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!