Mid-South Con/Go Hime Entry and Sakura Festival

This past weekend was Mid-South Con, a local sci-fi/fantasy convention. They do include some anime things, but for the most part, it's not my cup of tea. Josh and I decided to go on Saturday mostly based on being bored, and my sister was doing some promotional stuff there. Last minute, I decided to do kimono hime style with my blue sparrow and take Taisho Roman kimono. Here's the result:

The orange colored "obidome" is actually a Pikachu button because the little pink rose obidome I had on broke... I also decided to enter this in the Go Hime contest. Here's to hoping!

On Sunday, we had our local Sakura Festival. This is the first year that we've had to do it indoors and there were no sakura trees blooming! Usually, the blossoms are almost gone by now because our weather gets warm early, but it's been an usually cold spring so far, so the buds haven't bloomed yet. And it was rainy on top of being cold!

Anyway, my dance group performed traditional and modern dances, and they also had taiko drummers and various stations with crafts or other culture things to do. Here's some pictures from the day:

The entrance

Wasting time before the performance

The guys did a traditional dance called "Kojo no Tsuki".

Our modern dance to "Oh! Enka"

Our traditional dance was "Sakura Sakura".

Our traditional dance was "Sakura Sakura".

Bon odori dancing; this one is "Tokyo Ondo".

Bon odori dancing; this one is "Nintama Ondo".

Our dance group =)

Some of the little gifts for sale, mostly homemade!

Sachi-san and me. I love her style!

Sachi-san made tea for the guests

Sachi-san made tea for the guests

Sachi-san did kimono dressing, too!

Me in my yukata. (Please note that I'm wearing tabi because of the dance.)

Taiko drummers

Taiko drummers

Vintage Buys - Diamond Kimono and Crane Juban

As much as I love new and modern pieces, I've been itching to get some more vintage ones. Since I got permission to start our own Kimono de Jack here in  Memphis (Twitter -- Facebook -- Blog), I figured it would be a good time to do some kimono hime with some vintage kimono. Truly, the only vintage kimono I own are these two. Pretty (well, and one is crazy...) but both are BLUE. And I found so many kimono with blue as the predominant color in this search. But the one I ended up purchasing caught my eye because it was 1. NOT blue, and 2. the diamonds make it look kind of like a big playing card.

I also grabbed this juban since I own none with longer sleeves.

Now I have to figure out how to coordinate the kimono... =)

Recent Buys and Assembling Maiko Henshin

I decided recently that in addition to my geiko henshin (complete, but not debuted), I would also like to attempt a maiko henshin. So I began to assemble to pieces I will need. I have a red obiage, but it's pretty plain, so I decided to purchase an inexpensive one from Shinei and paint the designs myself. I got this type that they've had for a while. It was only $4, so I don't feel bad about adding to the design to make it more "maiko".

I also purchased a wide vintage obijime, which I may or may not use for the henshin.

These are from a few weeks ago, but I never posted them. The yellow shibori obiage is for my red furisode, but the orange and purple obiage is just because I liked it. =)

I have literally being watching this bag for YEARS. It was discounted steeply as it was the last one, so I snatched it!

Lastly, the coup de gras! A pre-tied darari style obi from Ichiroya. I've been eyeing it for weeks, but I went on ahead and got it tonight.

Vintage Buys

I'm gonna go bankrupt if I don't curtail the spending soon! But these were such amazing deals, I couldn't pass them up. And I've been meaning to add some vintage pieces into my collection anyway... so...

Taisho Roman hitoe. Couldn't resist the birdies!!

This CRAAAAAZY sha vintage piece. So wild, I have no earthly idea what to do with it!

Then the opposite end of the spectrum: A light purple tsukesage with village motif. And large sized =)