Cozy quilting and cute kanzashi

Now that I’m back in Montreal and settled in, it’s time to get back in the groove. What better way to start than with pieces I acquired while I was in California? Ohio Kimono shared these on facebook and I just fell hard. I’m not generally drawn to casual pieces like this lately, but they’re both so unique that I couldn’t resist. The kimono may look like patchwork but it’s actually woven wool like this. The obi is utterly charming with lots of little kanzashi on it. I thought the warm muted tones suited each other really well so I decided to put them together. The outfit did feel a bit heavy though, so I introduced some yellow accessories to brighten things up a little. I think it worked out well, the yellow was just the right finishing touch.

I’d forgotten how much I love wool kimono for their ease of dressing, especially on a mannequin. Silk and polyester are so slippery and want to fight you every step of the way. Wool is grippy and textured and stays exactly where you put it. I wish it wasn’t such a casual-only fabric! Maybe I should make more of a point of coordinating the wool pieces I have in the near future.

Ohio Kimono was kind enough to gift these pieces to me. You should absolutely check their shop out if you haven’t already, they have new gorgeous stock directly from Japan all the time.

I haven’t had the chance to catalogue these pieces yet so no little items thumbnails today, sorry!

 I received this item from the retailer or manufacturer for honest review purposes.If you have a topically appropriate craft, product, or service you would like me to review, please contact me. 

P is for Patapata

Patapata, パタパタ, onomatopoeia of “fluttering wings”

Ever since I saw this tutorial for an adorable patapata musubi with a bow accent, I knew I wanted to try it. I kept procrastinating for some reason, but now I’m glad I did because that means today I can show you this perfectly puffy pink patapata coordination! Japanese is a language full of adorable onomatopoeia, and patapata represents the fluttering sound made by bird or butterfly wings, and looking at the soft blousy folds it’s easy to see where the name came from.

I used the pink bubble side of my adorable whale obi, along with a sweet multi-floral black komon kimono. The outfit felt a little too boring as-is, so I pulled out a bright pink haneri and lace shawl to complete the look while making sure nothing distracted from the adorable obi bow.

If you’d like to learn to tie patapata musubi yourself, here is the video I followed! I love Sunao’s videos, they’re very clear and the English subtitles are very well-written.

Items used in this coordination

Whale, whale, whale…

What have we here?*

I found this obi online several months ago, and kept coming back to look at it. The whales are just so adorably goofy and charming, and I fell completely in love. Eventually I found myself with a bit of cash to spare on something special for myself, and after being enabled by pretty much every single one of my online friends, I went for it. I bought it from Murata, a store based in Vancouver, BC, here in Canada. It only took a few days to get here, and believe me, after over a decade of ordering almost exclusively from Japan that speed made me giddy. Kazue and Fumie were also both an absolutely pleasure to deal with, and I look forward to ordering from them again in the future.

I felt that this obi is so fun and special that it had to be the focus of the outfit, so I went the vaguely monochrome route again. I thought this modern poly komon had a bit of a watery feel to it, and I love how it matches the obi but still manages to fade into the background, making sure all eyes are on the whales! This obi is also incredibly long, to the point where I had to wrap it around the mannequin three times, rather than the usual two. This means I’ll be able to wear it myself, and be able to tie all sorts of fun musubi with it. I can’t wait!

*(I would apologise for that terrible title, but I am not remotely sorry!)

Items used in this coordination

Tokaido hanhaba obi

A while back I found a Stations of the Tokaido hanhaba obi on eBay that was quite similar to this one, but it was a bit expensive for a hanhaba, in my opinion. I let it slide, but honestly I regretted it after the auction was over.

Fast-forward approximately a year and this little baby shows up on eBay for a starting bid of one penny. Not only was it in a much more affordable price range, it also had much nicer contrast – the stations and reverse are a lovely golden yellow colour. On the first one I’d seen, they were a deeper red than the obi’s base, so they were pretty indistinguishable.

Tokaido hanhaba

The front side is a lovely brick red with simplified interpretations of the start point of Nihonbashi Bridge, the end point of the Bridge to Kyoto, and Station2 – Kawasaki. The reverse is a nice versatile warm gold asanoha weave design.

Tokaido hanhaba

Tokaido hanhaba

Tokaido hanhaba

Tokaido hanhaba

Green on cream hakata hanhaba

This is one of those lessons that reminds me that auction photos can be very inaccurate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely obi, a nice crisp hakata in a forest green on cream, but in the auction photos it looked very pink. I fell in love with the idea of green on pink. Thankfully I only paid a penny plus shipping for it, and I am sure I will find a good use for it, but it was a reminder not to get too excited or attached to things until they’re actually in your hands.

Green-on-white hakata hanhaba

Green-on-white hakata hanhaba