News and Stuff

So, it's been around 3 months since I've posted anything at all, I understand. Well, Helen has had quite the schedule of heavy lifting working for these people . That's mostly it, no other excuses. I'm enjoying my afterlife here...it's fun. I don't know why some humans call it the Rainbow Bridge....I don't see any bridges or rainbows. Just lots of nice cats, all of whom I like, and plenty of mice for if you're hungry.

I thought I would post a few newsy items since well, kanzashi productivity has been down some. Helen contacted this gal Sara on the Instagrams....Sara lives in New York and likes to wear men's clothing, and she blogs about it here . Sara has a great big following, and Helen was very happy that Sara was interested in modeling a couple kanzashi lapel flowers. Here's a photo of the first one that Sara chose.....

Here's another one.....



Dapper, no? Check it out on Sara's website for more pix!

Meanwhile, Helen's friend Angela was cleaning out her sewing space, and offered fabric remnants to all interested parties on the Facebooks! Helen grabbed a small bag of African cotton prints. Here are a few of her new African cotton lapel flowers:











There's more, but we'll save it. There are other folks on Instagram who have offered their photography and modeling services.....we'll be posting more of these as they come to fruition. Meanwhile, here are a few more new fun lapel flowers!









Buy 'em all here !

Kanzashi Bow Tie Lapel Pin Tutorial

Sadie here, blogging from the beyond. Now, about a year ago, Helen was trying to make the traditional asagao, or morning glory petal shapes.....there are two of them, and Helen would have loved to have figured out either one of them, but she couldn't. The only thing left to do was to to make up her own. The petal she came up with is quite unorthodox in the kanzashi world, as it requires folding a square of fabric roughly into 3, like this....

...Be sure that the raw edge isn't too close to the folded edge.  Helen used 2.5 inch squares of vintage kimono silk for these, just to give you an idea of the size. Now, fold your rectangle in half.....

.....and now pinch it in the middle and secure it with a hair pin, or something.....

Make two, and get them to be about the same size and shape. So, now you can sew or glue them together, whichever works for you at the moment, and then cut off the excess fabric, of course, the way you would with any kanzashi petal. OK, now hot glue the two petals together at their skinniest point.....this is just to help make the final assembly easier....

OK, stage 1 is done. Now, cut a little fabric for the center. You may want to cut it on the bias, but it is not always necessary. Helen used a strip of fabric about 1.5 inches wide, folded it in thirds, and secured it with hair pins....

OK, now find a part you like for the bow tie center and drape it LOOSELY over the bow.....

...and glue the strip to the back of the bow accordingly.....

....and now glue the other end onto the back....

and cut it.

OK, now is the point where I have to apologize, because I wasn't around to supervise. Helen forgot to take a picture of the next step, which is to glue down these raw edges and glue the pin end of blank tie tack to the back. You need to use a tie tack finding with a very small pin base....it should look a little like a nail. Sorry about that! All right, next, cut a small oval of fabric for the backing, probably sticking with the same fabric you have been using.....

The oval can probably be skinnier, but you can always take away! Now stick the center of the oval through the tie tack pin.....

....and glue the fabric onto the pin base and also glue the edges down, making sure your backing doesn't extend too far, because we don't want it to be visible. Now is the time to make the oval skinnier if you need to. The backing covers raw edges and also protects and reinforces the pin.....

....and voila, there is your bow tie lapel pin!

Last Ditch Effort with Planet Alpha Male

Sadie here, blogging from the Beyond. It's pretty nice here, plenty to eat, sunshine, other cats to play with, mice, toys, soft places to sleep. I said I would continue to blog even after my passing, because Helen is too busy. At least here, my kidneys are just fine, thanks. 

So, Helen made a lot of stuff for her pal Michael to sell at his Planet Alpha Male booth at the 4th Annual Last Ditch Effort fair, the brainchild of Helen and Michael's friend Angela . The Last Ditch has all sorts of great local handmade stuff: art, accessories, jewelry, food, reiki, massage, home decor, soaps, you name it. And it is just a few days before Christmas, for all us procrastinators. So you see, this is OUR fair.

Helen only had the chance to take a few pictures of the seasonal kanzashi lapel pins that she made special for the Last Ditch Effort. Some of them are quite unique, so I thought I would show them to you. First, Helen's only kanzashi poinsettia, shantung silk with some new mineral beads whose name Helen can't remember.....

Next, a modernistic wreath made from a wonderful iridescent silk that J9 gave to 

Helen......

And finally, a little woolen bow tie....

Kanzashi bow tie? It's easy! First, look at one of my older blog posts from when Helen had to make up her own asagao or morning glory petal, because she couldn't figure out either of the traditional ones. Read it here. I'll post a complete tutorial  with pictures and everything next time! Meanwhile, for those of you who are coming, The Last Ditch Effort is Saturday, December 20th in the Milwaukee County Housing Authority building, 650 W. Reservoir Avenue in Milwaukee! Join us 11 AM to 6 PM.

Guest Blogger: Helen

Well, it's time to fess up. It is with great sadness that I must report to you that Sadie the Snowball Princess died on November 20, 2014. She had been living with kidney disease for about 2 1/4 years, and that's about as long as a cat can go with that kind of thing. I loved my little woogums very much, and I hope she is in a better place.

Sadie's early life was difficult. My friend Jason adopted her from the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society shelter. At that time, Sadie had just had kittens, and she was so stressed out that half the hair on her body was missing. She was to be a companion cat for Jason's well-known rambunctious and obnoxious cat, Babu. Jason brought Sadie home, and she and Babu became friends, but not before Sadie spent three days hiding under a claw-foot bathtub.

Sadie lived with Jason and Babu for 6 years, after which the two cats were guests in a number of households, venturing as far away as Jason's sister's house in Houston. In late May of 2012, Jason and his mom endured the miserable 23-hour car trip to bring the two cats from Houston to my house, south of Milwaukee.

I could see that the 19 1/2 year-old Babu was the boss. He called the shots, but also did the heavy lifting. When food was requested, he made the noise, but then always let Sadie eat first. If there was a lap available to sit on, it was Babu's, and Sadie was warned to stay away. Babu soon developed kitty dementia, and he died in July 2012.

After Babu's death, Sadie became the alpha cat, a role she filled admirably. In addition to blogging, she also excelled in mouse-catching, mouse-intimidation, lap-sitting, and napping. We were very close.

In the latter part of Sadie's life, we treated high blood pressure and anemia, in addition to her kidney disease. She did very well with her various therapies, but in the end, kidney failure is kidney failure, and her condition worsened very quickly. I was grateful that we were able to do euthanasia at home, to ease Sadie's journey into the next kitty world smoothly.

Um, I have no new kanzashi photos to share with you at this time, but Sadie has graciously agreed to blog posthumously from her afterlife, and she will be probably be getting to that in the next few weeks.

Planet Alpha Male

I mentioned a few posts ago that Helen was going to partner up with a marketing professional to sell her kanzashi men's lapel flowers. Well, it has happened! The webstore is up. A few more things are going to happen to complete it, but you can now get a look at some of the flower pins Helen has made especially for the shop at Planet Alpha Male. Here are a few of my favorites:

This first one is vintage kimono silk with a coin pearl center....note all the different textures.....

.....Here's something unusual; cotton replica African kente cloth with a red coral center.....

.....and here's a fall colors Japanese maple leaf of vintage kimono silk with a mineral bead of uncertain parentage and brass wire.......

.....and here's a brown-ish maroon and grey vintage kimono silk with another mineral bead.....

......a wonderful manly silk sent by Helen's Kanzashi Fairy Godmother in Japan, with a coin pearl....

....and a rich brown plaid vintage kimono silk one with a mineral bead......

And here's our favorite modeled picture, so far! He's wearing a chirimen silk flower with a coral bead......

This look has gotten big time kudos on the Instagrams......what do you guys think?

War and Remembrance

Veteran's Day/Armistice Day/Remembrance Day is a little over a month away. Helen never gave it a second thought until one of her cousins, who spent some childhood years in Europe and visited there as an adult, suggested that she make a remembrance poppy lapel flower. These are a frequent accessory in the UK and a few other places, it turns out, at this time of year. A little Internet research revealed that this bright red poppy, Papaver rhoeas or the Flanders poppy, grows readily on disturbed earth, and the battlefields of Europe during World War I provided plenty of that.

So, here is Helen's kanzashi version of the remembrance poppy....

Silk charmeuse flower, dupioni silk leaves, Swarovski crystal center anchored by a glass seed bead. Buy it here .

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.