A Weekend of Chanoyu

This past weekend, I was entirely immersed in chanoyu! On Saturday, our sensei was in town for a day of lessons, and to my surprise, his parents were visiting as well. His mother is an Urasenke master, and she personally gave me a lesson in preparing koicha. It was quite an interesting lesson, as my Japanese is very poor, and her English is minimal. Surprisingly, I did pick up on quite a bit of what she was saying, but I believe all of the pantomiming helped!

As usual, I wore kimono to practice, so here is my ensemble: a yellow-beige sha komon with tsubaki pattern, raspberry color ro nagoya obi with tsuyu-shiba design, white ro obiage with yellow shibori dots, and yellow summer obijime.

On Sunday, my dear friend held a private gathering in her personal tea room. She was the host for the first part of the gathering, and then my sensei's mother hosted the second half. It was such an honor to be able to attend! The ensemble I chose to wear was a sky blue ro iromuj, pale lavender fukuro obi with uroko design, navy tate-ro obiage, and mint summer obijime.

KdJ Memphis, June 2015: Jun Kaneko Exhibit

This past Thursday, my husband, my friend Shay, and I went to see the work of Jun Kaneko at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens for our Kimono de Jack Memphis outing. Shay and I both work kimono, of course!

She wore her lovely vintage hitoe komon and borrowed an obi and komono from my collection. If that kimono were larger, I'd definitely steal it! The pictures don't do it justice. 

My ensemble was a black ro komon with a whirlpool and zakuro (pomegranate) design. The obi is cream colored ro with a lantern (or a case could be made for moon) design. Both of us opted for cool blue accessories. Shay was much more modern with her styling, and as usual, I stuck to a more classical kitsuke.

June Kitsuke - Blue Cotton Komon

I had to help my sister run her booth at a comic book expo today, so I decided to wear this cotton komon that has been sitting in storage for some time. When I purchased it, the seller advertised it as a yukata. It is likely cotton, but much softer than any yukata. It also has hiro eri (wide collar that must be folded for wear). It is not sheer like sha or ro, but not as opaque as regular hitoe. Since the traditional calendar says that you don't switch to ro and sha until at least June 15, it really is the perfect "in-between" kimono.

First Yukata Kitsuke of 2015

My new yukata arrived yesterday, so I did a quick coordination with it. I used a black hanhaba obi with a shibori tatewaku pattern on it. It's rather short so the musubi is kind of small. I added a little dragonfly obi kazari and posed with my new woven bag. (Please ignore my hair and makeup, because it's just what I had on from work that day.)

 I'm so glad that warm weather is finally here, and I can do more kitsuke such as this!