First kitsuke of the New Year a.k.a Ro Bamboo

I may have mentioned before that I have a love affair with ro kimono.
It may have to do with Australia being a warm place and ro is so light and breezy that they make a good match.
Also being so light ro kimono and obi are cheaper to buy from overseas!

When I was planning this kitsuke I wasn't actually going to use this kimono, I was going to use my calla lily kimono but this bamboo kimono caught my eye.

I bought this from Shinei when they were still eBay-ing. The A,B,C,D are some small holes that I was going to cover with embroidery. That was over two years ago and I still haven't done it...

Both the kimono and obi are a similar shade of green, I was trying out whether it would make me look taller, one continuous colour you know?
I don't have a full length shot though so I can't say how well it worked.
Please excuse my crooked photos and me looking a bit grumpy and the messy kitsuke. I had altered the kimono to make it bigger but now there's too much excess fabric so it was difficult trying to hide it.

I really should fix this kimono up, my original idea was a sparrow and some insects for the embroidery.
Here was my original design. Yep, two years ago.... It really does take me a long time to finish projects, partly because I always have about 10 different ones on the go...
It might be another two years before its done!

I was featured on a Treasury List!

My Lily-of-the-valley resin obidome was featured in a Lily- of-the-valley themed Treasury List.
This hasn't happened to me much before so I'm pretty stoked about it :)
You can view it Here

Also featured in this Treasury List is the vintage lily-of-the-valley print by Cicely Mary Barker

From TheOldMapShop which is a stunning shop!
As a little girl I had a few reproduction books of Cicely Mary Barker's fairies and always thought how beautiful they are. Actually I still have those books and still like flicking through them :)

I also listed a few new obidome:

Blue Koi Obidome

Light Pink Camellia Obidome

Light Pink Ume Obidome

I hope you like these new styles.

Immortal Geisha friendship swap results 2013

Last year was my first time participating in this annual event and I honestly enjoyed it so much that I can't wait to do it again next year!

The gift I sent off consisted of a teal embroidered han'eri, a pink vintage obijime- you know the wide kind and two obidome I made- a Scottie dog ( So cute! I haven't shown you guys that style yet) and lily of the valley.
The recipient emailed me to say she loved them all and I really hope she does and wasn't just being polite.

The gift I received was amazing! I'll gonna have to step it up for next year ;)
I was sent four mini maiko style kanzashi!

 
How beautiful are those?!
I was blown away and humbled that I was sent such lovely things.
Thankyou again to the person who sent me those :)

This year I'm going to be more prepared and have them ready to go sooner, my recipient received hers just after Christmas I think...

Did you participate in the IG freindship swap? If you did what did you send out and receive?

Valentine's Day themed obidome!

This year I'll be trying to create obidome for other events and themes.
Truthfully I was supposed to have Christmas and winter themed obidome styles up for last December however I wasn't that organized. ( oops...)

So I've started it off with Valentine's Day themed obidome.
I've got two styles available:

Red heart with cracked gold leaf applied on top and a red rose obidome.

Gold glitter heart and red rose obidome.

I have three of each style available as I wasn't sure how popular the idea is going to be.

Other calendar events I was thinking of doing include: St Patrick's day, Easter, Mother's day ( a few variety's of kiku) umm, Halloween and Christmas/winter themed ones for the end of year.

Is there any styles that you would like to see available?

My 2013 in review.

I've been a slack blogger this year huh?
With this post it'll be a grand total of 14 for the entire year!
I suppose that has to do with the fact that I haven't worn kimono as much this year as I would've liked, but you know, real life gets in the way sometimes.

So here's my years worth of kitsuke!
Not the most exciting bunch but at least three of those ensembles were of kimono I've never worn before so that's a good stat ;)
( Also three of those kitsuke are wisteria kimono, do you think I have a problem much?!)

Left to right:

Yellow yukata with mauve hanhaba obi.
Wisteria yukata with the same mauve obi ( I was in love with that obi for a while)
Worn to the Kimono de Jack Australia event at the Japanese Festival in Melbourne.
Winter scenery kimono with accessories for the Kimono de Jack Australia Winter Challenge.
Another wintery themed kitsuke, although I was aiming for a "spring" feel...
Grey and white patterned komon with cream hakata obi.
Ro wisteria komon with a cream hakata obi. ( my next obi love affair was this obi)
Wisteria furisode with a wisteria obi and me in a bad wig!

My last kistuke for 2013 is a sea themed ensemble: ( not at the sea tho...)

This seashell kimono was one of my early purchases and I love it dearly!
The kimono is a hitoe chirimen and its so soft and comfortable, just on the small side for me however. It is also badly stained so I'll never wear it out in public but I enjoy it nevertheless.
The obi is a recent purchase ( recent two years ago -_- ) the whole thing is just open weaved threads in shades of blue and white. I've worn it before and find it a very easy obi to use.
I went with golden accessories for this look with  a golden yellow obiage, gold obijime and a gold seashell obidome I made :)
I'm very happy how it all pulled together, usually when I plan a kitsuke I decide on a kimono and an obi ( or a small selection) and pick all the accessories as I'm dressing.
Even my collar was behaving for me today!
Usually my collar gets eaten by the time I get around to photos and I have to spend 10 mins adjusting everything but not this time, just a quick smooth over and all good.

I also opened my Etsy shop KofujiKimono late 2012 but didn't really start to do much with it till the new year. 
I'm happy with how I went in my first year of selling, provided I did close the shop for three months while we moved.
I do have a lot of new ideas for the shop next year! Lots more obidome and I hope to start making a few other kimono accessories.
I will also continue to stock vintage kimono, obi and accessories.

My fiancé and I also bought a house this year ( that's the move I mentioned) so lately my spare time has gone into jobs around the house.
My  mother is coming for a visit in the new year and insists on painting some rooms for us. A very generous offer but we are still so un-organized that the spare rooms are still full of boxes.... There's the tv/living room to paint if she really wants I guess...

That would have to be my year all summed up, not an eventful year but a year for getting things done I spose.

My goals for 2014 include:
* Blogging more. You guys saw that one coming huh?
*Wearing kimono more often so I have something to blog about
*Save for an overseas holiday or renovations for the house ( including the original 70's kitchen... No joke...)
*Work more on my Etsy.
*Sew more of my own clothes. This will probably be limited to dresses and skirts but I'll be happy with that.
* Lastly the normal eat better/lose weight/walk the dog more thing.


How has your 2013 been and what are you planning for 2014?

Sale on at Kofuji Kimono

Hi everyone,

Just a quick post to say I'm having a sale on my Etsy shop KofujiKimono from November 1st to November 20th.
Everything will be marked down in price ( except obidome and han'eri) and I'll be listing a heap of obijime bundles at low prices as well.

I hope you have a look :)

Sunday Kitsuke

Hello everyone :)

Want to know why today is an awesome day? Its my first day off in three weeks!
Oh, and I finally had some time to wear kimono :)

As its spring down here in Australia I was faced with a problem... I don't really have any spring specific kimono. The only kimono I have is a mid Showa Furisode with wisteria:

I was going to pair it with my silver and green swirl fukuro obi:

However I just couldn't use it. Nope. Wasn't working for me, I pulled out my biyosugata but it still wouldn't cooperate with me.

So I was bad and used a nagoya obi   :o

(which I don't have a stock photo of, sorry!)

Today I headed outside to take photos :) It was a lovely sunny and windy day... so I had sleeves and my wig flying everywhere XD but nevertheless I'm happy how the photos turned out.

I took the obi shots inside so you could see the obi design better as it just got washed out outside.

Also a bit naughty as both the kimono and obi have wisteria designs... but that's about all the "spring" stuff I have...

The obidome is my trial chidori obidome. 

It doesn't show up well in the photo but the colour is this shimmery pearl white which is very pretty

Maybe I should've drawn a wing on it too... I'm in the process of doing a pink one so I'll put a wing on that one and see how it looks. Actually the pink chidori would've fitted better with this kitsuke colour wise...
Ah well.
I'm also working on a cherry blossom idea for obidome:

I was trying to create something that looked like a bunch of petals blowing away in the wind, but so far the trials of that design have turned out crappy :(  and then somehow I just fiddled around until I came up with the above design. I would still like to add some detail to the center of the flowers though.
Thoughts?

And that's about it for me. Besides working lots and moving into our new house (Yay!) I haven't had much spare time but hopefully I can find some more kimono time soon :)

Have some blossom photos...