ( see here) gave a much softer, casual feel to the obi and I thought it wouldn't work well for the look I was trying to achieve with this fabric.
I think the stiffer one works perfectly for this!

The hardest part was trying to keep the pattern straight and lining up nicely!
But I think it came up looking pretty good.
I made the wire hook on the back on the drum part detachable, so it comes off and the obi can be washed.
Except I didn't get a photo of that sorry... Good idea though...

I didn't have a clue which of my kimono it would look any good with so I just grabbed my old favourite- my Slytherin kimono.
I think this is part 14 in the Slytherin ensembles saga....
(actually it's the fourth... First, Second, Third just if your curious ;)


Anyway! I do like the overall look, I feel like its missing something though.
The cherry on top, per say.
Maybe I should've flipped the obijime and had the red side showing and a different coloured han'eri for more contrast?

(also made a houndstooth han'eri while I had the fabric out, if you missed it)

Not that I'll be wearing kimono a lot in the next few months but its a fun and easy piece to wear for when I do.

New obidome

I've been getting ready to list some of my new obidome creations to my etsy store.
I've made a few colour ranges, basically I just really enjoy working with a certain colour and end up making 5 or so obidome from that colour before finding a new "yummy" or "pretty" colour.

Available for sale is a classic faux "tortoiseshell" colour combination:

bird on bamboo cane

A clear "glass" design:

Glass kiku

Bright fuchsia:

Fuchsia bunny rabbit

There's also some random coloured obidome that you can see in the obidome section at Kofuji Kimono such as black plum and camellia flowers and more metallic designs.

Finally, some kitsuke photos!

Hello everyone, long time no post aye...
I swear, every year I say I'm going to blog more, and maybe I do for a couple of months and then I forget about it...

So technically here in Australia its winter, however this is kitsuke was planned for a late autumn showing but I didn't make it in time...
So let's just pretend its still autumn for another week or so and we'll be all good ;)


And let's pretend I can master the art of trying to take photos and organising my face better.....

Hands down  I love this kimono. If there was a fire in the house I would grab this over a few hikizuri ( for sentimental value not monetary, obviously with the prices hikizuri are going for these days, geeeez...)
So because I love it so much do I like to wear it each autumn, although I did buy a similar kimono here in my Ravenclaw kitsuke and it's nice, but I don't love it as much as this one.
I don't love the kitsuke though.
Let's face it, I'm not one of those people who can do clean, neat kitsuke. Mine is definitely the frazzled house wife version!
The obi is white and green hakata ( I never saw the appeal of hakata for about 5 years and now I'd like more in my collection)
Obiage and obijime are yellow and golden, to reflect the leaves on the kimono and the obidome is a clear "glass" leaf one I made hinting at the iciness of winter around the corner.
(Shameless plug, but my Etsy store Kofuji Kimono will be updated shortly with some new styles of obidome including this "glass" style)

The han'eri is a black base with painted silver swirls on it when I played with stencils late last year, it was already on my juban and I thought it would maybe work well going into the "dead" of winter.
Its a very meaningful kitsuke if you hadn't noticed ;)


I tried using my biyosugata for the musubi, obviously practice is the key with this kimono hobby, the more often and frequent you do it the better you are and it shows today.
I couldn't get the drum part right and it was all lumpy for some reason? I don't remember having this trouble before.
But then I seriously thought I should turn all my nagoya obi into pre-tied obi.
I mean why not? I never do anything else with them and it would've been a life saver today, but the thought of cutting up an obi......
I might stew on it for a bit longer, then probably pick out an obi for a practice and see how I go.
I've made pre-tied obi before so that's not an issue, its just working up the nerve to cut a perfectly good obi, even if it is to make it more wearable...
Have you ever made your own pre-tied obi? If you have, did you ever regret cutting or has it been the best thing you've done?

I imagine some pre-tied obi will be very useful in my near future, as I'm working less I may find the time to practice my kitsuke before my hobbies go on hold for a bit....
You might kind of be able to tell in the above photos but my belly's getting a bit bigger these days, and its only getting bigger!
I'm 21 weeks pregnant and it took 20 weeks to think "I'd like to wear kimono".
The photo isn't the best, didn't get the angle just right but there's a belly there.

So now I'm off to ponder which poor obi will be the first to get the chop and work out which of my kimono will be big enough to fit in a couple of weeks...

First kitsuke of 2015

Shame on me! I wore kimono twice last year. TWICE!!
I remember not doing kimono for the past few months but I thought I'd gotten a few ensembles done earlier in the year.... More than two at least.
So I've only need to wear kimono two more times and I've beaten last years record! The shame....

I also think I didn't buy any kimono for my personal collection last year!
That's... impressive but kinda sad...
I was looking at my summer kimono today deciding what to wear between the three yukata and 4 ro/hitoe kimono I own. To some that may seem like a good number but I think I need some new blood, I'm also low on ro obi ( I sold a lot of my summer collection over the years) but like 7 hanhaba obi! I've worn hanhaba obi like, three times in 7 years!
I think now that I've finally settled down a bit with what I like and what fits me ( and stop being things because its "pretty" or "cheap") everything is more rounded as a whole collection. Still have some bad areas, no doubt, but all over better.

Anyway! This is what I got up to:

I have no idea what the door frame photos all about, but it was interesting enough to make the cut.
So this kimono is one of the newer additions to the family, bought last summer, is a decent fit on me and hitoe.
The obi is about... 3 years old and I think this is the first time I 've worn it.
Obijime and obiage are summer ones, I bought A HUGE pile of obijime/obiage 3-ish years ago so I think I'll be set for the rest of my time...
The obidome is one of my own creations ( but of course) he's a gold koi, his head's a bit deformed so I kept him.
It was a bit dark in the hall so the kimono and obi look a shade or two darker than they should, the obi is the most glorious, rich purple- more like the close-up photos.

So yeah, my first kitsuke in about 9 months! Woo! *hides face in shame*
Good excuse to buy a new kimono to wear though ;)

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... 

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).