Wired Kanzashi Flower Centers

OK you guys, Helen promised a tutorial, and she is delivering! Finally. Have you ever had some small beads that matched your kanzashi flower really well, but you didn't want to use them, because they wouldn't cover up the raw edges of the center well enough? No? Well it could happen, and here's what you can do about it.

This is Helen's New Technique, and it occurred to her while she was doing God-knows-what, but it's pretty easy. Here's what you do.....for a small flower, wire together 3 beads, like this....

If you want, you can have the wire crossing over the beads.....will show examples of this later. Anyhoo, leave a length of wire behind it, OK? Now, just insert your contraption into the small hole in the center of your flower....

Sorry about the crappy photo quality. We were using a fluorescent light, and it's hard to photograph purple properly with Helen's camera! Here's another photo to show you what we're doing....

So, insert the wire all the way into the flower, making sure the beads are as centered as possible. Cut the ends short enough to fold them onto the back of the flower, like this.....

Now, make a backing of some sort to glue over the wire ends, sealing them in place....

And here's the flower; silk with lepidolite beads.....

Easy, huh? Now, here are two other examples of the same technique. The first is a batik cotton with amethyst beads.....

See how the wire crosses over the beads, sort of? And here's a very similar one, another batik cotton with sodalite beads.....

And that's Helen's latest contribution to the art of kanzashi! You're welcome. Now, go try it.

Nu Thingz

Helen has had a flurry of creative activity this summer, because she suddenly had a flood of ideas for kanzashi flower lapel pins. All those darker and understated kimono remnants and silk tie remnants sitting around that are too somber for women's hair accessories are perfect for men's lapel flowers! Eureka. Here are a few that are in her Etsy shop:

Well, this one's not dark, but it is an improvement on the nanohana flower that Helen made for her friend's birthday (see previous post). This nanohana boutonniere is vintage kimono silk with a silk crepe leaf and a freshwater pearl.....

Buy it here ....next is a slate-blue single hydrangea blossom made from silk crepe and a tiny sodalite bead that Helen managed to sew right in the center of the flower (applause)....

Purchase here ....Here's a dark daisy made from a rich yet understated silk brocade......

Find it here .....Here's another hydrangea, a lavender one this time, with a freshwater pearl center....

Buy it here.....Here's another silk brocade number.....Helen has used this fabric a number of times for women's accessories, and came to the last little remnant with this lapel flower, so it's a one-of-a-kind.....rough-hewn manly-looking coin pearl in the center....

Can be found here . OK, and the last one for right now is already spoken for, but don't worry, Helen will make another one! This one is from a vintage kimono silk that we just love, but just didn't ever work as a women's accessory of any sort....

Much more to come! Helen has always been enamored of miniatures, and this lapel flower business is right where she likes to be. 

Kanzashi Boutonnieres

So, hope you are having an enjoyable summer. We've been busy tying up loose ends. Helen is frazzled, for some reason, feels like she can't catch up. She hauled me into the vet's office the other day. They poked me with all sorts of things. Seems like Helen is the one who could use some medical attention.

Anyway, I'm going to talk about something new for kanzashi today. I mentioned in an earlier post that a guy in New York contacted Helen, asking for a teeny little flower to be used as a lapel pin. It took 2 months to come up with a prototype, and I'm still not allowed to show it to you, but it opened the door to a whole new category of kanzashi for Helen to make: les boutonnieres. Here are a few things that Helen has made as gifts. First, a little nanohana flower as a birthday present for one of her friends, made from vintage kimono silk and a coin pearl.....

.....and some dupioni silk roses....

These flowers are each about 1.5 inches in diameter, so quite small. So, that's actually it for the lapel pins for right now. Next are some new things that Helen is giving her friend Denise to sell at her hair salon. Here's a new ponytail flower made from 3 different batik cottons.....

....and some new necklaces, like this one from silk satin organza....

......BTW, that stuff is really hard to work with. Next, a necklace from chirimen silk and pink jade......

......here's a pendant from three different colors of  dupioni silk.....

......a little number from two different silks with a linen twist in the center......

......and an older one from a synthetic fabric, with tulle and a freshwater pearl....

Finally, an item that Helen will has just posted in her Etsy shop: a pair of soft grey-ish lavender silk organza bobby pins....

 

Buy 'em here.

 

So, that's the new-ish stuff for the moment. Helen is excited to have a bunch of new fabric to play with, so there should be new designs over the course of the summer. Will report back when there's more!

Kanzashi Chrysanthemums

So sorry it has been such a long time since I have posted (again!.....what's with that?)! Helen has had a lot of heavy lifting at work, and I've been sleepy, but I've also been practicing bottle cap hockey....you can see in the photo that I am absolutely dominating my game! Anyway, Helen made a couple of new chrysanthemum shaped flowers, and I thought I would write an article about it. I know, I know, it is NOT chrysanthemum season!

Helen's chrysanthemums are somewhat less formal than the ones that other kanzashi artists have been
making. In a way, they're really not true kiku chrysanthemums at all, but just large pointy flowers with something convenient in the middle. Such a sellout. Most chrysanthemum kanzashi will have several layers of these pointy petals. Here are some REAL kiku.


First, a Kanzashi Temple piece, large, dark, mysterious, and complex....

  

....and next, a simple and elegant snap clip by Wisteria Gardens ....

Next we have a brilliant and flashy piece by KatyaFantasy ......

.....and a complex assemblage from deepwinter ....

.....A luscious comb from MizuSGarden .....

.....and one of our favorites, a colorful pair of pastel kiku from Keikonoheya

As you can see, kanzashi chrysanthemums are as varied as real ones.....so many flower forms and colors.

So, back to Helen's rather casual interpretations......here's a black and white little number to go with today's new fashions.....

Buy it here...black dupioni silk, white shantung silk, and a freshwater pearl. Now here's something similar in a crisp raspberry silk satin that Helen got from Susie F, with yellow jade......

Buy this one here , and true to form, here's a pin made from a vintage silk  kimono Helen got from Suzanne C., sewn with a freshwater pearl.....

Buy it here .

So, in the end, Helen's chrysanthemums look pretty stylized and really don't resemble the real flowers, but you know, nobody much seems to care, and kanzashi is all about being stylized. So, enjoy.

Kanzashi Bracelet, Part Trois

Well, it's officially winter, and the weather around here has been annoying, and about to get far worse, from what I understand. Good time to turn our attention to other things, like this new bracelet idea.

Helen's friend Erin loves the color green, and each December, Helen gives herself the personal challenge of making something green for Erin's birthday. Since Helen noticed that Erin had been wearing a beautiful jade bracelet, you know in which direction the new ideas started to go! And since Helen and Erin's orchestral colleagues like to decorate themselves quite a bit for their Christmas concerts, well.....here's the fabric Helen chose, a chirimen silk sent by her Kanzashi Fairy Godmother in Japan.....

Helen used an idea similar to last year's kanzashi Christmas wreath pin....make a lot of skinny pointy petals, and glue them together in groups of three, then glue the groups to each other. Here's what she got:

An abstract sort of pepperminty wreath for your wrist! How do you fasten it? With some snaps.....

                                                    ....on either end....

           ...and a glued satin ribbon protects the underside. Here it is on our famous bracelet model.....

This design is pretty labor intensive, so Helen decided not to put it into commercial production, haha, but you go ahead and make it. You have time, right? Maybe more bracelets coming down the pike, I think!

Kanzashi Morning Glory

Helen and I love kanzashi morning glories! We've been admiring them for years, and Helen has tried to figure out how to make one the traditional way, with absolutely no success. We have observed two distinct petal shapes that other artists use for asagao, or morning glories. Here's an example of one....

....it might be hard to see, but it's a rounded petal that creates a trumpet-shaped flower. We think it's just so beautiful. You can buy this one on Etsy from JagataraArt here . Now, here's an example of the other petal shape, equally as beautiful....

This is also available on Etsy from GirLinKimono ; buy it here . Well, Helen even found an online tutorial for one of these, and couldn't make head or tail out of it. Not wanting to just give up, Helen made up her own morning glory petal. The goal was to look something like these...

                                                      ....and here's what Helen made.....

And guess what? Helen's new petal, while unorthodox for kanzashi, is pretty easy, so here's your tutorial! First, cut a 3-inch square of fabric and fold it roughly in thirds, like this...

....now, fold that in half...

.....now, pinch in the center, like this......

.....and fasten it with a bobby pin, or something.....

......and now stitch it, or glue it....whatever you usually do to make your kanzashi petals. Helen's sewn version looks like this on the back....

OK, now glue 5 of these together, leaving no space at the top. A variation you might want to try, is to sew or glue the petals in reverse, so that the smooth side is the front of the flower. We haven't tried that out yet, but we're thinking about it. Let us know what happens if you do it, OK? 

 

Nerdy botanical note: the above photo of flowers is a Google image generated from the keywords morning glories. If you search for asagao, you find photos of similar flowers, but the leaves are quite different; they have 3 lobes, not something you find in the Americas at all. So, we're assuming the Japanese asagao is a different species from what we look at in our neighborhood.

So, Helen made the above comb for herself. She's got some plans to make something similar to sell, from a rich, royal blue vintage kimono silk, and I don't know, something green for the leaves. We'll keep you posted!