New Year and New Site!

Coming Soon!

Don't panic. Everything for customers will just about be the same. 

Except I signed up for Pattern through Etsy, and now I have a legitimate website.  I like the new interface, it feels more like a "shop" than more of Etsy.  Plus I still get to keep Etsy, and that whole back end.  However, I will probably be changing the blog over to the new website, and dropping this older, separated aspect of the store.  Looking for more of an integrated feel this year.

I have also been finishing new pieces like mad!  I finished another headband piece since I liked how the prototype came out so well. I also have a large hair fork, a small hair fork, and I am working on another large piece.  Most of these are large kiku pieces I made and then set aside, and am now able to finish filler pieces and attachments. 

I also have been updating listings on the site, but not much of the kanzashi.  Mostly it has been other items, like bookmarks, and a few pieces I had made and never photographed. 

Coming Soon!!

My new year also brings a new office space (still in my home, of course), a dedicated room to my crafting endeavors.  It is part of the reason I am working through all this new kanzashi, making room to bring out other projects. I am still working on that large embroidery piece, I have a book on white work, and I still have rolls and rolls of washi paper to go through.  Not to mention I will be picking back up on the silk embroidery after my next lesson in March.  I am going to need all the space I can get. 

Shop Vacation and New Embroidery Project

 So the last piece of the year has been shipped off and recieved by my lovely customer, Shadowyoai, on Etsy.  (used with permission)

The final product ended up being a little higher up on the head than I had originally intended, but it was still a really good product in the end.  And I learned a few things, too.  Always good. 

She took the customer photos, and sent them to me.  Frankly, she looks FANTASTIC in her kitsuke costume.  LOVING this look!! But as mentioned, this is the last one of the year, and probably the last one for a while.  

Shop Notes:  

So I am still closing up the shop here in a few days.  I am still debating on how I will bring it back, but I have some time still I think to decide on that.  I still need to take more photos, and fixing pieces, but kanzashi just hasn't been in my heart as much lately.  That and being sick is making me really not want to work in general.

My new kimono pieces came in, and the sugata is perfect.  The kimono on the other hand is about 6 or 7 inches too short.  I was considering giving it to my daughter or something as she gets older, but in the meantime I have a lovely kimono I cannot wear, and have kind of lost interest in my own kitsuke collection in general.  Collecting is fun, but I have no one to wear it with, and my husband DETESTS tying my obi.  That and I have had little interest in spending more money to push the kanzashi I am not so interested in making anymore.  I have planned a table sale for the last 3 years and have done nothing.  And not that TZArtizan is no more, I have no steady encouragement to continue my art.  At least with kanzashi. 

I am moving back into needlework.  I have tentatively lined up another Japanese Embroidery Lesson in March, and I have started a new embroidery project in the meantime with thread painting using long and short stitch embroidery.  

So what I have posted here, is a machine embroidery design I have from a book I purchased some time back.  It is really designed to be a 4x5 inch piece, but I have blown it up into a 7x11 inch design.  I used this new print and stick material I found for embroidery, and was surprised that it is working so well.  There is adhesive under a light stabalizer that you can run through an inkjet printer and do an instant design transfer.  

The fabric is a natrual irish linen, and its mounted to a scroll frame (that was not as easy as I had originaly thought it would be).  After I got it mounted and straight, I traced on some guidelines for the background with a non-photo blue pencil, which was difficult since it was hard to tell which parts were supposed to be background and which parts were flower stems.  I am using a horizontal direction, and basted down the guidelines so not only would the pattern lay flat (it moved some after mounting on the frame, it was not easy to get that tension correct), but that the lines would not rub off when stitching. 

I have started just a bit of the painting down the left side, as I am going to work the background from left to right.  I have purple and yellow for the irises, of course, and 3 shades of green for the leaves, a rust brown color for the fan frame, and different blues for the circles on the fan and the cord on the bottom.  

In truth I expect this project to never finish, or at least take me 5-6 years.  If my health doesn't fail me first.   

Work Coming Along And Vacation Announcement!!!!

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

I have decided to close the shop temporarily after the shipping deadline for Christmas mail out (middle of December) and stay in vacation mode until late January. Lots of reasons why, but good reasons this time.

Firstly, I have a lot of personal stuff that goes on during December besides just the holidays (my extended family has a lot of birthdays, too) and in January I have girl scout cookie business.

Secondly, I have plans.  The store and product desperately need a revamp.  I am still deciding if I am going to take the store off Etsy entirely, and start my own website.  Etsy has been stale lately, but I do enjoy different aspects of it, like vacation mode and not having to deal with credit card payments.

Third, I need to re-do a lot, A LOT of my product.  It's not the flowers themselves, it's the mounting job.  Most of my early work is pretty terrible when it comes to attachments.  I have learned so much in the past year with regards to mounting and thread wrapping, it makes my old product look terrible. Not to mention I have product I haven't listed much less photographed. I also have several projects that are half finished, like washi jewelry, kumihimo, and ornaments.

So its going to be time for a big update.  Not planning on changing graphics though.


Now its time for work updates :)

Almost finished!! YAY!!!

So as you can see, this piece is really coming along.  I have finished mounting the frame for the bira bira and the shidare (you can kinda see the four spokes of gold wire for the shidare) and 2 of it's falls.  They are going to be an identical, repeating pattern of white on red, white on purple and white on white.

None of this part of the work is easy.  Mounting takes a strong grip that wears out the muscles in your hands, often leaving to cramping since I haven't done this in a while.  Also, its a lot of wrapping.  It took like 2 hours to wrap just the left side.  I also have to finish the wrapping on the right side which needs to come down another couple of inches.
The shidare part is the part that, I find, to be the most difficult.  Getting the petals to come together over a thin piece of nylon twine, without getting glue EVERYWHERE, and still managing to cover the high contrast colors underneath the white so they don't show down the middle....it's a lot to handle.  But these two I have managed pretty well.  I find the double layers are bigger and easier to deal with than the singles, so I went ahead and did that since it would give me a chance to lightly add some color, while keeping the white prominent.  (Her kimono is mostly white)

When it't done, though, it is going to be FANTASTIC!!!!  I know she will love it, although it is very delayed.  Like a month overdue.

Also, if there is anyone reading this who likes Facebook, I strongly suggest you check out the Immortal Geisha group, the Immortal Geisha Marketplace, and the DIY kimono group.  The Immortal Geisha people are AMAZING, I have grabbed some INCREDIBLE finds off the marketplace, and the DIY kimono group has some really great ideas for alterations and work arounds for wearing kimono!!!!  They are wonderful, caring people, and I don't say that often about people in groups.

Lastly, I am still collecting donations for Dimitri Conde to help his parents afford the burden of his Leukemia ALL diagnosis.  The local community helped her restore her house after it flooded with sewage, 3k in damages total.  But because of Demitri's condition, they have been back and forth to the hospital on many occasions, the last one requiring a two to three week stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Both parents are working minimal hours to provide around the clock care for Dimitri.  Please, please help in any way you can. :)

Getting Back to Work (Attempt Round 2)

This is yet another painfully overdue update.  But I have some good stuff to report.

bouquet

So this is the custom order I have been slowly working on.  Very slowly, but thankfully she has been incredibly understanding of my medical predicament (which I will go into later). 

There are three big kikus, several smaller filler pieces and a new dragonfly (which I have never attempted before).  All in all, the bouquet has come out amazing (she loves it), and the rest is falling into place.  I have this half mounted to the headband, and will continue the wrapping to the other side of the band (it's only about halfway right now, just to get the bouquet in place).
I also included a close up of the thread wrapping job, the stems are the usual 40w machine embroidery thread, with the headband wrapping being the nylon crochet thread I use for heavy jobs, and shidare.

wrap job

only halfway wrapped

 So the next part is the bira bira and the shidare frame, which will come down and be wrapped to the bottom half of the piece.  It's probably going to stick out a little bit so it doesn't get tangled in hair fibers and brushing against the ear. But I have to say since this is my first time doing a headband, it's coming out really well. 



Some of you may have noticed that the TZArtisan project hasn't been mentioned in some time.  It has been stalled for a while, and has officially been disbanded.  All the sites have been taken down and my unsold donations have been returned to me.  I feel really bad for my team leader, Ariel, who has simply over committed herself, and can no longer hold a mantle of leader, and no one else has the ability to take her place. I am very sorry to see it go, but in the end, I was not surprised. 


On another note, I have found a group on Facebook that I have fallen completely in love with.  Immortal Geisha has taken their forum community off traditional forums and onto Facebook Groups!!! They are the sweetest, most informative, dedicated group I have ever met.  I love it!!! And if you love kitsuke as much as we do, by all means, JOIN!!!!

Speaking of kitsuke, I have another kimono I have added to my collection!

I found this red lovely on an Etsy shop, and fell IN LOVE.  I have always wanted a red kimono, and though I thought it would be more bright red than this darker rust red, that actually makes me love it more (darker reds are more my coloring).  I have a gold obi to pair it with, or the new green with gold and orange to red stitching, an "orange as orange can be" obiage, and a red silk round obijime.  I also bought a yellow one, but it's really too dirty to use.

I am now on the hunt for a proper nagajuban, but with a 25 inch sodetake, or sleeve length, it's not going to be easy.  I might have to suck it up an alter one. 

The rest of this is personal business.

So I have been sick, and among my various diseases, we have discovered along the way that I am in fact a Type 1 diabetic, I have Autism, and my reproductive system is screwed.   I seem to be always sick with something at some time.  I recently had a reaction to one of my mood stabilizers, forcing me to stop taking it.  Anyone with a mental health history knows what a difficult time this can be.  When I had last written a blog post, I was starting to do better.  I didn't thing the fight would be as long as it has been.  I had been ramping up on a new medication and it really seemed to be working, until I got to the final dosage, at least the actual regular dosage.  Then I broke out in hives all over and realized I was allergic.  2 months of telling myself it would get better, lying to myself. 
Then we tried two more medications, both were a bust.  I am currently on something I have taken before, and it's helping, but I still have side effects, and I don't know how long I have until I have to change on this one, too.

Mental illness is a never ending battle. I will never be cured, and I will fight my extreme emotional reactions, like my blood sugar, the rest of my life.   There is no cure, and there is barely help.  We have made more progress with Diabetes in the last decade than with mental health or women's health.  And while I am very glad to be off of shots and on an insulin pump, I still feel like I am out of my mind, and I never know if it is hormones or Autism. 

I wont go into great detail what I am like when I am sick. Just trust me, I am no fun to be around.

So while I have been sick I have been unable to work.  Which means I am behind on everything. I haven't done my photos, or Japanese Embroidery, or any embroidery.  All I have done is work this custom order and do house chores when I can.

I am going to keep working for now, that I am able.  I plan on putting on the bira bira frame today on that headband order, and after that I will be working on updating inventory for the store.  I might even shut it down and move it to my own hosted site.  Maybe next year.

New GoFundMe Campaign and Store Notes

New Set

So first to business.

Donate Directly Here

All new sales are going to Dimitri Conde's Leukemia ALL Medical Fund.
Dimitri is a child who is also on spectrum, and shared a class with my own son.  His mom and I are good friends, and I immediately jumped on the opportunity to run their donation campaign.


Now for store notes:

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to work, but I have been working.  With the new fundraising campaign, and the new job, and trying to sell my house, my work has gone to the back burner.
But I did manage to list all those pumpkin/goldenrod pieces, and I have made those two new kikus, of which i decided to scrap the one of them because I just didn't really like it.
I have continued the color scheme, with this two piece set, one of which will have a bira bira and one will have a shidare, kind of like the sister kanzashi set, though slightly bigger.

New Kiku

I have enjoyed doing sets like this, though I will probably be doing an orange promo set, since orange is the color of Leukemia.

I have also got my new silk embroidery set in the mail!!!  It's larger than I visualized, but that is not a complaint.  I now have all the supplies for my piece, and tools- everything!!!!  I am probably going to push classes back till June because I already have to work memorial day weekend on 6 hr shift.  At a retail store, that is 6 hrs of intense work.
Not only that but I am currently working on selling my house, which will be a 3-4 month process.
And now I'm doing this fundraiser as well.

But as you can see in the top picture I am stocking up on certain supplies.  I am expecting a mini-vacation soon where I hope to be able to work intensely on this set and a few other pieces, as to be completed by the end of May.   Then I can focus on the personal end until the Japanese Silk Embroidery lesson in mid to late June.

So busy I forgot to post

Sold 4-20-2017!!!

Spring is here and that means things are wild at home and at work.

I have finished photographing 5 new pieces, with a new kiku made and another in the works.
Not only that but I have landed several sales lately (six of which were the clearanced ornaments) which makes more space and also let me order more fabric! Squee!!!!  Now I have 4 shades of green, 3 colors of multicolor chirimen, and a few colors for some upcoming projects. They are on their way, so I am hoping it will be here early next week.

New Kiku!!!

The pic on the right/below is one of the 2 new kikus I have made (am making).  The one not pictured is white with aqua and teal pointed petals.  This one is a rounded petal with pointed petal inbetween the rounded petal sections.  The pattern will spiral, and the section not placed is china red. I have about 3 layers on it now, and it looks awesome!

Meanwhile I have been working another set of pillowcases with crewel embroidery, all satin stitch. It's a lovely design of roses and leaves, with butterflies (a fairly commonly marketed pattern. I found it at Walmart of all places), that I picked up shortly after my surgery. I am using it to practice stitching for Japanese Silk Embroidery, which I am still hoping to start in June.  I was originally scheduled for may, but I am using my birthday money (which is beginning of may), and I don't think I can collect the necessary funds and place the order and RECEIVE it before June.  But when I get it, there will be pictures.  LOL.

I have also picked up quite the following of Japanese kanzashi artisans on instagram.  I keep finding people to follow that are such fantastic fabric artists, it's kinda shocking when they, too, like my work.  The constant positive feedback has made me delve into my work with renewed fury.  And every time I go looking through the suggested people to follow, I find more and more and more artisans.  It's no wonder I don't sell more internationally.  That and I am still improving my product, each and every time.

Speaking of which, my new thread-wrapping the hair stick really seems to be working but I need to review my glue usage. I'm not certain about the best way to glue the thread down so it doesnt unwrap.  Next up is nori, but it is SO SLOW to dry.  I also have things  like E6000, but it is hard to clean up and can be messy.  I am just going to have to keep trying before I reform ALL my previous pieces to this new technique.  ALONG WITH redoing all of my other hair forks to the new single stem, more traditional thread wrap style.

All in all, things are going well.  :)

Updated Work Report

completed temari

 I have been doing lots of work while the shop is closed.  But that energy is dwindling down, and I don't have much of it left. 

First up is my friend's ball. I finished the silver outline and decided to cut out the obi and negate most of the decorative stitching.  Most of the remaining areas are uneven, and doing more detail work would accentuate that further.  But it came out really well!!!! My stitches aren't masterwork, but this is definitely the best kiku I have ever done. 

Formerly white wedding bouquet

The rest of the kanzashi pictures are reworks.  The white kanzashi is from the white wedding piece, one  of the first big pieces I ever attempted.  I took off the shidare, and rewired each piece and thread wrapped it in olive green to match the foliage.  And a better hair fork than the original ones I used which always seemed to pull my hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thyroid awareness fork

This thyroid cancer awareness double sakura with pearls hair fork is something I made back in 2015, but the thicker nylon thread wrapping came loose and pulled away.  I rewired and reworked it to a new hair fork with rayon thread wrapping in pink.  The shidare has a cute little butterfly charm, the symbol of thyroid cancer awareness.

Nanaohana with side piece

 This nanohana (or rapeseed blossom/canola flower) is a beautiful display of lemon yellow.  With dark green leaves within the flowers to accentuate, this piece is a real improvement from it's smaller origin kanzashi.  I didn't feel right with the butterflies permanently wired in, so I used the left over blossoms and one of the butterflies to make an optional hair fork. 







I have several more I have fixed recently that will go back in the store as soon as I reopen.  For instance I fixed strawberries and cream piece, and I am about to start on the hydrangea pieces, all 3 of them. 

I also might start some bigger pieces, with silk.  I have a recipe for rice starch, and I was thinking about iris or narcissus kanzashi, especially since I have enough mizuhiki to make the proper leaf configuration. 

Meanwhile, I am working deeply in Muse to start my website, and updating DeviantART as well.  I have also started another temari which I plan on plotting today.  I am thinking a divided 6 config, though I don't think I have ever done that before.  I am going to go through my books later and pick a pattern.  Doesn't help the Mari is BRIGHT ORANGE, and I can't stitch it with black. 

Anyone have any ideas?? Feel free to comment or contact me.  I love correspondence!!!

No News Means I'm Still Working

I wasn't planning on it, but I am still working quite a bit this week and did a lot the week past.

I sent off my package to the TZArtisan Store.   Keep an eye out for a few recycled pieces, that white comb and fork I did, plus some new hair stick/hair pin sets. I also sent over several bookmarks, hair bands, and ornaments.

I am getting rid of the ornaments.  Soon they will go into clearance for the home decor and after Christmas, the holiday ones will go into clearance as well.

I have started mapping out a new website front end for Etsy.  I'm not using "Pattern" like they suggest, I am using Muse from Adobe to construct this bad boy.  I am pretty excited and think I have a good handle on it from hours of watching video tutorials.  I will go ahead and purchase the Muse package as soon as my Lupron fiasco is handled.

Speaking of which, started that yesterday. So October 6th or so, I will reopen the store.

 Meanwhile I have been working Temari!!!!  I just put the final section of purple in to an interwoven double-sided kiku on a silver-grey mari, and am about to start the final parts of silver detailing.  I might put in an octagon on the top and bottom poles as well in different shades of white to lavender to purple to match the kiku.
This one isn't going in the store, but to one of my good friends.  I didn't expect it to turn out so well, especially since I had to rip out stitches multiple times.  But it really is a beauty. And kikus are my favorite.

I do want to do another for the shop though.  And that will come closer to after Lupron.  Temari are intricate, meticulously precise work.  A properly measured grid is crucial.  And the first few rounds are generally pretty confusing.  But once you can see the pattern with your eyes, and the threads start layering properly, it goes pretty quickly.

I still have a bunch of headbands to finish before I can use the table my sewing machine is on for taking shop photos.  Most of them are for my daughter's shop, but I still have 5 or 6 left for the shop to complete.

I have a 2 page list of things I need to do this month, like kanzashi repairs and websites.  So even though I probably won't be posting much, I'm still working.