Spring Style

This past week, I had some extra time for kitsuke practice. I had an apple green haneri with white polka dots that ended up becoming the center of the styles. The first I did was my hanabishi and snowflake komon. I decided that the pink and green combo made for a nice spring style. These are just very quick kitsuke, and sorry that the pictures aren't better!

After that, I wanted to try the same accessories with my burgundy stripe and water droplet komon. The colors luckily worked nicely again. Sorry, no full picture here...

The next day, I had a tea ceremony class for which the master was in town. I don't have pictures of that ensemble unfortunately, but I did manage to snap a few pictures of the yukata I changed into after to go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. I did my obi in hana bunko style. Once again, forgive the quick kitsuke and poor quality pictures!

Purple Maple Komon

As if I am in need of any more kimono... lol

Anyway, they only had one left, and I had been contemplating buying this one for a while. It's from the same series as the other TL size kimono I have bought recently. Since I don't have but one kimono with fall motifs, I decided to bite the bullet and get this one. Plus, it's purple! =D

They had an option to add an obi, but the one I wanted for this kimono was out of stock (plus, it would have cost me an extra 2500 Yen over the already increased price for adding obi...). It was a bright lime green with stylized kiku. However, I did buy a similar colored obi back in January that has fall leaves on it (not momiji though). I think it may work with this one, but we'll have to wait for it to arrive to find out for sure.

Modern Cat Obi and Coral Kanzashi

I found an obi that I couldn't pass up on Rakuten tonight. It is a black tsukuri obi with a white cat.



So basically, when I saw it, I did this:


As an added tidbit, I finally found a reasonably priced coral colored tama kanzashi!

Best Geta EVER and Haneri

I recently purchased a pair of geta from the seller Kimonomachi on Rakuten. While inexpensive, these are the best geta I have ever tried on! I bought the LL, which actually fits my wide size US 10 foot (often times even the LL is too small). The hanao have a soft underlayer which feels amazing, and I didn't have to loosen them. PLUS - they come in a ton of cute patterns! This is the one I purchased:

I bought a second one today after seeing how awesome these were:

And I added a neat ro haneri to the order. Pretty matcha green with willow leaves =)

Casual Tea Ceremony Kitsuke - April

This past Saturday was another one of our tea ceremony group's more casual practice sessions (since sensei was not in town). We were lucky to have many visitors this week! I was surely surprised by how many showed up! I always love that we can share this love of Japanese culture with others.

Since the ceremony was really just practice and education, I didn't go by formal tea ceremony rules regarding kitsuke - and neither did Josh. I wore one of my newest kimono and opted to do a more modern look. I used my light pink kimono (with small cat's faces!) and the gingham obi, with an orange obi age and a white obijime. I used a rose obi dome, the black nagajuban with cherry blossoms, and a green haneri with cherry blossoms to tie in the spring season.

Josh wore his nice green tsumugi kimono and a new cream obi and setta, but no hakama.

Though not orthodox, I still think everything looked very nice! =D Since sensei will be in town for the next practice, I will pick regular tea ceremony kitsuke. Considering it is already in the 80s here, I may opt for ro, if a little early by the calendar.

Trade or Sale!

I have decided to "weed out" my kimono collection... again. But since I have gotten many new things recently, I need to take some of the older things out to make room. So here's some of what I have to sell/trade. I would honestly prefer trades - mostly I'm looking for obiage, obijime, LL zori, and obi, but all offers will be reviewed (if it's a kimono you're offering, it has to be at least 68" tall and 54" wingspan or I won't consider it. I'm a goliath lol).

Click on the links to view the images:
Burgundy sha komon with leaf design
Blue-purple ro komon with leaf design and stripes
Blue striped odori komon SOLD
Red yabane odori komon

I'll add more to this post later!

I must be on a Rakuten buying kick lately. Maybe it's just the desire to have new and better quality things? Usually, I sure don't mind buying vintage or used, but sometimes you just want something new. =)

The first buy is a cute bell design obi (with glitter! =D) that is reversible. It came in 5 different colors, but I don't have navy blue, so it seemed to be a good choice.

The next 3 are obijime and obidome. The obijime that come with the obidome are lace and meant for yukata. The first is a thinner obijime that I will either use for yukata (hopefully with a glass bead obidome, if I can find a reasonably priced one) or for decorating a more formal outfit.

The last item is a pair of setta for Josh. He seems to love cream or beige at the moment, so I hope he likes them once they're here!