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 ;)

Bright Stripes!

On Sunday I thought I'd try on my new kimono and obi.
I don't have many kimono that fit like they actually should and it was really nice to be able to wrap it around my big hips with a good overlap and sleeves that nearly reach my wrists rather than half way up my forearms ( who knows that feeling?!)

I tried to pick an obiage/obijime colour that would be strong enough against the colourful-ness of the kimono and obi, I think it looks ok but perhaps there would be a better combo out there.
I like this kitsuke :) Partially because it was a recent purchase and I wore it instead of putting it in my cupboard for 2 years, also because its different to what I usually wear and a bit brighter.
The obidome is a "pewter" kiku. Lately I've been experimenting with metallic colours and I think they look pretty good.

Etsy Sale on Kimono and Obi!

Just a quick shout out that until the end of March I'm having a sale on the Kimono and Obi sections of Kofuji Kimono!

Included in the sale are some pre-tied obi I listed recently., here's two examples:

Summery obi

Pink arabesque

Thankyou!

Interesting kimono remake shops on Etsy.

Every now and then I come across and interesting shop that uses kimono and obi fabric to make clothes or accessories. I know that's nothing new and some people don't like the idea on the fact that someone has cut apart kimono and obi to remake it but sometimes the creations are just sweet :)

Here are some of my favourite finds:

OniGokkoBags for when you need a funky backpack:

Here

KiryuOri makes these adorable bow ties:

Here

PriscillaTokyo uses vintage fabrics to make clothing.

Here

Shantique creates amazing wedding dresses and clothing from kimono.

Here

MaikoGirl makes these pretty cuffs from vintage fabrics, an easy way to show your love for kimono everyday.

Here

I'm sure there's lots more shops out there, what are some of your favourites?

New Kimono and mannequin kitsuke

( because I was too lazy to dress myself...)

I decided that I really needed some striped kimono, and a hakata obi for good measure.

And so I got....

I decided that if I was going to buy anymore kimono then they should really be a size that should fit me, rather than a pretty kimono that's too small.
Yes I realize that I could let out the seams on a small kimono but I started that on one of my kimono.... well over a year ago. So not the best option.

I'm not sure what possessed me to buy the bright purple and green stripe kimono, maybe that day I thought I needed a bright kimono.

The black, white and green kimono is actually a hitoe kimono so that's seasonally appropriate for now and I really like how it looks with the cream and green hakata obi.
I kinda lucked out with that combo, I didn't buy the obi to match the kimono, and I think the hakata will work ok with the purple stripe kimono too.
Actually I never think how a new piece will work with my existing collection, if I like it that's about as far as I think about it. Therein lies a major problem with my collection!

Hopefully I can get around to doing a proper kitsuke for each kimono soon.

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.