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!

Christmas Kanzashi 2013

Season's Greetings to all, and as usual, there's not much time to post today, but I thought I'd show you a couple new Christmas pieces that Helen has made for her Etsy shop.

First, one of Helen's many cross-cultural creations! A pair of kanzashi bobby pin flowers made from a small remnant of the vintage Liberty of London cotton print, "Ianthe". Helen had no idea that Liberty of London, or Liberty Tana Lawn, was A Thing, but it is. Helen showed the fabric to J9 over her Thanksgiving visit, and J9, a fabric connoisseur, got all excited. Here's the pattern, a very art nouveau looking thing....

.....and here are Helen's more abstract looking bobby pins, complete with vintage faux pearls....

Buy 'em here . Next, here are some snap clip flowers that Helen made from a small piece of Japanese linen that Suzanne C. gave to Helen. Very Christmassy!

Bigger pictures are here , where you can also buy them. There's another Christmassy sort of thing coming down the pike, but we need to reserve that one for another post!

Meanwhile, J9 convinced Helen to try a rotary cutter, which is fairly standard for kanzashi makers, but which Helen had resisted for years. The good things are that it can be a more accurate than shears and that it allows you to skip the step of marking your fabric. The down side is that Helen is having a little trouble getting the hang of it. We think that she has already managed to dull part of her blade, because of rubbing against her rulers, or something. The wheel seems to skip, and some fabric shredding is going on. Any tips from you more experienced rotary cutter users are much appreciated!

Review from Christine

Just a quickie, tonight, I guess. Christine posted her very lovely review of some of Helen's work a few days ago. Read it here . Also, Christine sent Helen some of her beautiful photos, such as this one...

(Logo by Christine). A new version of these clips is posted on Etsy here . And this one. These little ume, or plum flowers, are listed on Etsy as a snap clip pair. Christine requested these on ponytail elastics, as she wanted to wear them with her braids. Helen thought it was a cute idea.....

This is a made-to-order item, which you can find here .

Anyhoo, at this moment, Helen is laboriously and slowly experimenting with something. Necessity is the mother of invention, as is making up something of your own if you can't figure out how to do it the way everyone else does it. All shall be revealed when Helen finally finishes her project. For now, we have high hopes.

Daffodil Kanzashi

It's certainly not daffodil season anymore, but Helen has had daffodils on the brain recently. Someone bought one of her kanzashi daffodil bridal head pieces, and Helen had an idea to replace it with a different one, so the synapses began to fire. The final result springs forth from a long line of daffodils.

First, here are some other ones, just for fun. This first is one of Helen's, and some of you may have seen it before. Helen made it from a delightful buttery yellow linen...

Buy it here. Let's look at some other interpretations of daffodil kanzashi (and there are many more than I can post here). Here's a lovely one from KanzashiCore...

We especially like the botanically correct addition of the strap-like leaves that daffodils have. Read the article on the KanzashiCore website here. Next, let's look at a beautiful multi-flowered hair stick assemblage from Mizu's Garden on Etsy. As you can see, these colorful daffodils are made using entirely different petal shapes than the previous two...

...and finally, let's look at a set of cute little hair clips from JuLVa on Etsy. Here, the daffodil leaves are cleverly represented by lengths of cut ribbon...

So, this brings us to Helen's new daff. Some time ago, Helen's cyber-friend Lannette sent her remnants of a beautiful, barely off-white dupioni silk, left over from construction of a wedding gown. Helen has used it a few times for various projects, and was drooling over the thought of using it for a bridal daffodil comb. She just had to figure out what to do about the center....the solution turned out to be a petal shape that Helen invented a couple years ago. Here it is....

Freshwater pearl in the center. Buy it here.

So, once again, you can see why kanzashi is so appealing to so many artists---visions of the same flower can be expressed so many different ways. The limit is our imagination.

Kanzashi Bracelet(s)?

Why all the doubt? Helen had been talking about kanzashi bracelets for a long time, and had ideas about how she was going to put them together, what kind of flowers and fabric to use, etc. Now, she doesn't know whether to continue making these, and she NEEDS YOUR HELP.

Here's what she did: she bought some of those extra large hair elastic thingies at the dollar store. For a dollar. She made 6 of her hydrangea flowers, and attached them to said hair elastic. Here's what she got:

 

 

OK, you get the idea. Here's a shot where you can sort of see how she attached the flowers:

 

 

So, here's the question, dear readers and commenters. Does it look too much like a fancy hair scrunchy? Helen just doesn't know if she should invest more time and energy into these. It might just need a good model, someone with really nice nails who is also photogenic, like Rebecca. 

 

Helen posted a photo on the face books and asked people what they thought; nobody said a word. Same thing on Flickr: one person said she liked it (thanks, Carly!). Folks, we desperately need more opinions, so give ol' Helen a break here, and tell her whether you think this project is worth pursuing some more. Don't be afraid to say that you don't care for it, OK? It's all right. We are just mired in doubt and need some guidance from design-conscience people, like you!

 

 

 

More Necklaces and a Pin

Helen and I have both been very busy, of course, but we found time to make a few things in between working, trying to garden a little in this very cold weather, and trying to organize a few reviews of Helen's new recording (check out the super sexy new press release and a couple tunes here). To begin with, Helen made her first nanohana.

Nanohana is the flower of the rape plant. Despite its unfortunate English name, rape is a very tasty vegetable, and I understand its seeds are also useful! Nanohana is a kanzashi flower for March, and is usually portrayed in clusters. Helen just made one as a pendant from vintage kimono silk with a wonderfully crinkly texture...

 

Buy the necklace here. What else? A colorful little star-shaped flower from the remains of a beautiful silk blend jacquard that Helen's friend J9 gave her.....

 

 

....a red habotai flower with yellow jade.....

 

 

.....buy it here  . And finally, a flower that just had to be a brooch, made from an old silk scarf that J9 gave to Helen...

 

 

We just love the colors. It will probably end up in a gallery. We can see making some ume or plum flower pendants from this fabric.

 

OK, that's all for the moment. Soon, kanzashi bracelets.

Plum Flower Kanzashi

 

It's February, and things can happen, like furnaces malfunctioning. That happened to us the other day, and the furnace guy said he would return with the part he needed to replace the next day. When it became evident that the temperature was going to drop significantly, Helen asked her friend Rebecca if we could stay at her house, just across the street. Rebecca was very gracious and we all had a fun time socializing in her living room, and of course, I explored the house some. Early the next morning, Rebecca went off to teach, the kids went off to school, Helen went to train with her weightlifting coach, and I went off to have a good nap in one of the secret hiding places I found. Many hours later, the humans were in hysterics because they couldn't find me! When I got up, they acted like it was a big miracle, but instead of welcoming me with squeals of delight and a big bowl of food, Helen crammed me into a cat carrier and hustled me across the street to our house, telling me how worried they all had been. Just what is the big deal?

Anyway, as I was saying, it's February, and that is the month for ume, or plum flower kanzashi. I would say that the ume are perhaps the most iconic of the kanzashi. They have just 5 rounded petals and are so lovely in their simplicity. Let's take a look at some.

Here's one of Helen's snap clip pairs.....simple little silk flowers with onyx bead centers....

Buy 'em here. OK, let's look at a few other artists' use of ume. Lilyashes from Kanzashi Temple on Etsy has made a graceful large assemblage of chirimen silk ume with wonderful leaves and shidari falls.....

Kitty Kanzashi on Etsy illustrates that ume don't have to be small in this beautiful wedding hair piece...

 

....and Random Cat Girl on Etsy demonstrates a kind of colorful layering with this lovely comb...

 

 

....and I can't resist showing an example of the wonderful effect of ume made from printed fabric, as Helen demonstrates with another one of her vintage kimono silk snap clip pairs...

 

 

Buy 'em here . OK, so we could really go on and on, as kanzashi artists are creative people who might well make more ume than anything else. You get the idea. In any case, it's a good way to get through February.