Sakura Matsuri 2012

The city of Amstelveen hosts a Sakura Matsuri every year, but unfortunately that's mostly on a weekday. Until this year! This year it was held on a Sunday, so perfect for our Kimono de Jack NL group to go ^_^.

We had a great turn-up, and at some point it looked like we were the event instead of the sakura. When we were taking pictures near a blossoming sakura-tree, even press-photographers were taking pictures!

It was a lovely day with lots of sun, the Matsuri was great and nice to see members of our group again and meet new ones. Let's hope next year the Matsuri will be held on a Saturday or Sunday again...

More pictures
Pictures from Linda

Going to Kodo

Tonight my boyfriend and I are going to see Kodo at the theatre. We've already seen shows of Yamato and Tenko, so I'm very curious about this show.

You've already seen my outfiton one of my dummy, but I've actually never worn this kimono. But instead of the big red shibori obiage, I've picked a pale pink with bits of shibori (a gift from Misuchi). And, just as used on the dummy, a black obi age used as a date eri (tips about putting a date eri between a juban an kimono collar are most welcome ^_^).

I'll let you know about the show ^_^

Nihon Buyo

I'm so late with posting this, sorry!!! Tuesday march 6th Misuchi, her boyfriend and me went to see Nihon Buyo in Amsterdam. It was amazing ^_^

In total we saw 3 kind of dances, a modern dance called Senoo, a Kabuki-like dance called Awamochi and the main dance, Sekidera Komachi. The last dance was performed by Nishikawa Senzo (79 years old!), who has the title of Living National Treasure of Japan!

All 3 dances were beautiful, but Awamochi I liked best because it was the most traditional dance. The dance performed by Nishikawa Senzo was also beautiful, but his movements were so subtle, too subtle for me. The dancers of the first dance wore very pretty pink ro komon with purple sakura leaves.

And we were not the only ones in kimono! It was kimono-spotting at the theatre ^_~ Not many people were in kimono, but we saw at least 5, at that was much! There was a very old lady, in a greenish kimono but with an obi that looked like it had lace on it, very sweet.

Next week I've got 2 events for kimono! First is a performance Kodo, Taiko Performing Arts Ensemble in Eindhoven. Second is the Cherry Blossom Festival in Amstelveen, at the Japanese Park. Very looking forward to both events!

Unexpected kitsuke

Why unexpected? Well, I thought it was going to be a normal Sunday, without any kimono/kitsuke. But we heard that an aunt of my boyfriend was coming, and I knew she wanted to see me in kimono. So, I did some kitsuke after all today... :-)

   

The kimono is an iromuji that I bought in a pack of 6 iromuji from Ichiroya. It's a lovely light purple and it's got a beautifully woven pattern of leaves and streams. I paired it with a peach hakata nagoya obi (bought from Bangasa Kimono) and a purple obiage/obijime set. And that turned out really pretty!

Every month a kimono - February

  

For my personal challenge Every month a kimono - February I put on the kimono that was on my dummy in January, the beautiful purple early Showa komon I bought from Ume Bloom.
I tried to pair it with my purple-pink-silver fukuro obi and with my silver-birds fukuro obi, but somehow I really like the obi I'm wearing it with on the pictures.

If you look closely, you can see that I've got 3 collars... The first layer is a tsuke-eri, because the second layer is my juban. This juban, a lovely red vintage juban, doesn't have an opening to put an erishin in... So what I tried to do is give the juban some 'grip'(?) with the tsuke-eri.

What do you think of these 3 layers, is it okay or do you have an idea how to do this otherwise?



For my dummy I tried a different obi on my only furisode. The only combination I've made with this furisode, is with the silver-birds fukuro obi. The obi I paired it with on my dummy has almost the same orange, but is very bold. Please don't look at how the obi is on the front! I've made the fukura suzume musubi with a biyousugata, but I calculated a tiny bit wrong. But main question... What do you think of the combo? Is this an option for Holland's Cherry Blossom Festival?

Han-eri

Oh my, a second post this year within a week! Yes, I'll do my best to keep these blogposts coming, although 2 in a week will not be common (sorry).

When I bought my first kimono, still my favorite bright orange furisode, I also bought a roll of with 2 han-eri on it. Finally after all those years in my little tansu, last week I cut them loose. One has a little drum or a wheel on it (I can't really see) with little flowers, the other is white with some lovely weaving. To stop them from fraying, I plan to hem them (I know that I don't have to).

After they were loose, the little roll or bolt still had a lot of fabric on it. I'm thinking of making an obiage out of it. It's a lovely color blue.

Maybe someone can help me with these two pictures. They were on the bolt, but since I don't read Japanese, I have no clue to what it says. Please let me know, thank you!

Every month a kimono - January

A resolution for this year I hope to complete, is to wear a kimono at lease every month. And on one of the last days of January, I had time to do some kitsuke.

For myself the choice was made very quickly to combine my green iromuji with a bright blue nagoya obi with irisses (?) on it. Funny detail is that Misuchi has a twin obi, a black version!

My kitsuke wasn't the best, and I forgot to do some padding, but it looked okay-ish.


On my dummy I put the beautiful kimono I bought from Ume Bloom. It's a deep purple and has a lovely all over golden pattern. I combined it with a fukuro obi which has fans and other embroidery on it.

The musubi I wanted to try, is a bunko. It's from a Japanese book with all sorts of musubi, mostly for furisode.






It took me 3 times to figure out that this obi is very stiff, maybe too stiff for bunko (next time I'll try a fukura suzume). And even on the 3rd time it still wasn't good. You can't really see it proberly, but underneath the musubi it's too loose. In order to keep the end-piece of the obi in place, I had to work with 2 obiage, a bit strange...

Hope you like it!