Kimono day

Today I decided to have a kimono-day. Didn't have much to do for a change, and it could be that some friends might visite to browse through some vinyl we're selling, so I thought, why not. Good opportunity to practise some kitsuke, and I wanted to see if the brown woven obi Misuchi gave me would match with my black and brown striped komon.

And it is a perfect match! As for obiage and obijime I choose my green set. It may not be the right set, but I think it looks okay. I do have a black obiage, and I thought about pairing it with a silvery-looking obijime, but green looked better. And finally a flat obijime-knot!

One thing did I found out today was that doing laundry can be done in kimono! But lets face it, that is just putting your laundy in the washer and later putting it in the drier. Nothing difficult about that, even when you're dressed in kimono ^_~

Still, I got some cold feet, so I changed my tabi for some socks and warm slippers (sorry, but I don't know the english word for pantoffels). Charming isn't it ;-)

Kimono & obi collection

Navy blue irotomesode
Originally uploaded by annebyebye

Maybe a year now I'm also on Flickr, and a few weeks ago I had the idea to but my kimono and obi collection in there. Easy to see the kimono and obi I own.

Not all pictures have a decent description but I'm working on that. Always fun to do, especially when suddenly, after a few pictures done, you decide to mention if it's hitoe, awase, etc... ^_^

My first... yukata

Yep, together with the shibori set my first yukata arrived. I hope I will be wearing this a lot at home, since it can be very warm inside our house. We do have central heating, but we don't really use it. Instead we have 2 fireplaces/stoves, which gives a much nicer warmth than central heating. But because of the stoves it tends to get hotter than in an average house, a bit like summer ^_^
So I'm going to try and wear this one more often than I do with kimono.

Nice thing about the yukata is that I'm a pisces... And there are also little ones on the hanhaba obi.

Shibori at last

Finally, after 3 weeks of waiting my shibori kimono set has arrived!

Ever since I saw Sumire from the IG-forums wearing her purple shibori houmongi I wanted a shibori kimono. And now I finally have her!

This is a set I bought from Ichiroya (they have very nicely priced kimono sets!), and it contains the kimono, juban, fukuru obi, obiage and obijime. First thing I noticed wearing it, is that it feels very thick. If you'll wear it in winter you won't get cold haha!

To be honest, it's the first time since I own an obi-clip, that I didn't use it! I did my kitsuke by looking at the 'manual' that comes with the kitsuke-dvd of Ichiroya. So no obi-clip and no knot on my back, but simply a koshihimo that temporarily holds the starter-end of the obi in place. And I made the musubi on my back, so it didn't shift while turning.

I really really like this set, it's so chic and sophisticated. Very nice to wear when you're going to the theatre for example.

Doggies

As promised to Rota and Misuchi, here are some pictures of our dogs in their favorite vehicle, my father-in-law's tractor. When they have the chance they jump in and guard our property...

Actually, they just doze away in the sun and sometimes they open their eyes to see if everything is allright. But what they really love is when my father-in-law has to work on our lands and they can join him. Driving is the best!

And I added one picture to show you that they can pose also... Even when they're really filthy!

Collar

Lately I've haven't been doing kitsuke that much, but I have been making pictures for my photography-course.

This one I had to post. It's (still) Red on one of my dummies.

Red tsukesage combo 2 & 3

This weekend I tried my red tsukesage with the black & white obi Misuchi gave me. It could work, but I think the kikko hanhaba works better. And what works even better than the kikko hanhaba, is the reverse side of that same hanhaba! That has a light brown color. not the same as the flowers, but a bit darker. After I had Red (that's an easy nickname!) on, I dressed my dummy in it with the reverse side of the hanhaba, and that is a perfect combination.

One thing I also noticed is that the tsukesage is a bit too small width-wise. I don't know if you can see, but the back seam is too far to the left. I did this because otherwise the frontpanel ends at the middle, and I find it prettier when it's more to the right.

All I need now is a trick to keep the frontpanel more to the right when you have no ohashori. I have to keep pulling it to the right. But I really do love the kimono!

Finally a kimono closet

Long live IKEA!!

Finally I've got a kimono closet. Not a real tansu unfortunately, we don't have the space and I don't have the money yet, but probably in the future there will be one...

Because I have a few days off, and so does my boyfriend, and the weather wasn't good enough to tour in our cabriolet, we decided to take a trip to IKEA. Yesterday I went throught the catalog a final time to see if there actually were drawer-closet that had the size of a tatoshi, and there actually were a few.

It has 4 drawers.
The bottom one now holds my kimono...






The middle one holds my juban, zori, hanhaba obi, purse and a few more kitsuke items...






And these 2 little drawers both hold obi. The left drawer also has my obiage, obijime, haneri and a towel for padding...






and the right drawer has, beside obi, the rest you need at kitsuke (obi makura, obi clips, koshihimo etc.).






And here it is with my kimono/kitsuke books on top of it.

I'm sure I will re-arrange it very soon, but now I just wanted to store all my kimono-goods in it.

Accessoires

Things you can never have enough when you're 'into' kimono, are obijime (obi-cords) and obiage (obi-sashes). And again Misuchi 'supplied' me with a few more ^_^
Although I've been able to use my green and darkpink obijime/obiage sets, with almost all my kimono surprisingly, she gave me 6 obijime and 3 obiage.

She also gave me 3 obi; 1 black & white of which I think may be a good combo with the red tsukesage, 1 bright blue obi with red flowers (Misuch got the same obi but that black instead of blue, of which she said we both just have to wear it at the same time) and a beautiful brown woven obi also with flowers. This last one has a very rustic look, very pretty and it will look perfect on my black & brown kimono.

With these last 2 kimono I've come to a humble collection of 9 kimono. And I have to say that I really need a kimonocloset. Unfortunately it will not be a real tansu (maybe in the future when I have more money and very important, more space), but there will come a nice closet with drawers especially for my kimono!

Red with golden-ish flowers

This red tsukesage, also awase or lined, with golden-ish flowers I also got from Misuchi. The color is such a beautiful red, almost bloedrood as we say in Dutch, which translates as as red as blood. Personally that's one of my favorite colors.

And... it's the first kimono that combines with my kikko hanhaba obi! I've had that obi for I think almost a year now? No, since just before Christmas last year. But I haven't been able to wear it with a kimono because it didn't match any. I almost thought about trading it... luckily I didn't!

I tied the clamshell musubi, but unfortunately the back of my kimono is a bit wrinkled. But still, I like this kimono also very much.

Do you think this hanhaba obi is a good combination?

Frontpage!

Something very different and not kimono... Last week I made a pretty picture of a lily that we have in our garden. The photo turned out to be very good.

On a mac-oriented Dutch forum you can send in pictures for their homepage, that changes every 2 weeks. And this week that picture is my lily!

Olivegreen kimono

2 Saturdays ago I went to visit Misuchi, and had a great time. We talked about kimono and other things, and we also visited the Japanese antique-shops where she works. It was very hot and sunny that day, but it didn't interfere with us having fun! Because I did some things for Misuchi's art-site she gave me this beautiful olivegreen kimono, a tsukesage if I am right (still struggling with kimono and kitsuke glossary), with little carts on it.

She knew that I had an orange nagoya obi with a (royal) cart on it, and hoped that it would match this kimono. And guess what? It's a perfect match!! It's even a bit too long. The first time I had it on, my ohashori was actually too long! These pictures I made the second time. To make a shorter ohashori I tied the koshihimo not just above the hips but more on my waist.

I am so happy with it, it's just a gorgeous kimono.


Thank you Misuchi!

Homemade suso

Last weekend I made my first kitsuke-item myself! My mom has 2 sewingmachines, an old one she has since forever, and a new one she recently bought because it had features her one one doesn't. So now I'm eyeing on her old sewingmachine ^_~

But because I have no sewing skills I decided to do a test run at my mom's and make a suso. My juban is a bit short so I thought about making a suso that I can wear underneath my juban!

And there she is, my very own handmade suso! Have to say that it was a piece of cake, just a big square piece of poly. The fabric was 1.40m, therefor I didn't need 2 pieces of 70 cm. And the sewing was aslo very easy, mostly making seams...

In the second and third picture you can see the trick I use to create a perfect collar. I use a kohrinbelt to close my juban, and then a velcro datejime to fasten and thighten everything, that I pull through the loop just below the jubancollar. It's just perfect!




With kimono on it looks like pictures 4 to 6. As you can see (I saw it when I was editing the pictures) I need to wear the suso a bit higher. You can see a glimpse of it just underneath the hem of the kimono. But that's for next time!

Close-up

As promised, but a bit later... Here is a close-up of my 'new' orange nagoya obi that I'm wearing in my previous post. I don't know if it's a royal cart, but I like even so.

Purple bamboo komom

This is the other kimono that was delivered yesterday, or actually the day before yesterday. It's a synthetic bamboo hitoe ur unlined komon, and this one also feels very comfy.

It matched it with a beautiful silver, purple and pink fukuro obi. I don't know how the pattern is called, but colorwise it's a perfect match. Unfortunately the obi too formal for the komon, but I simply couldn't resist buying it. It's too pretty a combination.


And for this komon I also found a second obi, and this one is a bit more appropriate, since it's a nagoya obi. If it was a hitoe nagoya obi, it would be completely perfect. This one has a peachy color with a cart on the musubi. I'll post a close up of these two obi later, so you can see them better.

For now if I'm buying kimono, I rather look if the color combination is good, than look if it has to have a hitoe obi. But if I choose my obi on color, than I have to practice more on my kitsuke and make that perfect instead of having the perfect obi ^_^

Black & Brown

Finally my 2 new kimono and 4 obi arrived yesterday!
Time to do some kitsuke again. On the IG-forums I read that someone uses a kohrinbelt also on their nayajuban, to keep the collar back. I tried ties and I must say that it works really good! So now I use 2 kohrinbelts in my kitsuke, and less koshihimo.

This komon is a unlined or hitoe synthetic komon, and it feels really nice. And I have a proper ohashori! Thanks to Misuchi's tip on how to give your kimono the right lenght, this is also good in my kitsuke. I can really feel the difference.

The first obi gives the kimono a really chic look. The obi itself very light/thin, not so stiff as some obi can be.

The hanhaba obi gives the kimono a more casual appearance. And hanhaba can be tied in so many fun ways, so I tried this one. Do'n know what the name is of this musubi, but it's very simple and looks nice!

Wool kimono with haori

Two weekends ago I had a kitsuke-practice, just for fun and to test my camera with remote control and the tripod. I put on my wool kimono and then my hoari, which was a present from Misuchi.

What I really have to do next time, is try to make the kimono a bit longer. And most important: smile more ^_^