Silk Peony Ikebana

Last year, I made an origami ikebana arrangement as a gift for a friend. This year, I wanted to make something for my aunt that would coordinate with her decor and last a long time.

Everything here came from Michaels. I started with the gorgeous, bold red peony that I knew would be the focal point of the whole arrangement. Typically I’m not a huge fan of faux greenery, but these monstera leaves had way more substance and punch than most fake foliage, and since real monstera leaves are quite shiny and waxy anyway, these look much more realistic than most. All I needed after that was a something with height and airiness to balance the earthy, heavy quality of the flower and leaves. My father actually found these very thin branches with pretty silver beads on them that work as the perfect finishing touch.

Of course, I needed some sort of vessel, and I spent a fair bit of time rummaging around in a few different aisles until I found this one and fell in love with it. It’s an almost-perfect match for my aunt’s wall colours so I knew it would coordinate well and while it’s simple enough not to compete with the flower, the bit of texture makes it very earthy and interesting.

Typically, ikebana needs to be done with live, fresh, seasonal flowers. However, there are always acceptable reasons to deviate from the norm. Overall, I think for a silk flower arrangement this was very successful. And my aunt seemed to like it, which is the important part!

Art Gallery – Pop-Art Portrait by Melanie Georgiou

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been lucky enough to have a new portrait to share with you all! This fantastic piece was done by Melanie Georgiou (Merrie Go Art on Facebook). She is currently undertaking the incredibly inspiring challenge of doing one hundred portraits of kimono friends and colleagues. So far, they’re all as unique and bold and as fabulous as this one which just blows my mind. She was inspired by some of my favourite yabane pieces since we share a love of the motif, and I absolutely love that she included the iris motif since it’s one of my favourite flowers but not something I think I’ve ever mentioned. And of course, how could I not be thrilled with the bright bold blue of my hair? If only I could get it to stay this vibrant in real life!

If you liked this gorgeous painting as much as I did, click here to check out the rest of the project and her other amazing creative output!

A most beautiful gift

For someone who has no plans to get married in the remotely near future, I sure do seem to be amassing a lot of wedding items. This one comes courtesy of an online friend who has a heart of gold. She’d had this piece – as well as two others that will be making appearances soon – for quite some time and felt that it was time to pass it along to someone who would genuinely appreciate it. I am beyond touched that she felt I would be worthy of them.

The package arrived in the mail today, and while she had sent me photos of the pieces they did this piece in particular no justice whatsoever. The silk is lush and heavy, the embroidery is stunning, and there’s a full secondary red lining. Despite the fact that I was hot and tired from work, I was determined to see how this piece looked on the mannequin. It took far longer than it should have and I’m not thrilled with the tidiness (or lack thereof) of the kitsuke but I love the combination of warm gold of the obi with the orange and dark, chocolatey, almost-black plum of the kimono. I would very much like to revisit this coordination in the future, once I’ve got a proper set of bridal accessories. I also think this kakeshita would be absolutely stunning combined with the uchikake I acquired not long ago.

Items used in this coordination

The Outfit IG Built

So as most of you know, I am a moderator over at the Immortal Geisha webforums. I do this as a labour of love, not expecting anything in return. However, every so often, the kind and wonderful community of forum members there will flabbergast me with beautiful gifts. This year marks the incredible ten-year anniversary of the forum, and in thanks, Naomi and the members secretly arranged for the moderators to get incredibly generous gift certificates with which to buy kimono.

I’d been eyeing this particular synthetic komon for a while, mainly because I thought it would coordinate perfectly with my moorish arches nagoya obi, which, until now, I’d been unable to wear. That obi was also a gift from a forum member, so it seems incredibly fitting that not only did I get to wear them together, but they look absolutely perfect together. The kimono itself is quite a strange colour; the sale photos looked grey, in indoor lighting it looks navy blue, and in sunlight it looks almost purple. Thankfully, all three of those permutations happen to look fantastic with the brick-rust colour of the obi, and the cyan accents are a near-perfect match. The lining of the kimono is even a similar rusty colour to the obi.

I paired it up with my well-loved orange and blue shibori obiage and coordinating hakata obijime, and an awesome spade obidome from ChidoriyaWorld. I thought the spade shape mirrored the arches on the obi quite nicely. My father and I headed off to the park near my house to take pictures, and we were treated to perfect weather.

We also had company in the form of this silly little squirrel, who was carrying around a napkin. Not kimono-related, but too cute not to share!

Items used in this coordination

From one Tokaido lover to another

In which I am yet again treated far too kindly by my friends and family on the Immortal Geisha forums.

BikaBika is an awesome forum member with a great sense of personal style, and she is also an afficionado of the Stations of the Tokaido motif. We’re generally careful not to step on each others’ toes when we see items, which is just another sign of the sense of community the forum has in general.

Several people brought this particular kimono to my attention, but I’ve spent a lot more than I should lately, and I thought it was a bit narrow for my fatty hips. After a fair bit of deliberation I decided to let it go. Fast forward a few weeks and BikaBika has dropped hints that she’s mailed something to me, but I honestly just assumed it was a little accessory or something. Unfortunately, Canada Post went on strike right around this time, so the package fell into a kind of dispatch limbo. While I didn’t outright forget about it, I shunted it into the back of my mind so I wouldn’t stress too much about it potentially getting lost. So I was pretty surprised and confused when the mailman brought me a package I wasn’t really expecting yesterday morning.

Needless to say, when I got it out of the package I was stunned, and very touched. There was a note included that mentioned she’d gotten my address from Suara, who sent me the stunning Tokaido obi a while back, with strict orders to wear them together. I ran downstairs to thank BikaBika and to photograph it. Unfortunately it’s too hot even for yukata right now, so there’s no way I’ll be able to dress in a full formal outfit for a while yet. Thankfully, nothing’s stopping me from sharing photos of the stunning artistry of this piece though.

Grey Tokaido Houmongi

It’s a soft dove-grey with three distinct stations repeated around the hem. It’s sort of a strange merge of tsukesage, with the stations each being distinct and on a separate panel, and houmongi, since while the designs are discrete from a distance they form a continuous design around the bottom hem. There is also a single blue tsuta (ivy) crest, which helps merge the formality upwards from tsukesage to houmongi.

The front hem has one of the loveliest versions of Station 16, Yui, that I have seen so far. It’s also the only station on the kimono that crosses over multiple panels.
Grey Tokaido Tsukesage-Houmongi

The other two stations are both repeated on the back hem and the sleeve, both in front and back.

Station 1, Shinagawa
Grey Tokaido Tsukesage-Houmongi

And this is the interesting one Bika helped me figure out, it’s a loose artistic interpretation of Station 52, Otsu, but what threw me off is that while most of these pieces are done using the Hoeido edition, this particular variation is from the Kyoka edition, which is much less common.
Grey Tokaido Tsukesage-Houmongi

Yet again, I am flabbergasted at the kindness of others, and in awe of how it always seems to come when I need a pick-me-up.