New Piece (Again!)

I am still waiting for my new chirimen order to come in, which should be either this Tuesday or Wednesday.  When it gets here, I can finally finish up that phoenix kanzashi that is enormous.   But in the mean time I have been playing with new fabrics I got recently! My favorite has been this rusty, deep red with stripes of golden yellow through it.  It has made for some great momiji kanzashi! As yous can see, the colors blend together to give it that great dyed effect you so often see on silk kanzashi.  The greens are tea green and yellow green. 


I did attempt to use the gold mizuhiki that I purchased to make the centers.  Bad idea.  Not only did it not hold, it was very messy.  I am still not certain how that traditional spiral is accomplished with mizuhiki, but I am going to keep trying on the side.  Meanwhile I went back to gold memory thread from DMC, which has a copper strand in the center of the wrapped thread to give it hold. 

I also a custom order and sent out some recent bookmark sales! I have been slowly restocking my washi paper here and there, looking for new patterns and cheap deals.  I actually made some decent money this month, though it has all been spent on new fabrics already. 

My workstation is a mess though, and before I start delving into new pieces again, I have some major cleanup work to do.  After I finish this wonderful momiji and phoenix pieces.  Then I am going to do a few barrettes and by then it will be the new year.

In other notes, a Japanese Yuzen (silk dyer) has struck up a friendship with me, to ask for Etsy assistance and to help him learn better English. I have agreed wholeheartedly. He is young, but comes from a family of silk dyers. The panels he creates are stunning works of traditional art. I hope one day to go visit his workshop in Japan to see how he works.  It is serendipitous that he happens to live in my favorite city of Kyoto.

New Phoenix Piece In Process!

First Attempt

      So I have been working this phoenix piece, trying to recreate a sort of mish-mash between a crane kanzashi and my original phoenix piece I tried years ago.  I have completed the frame, which is all thread wrapped wire.  The head, neck, and feet are all Rayon 40w Machine emobridery thread, and the tail is the nylon crochet thread I like the use for the bira bira
       The wings you see below are the new set and they are HUGE.   I have made them proportional to the tail length but at the same time they are at least 3.5 to 4 inches in width.  Not only that, but I have used up the last of my red chirimen in order to make this piece.  I even have two different colors of red in there, the china red and the dark red.  But frankly you can't tell unless you look very closely at the real piece.  I still have one more row of rounded petals I want to place around the neck to make it more full and to hide the underneath better.

New Wings

    Though I have made enough sales lately between custom orders and random items that I put in a new chirimen order! It should arrive next week I hope, so that I can have more red (and some other colors) to finish these wings off.  Meanwhile I will be working on the tail, which is the same colors at the original piece. 
     Seeing as this baby is HUGE i am going to have to eventually try again on a much smaller piece that I can handle better.  But it was fun to try a bird again.  Cranes are awesome too but I didn't have enough white to pull something like that off.  (I will once this new order come in.)

     I have a few more ideas on things I am going to make.  I am going to spend some time making stock items to build up some inventory for not only the TZArtisan shop but my own as well.  I also have that big stock of new prints I got from Ariel, the TZArtisan team leader, and the barrette forms and things I want to play with.  I still have that mizuhiki to try out, and I want to do some Christmas pieces.  I'm not sure I will get it all done this year, though. 

Working Slowly, but Making Progress

New Piece

 Things have been progressing slowly, but coming along well.  I finished a new piece seen on the left, and it was a fun piece to make. I have started a new piece after this one, a nice phoenix. I have almost finished the frame for the head and neck, tail, and legs.  I should have enough fabric for the tail, and hopefully the wings.  Not really sure about that one though. 

 Other things I have been working on is a major donation to the Japanese-American Society of Chicago, who invited me in on their annual Holiday Gala and Silent Auction.  I am extremely excited!!!!
I am shipping off two of my best kanzashi, along with a batch of my new business cards!!! (which was a complete pain.) THe front came out great and the back is a little dark. But I ordered 500 to start and I am going to be passing these things out like crazy.  So there's that.

New Business Card Front!

Other big thing is that I have started a pintrest account! Mainly because saving all these pictures that inspire me to my drop box is killing me.  I dont distribute them, and they are only for my visual inspiration.  But its getting to be a huge file. 

Pintrest has been great in a variety of my artistic aspects.  I get to look at hair styles, which most of them I can't use because my hair is WAY too long.  Like it's all the way down my back kind of long.  But the international display of kanzashi is mesmerizing.  I dont think I could do all of them, the botan petal is only good with silk, though I might try that soon.  I do have some silk lying around. All the color styles, mix of traditional and neo-traditional mixed with kimono specific themes, it is mesmerizing.

Photos are on hold for now, which means no new shop product for a bit.  My table was confiscated for family use (again) and I need a new one but since I have spent so much on business cards and boxes for kanzashi donations and shipping things lately, not to mention a new huge print chirimen rayon order, I am out of funds again. But I have a lot of new supplies like barrette forms (rectangle and oval) and a ton of new inspiration. 

Shipments will be on hold next weekend, as I am going on another camping trip with my daughter.  Should be a blast.  I hope it's not too crazy.  The last one was pretty crazy.  I will have to pack food for this one, since of the meals is not provided. but they have working refrigerators so I think I am going to be ok. 

Shop is Open and Upcoming Work

I haven't updated this in some time, and I apologize for that.

I did manage to get that wisteria finished, now that I have hair pins again, and she is waiting for photos.  I really like the little curly vine i did with the leaves. I really like how this one came out, though I was hoping for some different colors.  I have to do a new order though, before I can complete another.  These take a LOT of fabric!!!

 While I have been feeling better on the Lupron, (so, so much better), I haven't had much time to get into kanzashi work due to a backlog of life chores.  I'm still working a temari for my son, and while there are a LOT of mistakes, it is coming along as a good practice ball for future use of this pattern (a three wing design). He wont mind the mistakes, he just likes the ball and colors. 

Sold 10-21-2016

I did manage to land a small sale, this large momiji piece.  It was one of the better ones to come out of my hotel stay, and I might have to make a few more.  Especially now that I have......gold and silver mizuhiki!!!!   I have been looking for it for a while and now that I ahve found some I am going to use the heck out of it.  Cause for as small an amount as I use, one pack is huge quantity. 

 That and with the sale profits I bought a bunch new barrette toppers, more oval and some rectangles this time, 25 of each.  Lots of pieces to make, and with enough that I wont be afraid to use them. I am actually really excited to give these out as Christmas gifts to some of the nieces I have. Should be fun.  And I might be able to pull off some more difficult pieces, like sakura's on water or dewdrops. I also need to do some christmas stuff soon, hopefully with these.  I can do some poinsettias on white and such, since I have never done one of those before. 

I am also finally starting to prepare my video tutorial scripts and such.  So hopefully I can get somewhere with that, too. 

This weekend I will be out.  All orders will be shipped out Tuesday, November 1.  I am going take a marathon vacation, and head out to Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans.  Hopefully I will have more updates after that.

Shop Reopening Soon!

You guys know how much I love to give out updates....

Been working on this new pink wisteria piece quite a bit.  It's come quite far in just a few short days.  I have to work on leaves this time, unlike my moronic self last time which I FORGOT to make for the last wisteria piece.




The rest of these are final shots of items that will be in the store.  As you can see, I have really gotten a hang of the botan or peony style kanzashi layering. 

This one is burgundy and black, but kept coming out so red on camera.  It's a beautiful barrette, which I have never really carried before in plethora. Now I have started with 4 and have 6 more to decorate.

The momiji is worth noting because it came out so well in size and dimension.  Its larger than the last single momiji I did, and I want to play with these more.

The last one below is a peony I was experimenting with.  I don't really like the layering, but the colors are fantastic.  I am almost out of this pattern material, going to have to get more if they still carry it. 


I've actually had quite a few colors get discontinued.  A peach, an orange, a few blues and all the violets have gone away.  I am saddened that I can't remake all my pieces now that several of these colors are gone.  But such is life.

I want to reopen the shop this Saturday, October 8, after I get doctor clearance on Friday. So maybe soon.  Right now I am still having severe side effects that will continue until my next dosage on Friday.

Meanwhile I am still working on the pink wisteria! We shall see how it goes.

Almost Back From Vacation

 So, I was able to only have 3 days of getaway but it was a productive time, albeit shorter than planned.

The first piece I went after was this wisteria bouquet, which came out really well, except she is missing leaves.  I face-palmed when I realized I had already bound her up and left out the leaves and butterflies and things that make these pieces really pop.  So I will either put her up at a discount, or just unmount her and start over.










The next piece I attempted were these three, a true peony style.  I have wanted to make one of these for a while but never had the experimental nerve to risk losing chirimen.  I made the blue one first, which I didn't like that you can't see the patterned fabric hardly. I made the red one next, and tried to cut the petal a different size.  I made the fourth one last, but I still think the first method was the best.  So, print on the exterior of the petal, and solid interior.  I used 1.5 inch squares for the outer ring and trimmed them up a bit for the second inner ring. The third is one inch squares folded in rounded petal, but with just three.  My base was 1 3/4 inch circle.






Then I got into the barrettes, which are coming out beautifully! I love my pink one and the green one, I really get to show off prints and small left over colors I only have a few scraps remaining. 
I also have tons of mizuhiki to use for this now, and I am really looking forward to using that.  I just need to find some gold and silver, but I do have several other colors.
I started with an order of 10 for the forms and I have already covered them all in fabric.  I am still deciding exactly how I am going to cover each one, but it is going to be a lot of fun to experiment.  




There are several other pieces I have not photographed just because they were nothing beyond my usual work.  I did a large momiji on a hair stick and another attempt at a peony cluster in blue and purple.  I also started a autumn colored kiku for a comb or bouquet.  But I have enjoyed doing these barrettes the most. There will be LOTS more of these.

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!!!