Wednesday 10 March 2010

the apple musubi..

In my last post I showed you a new musubi I've been trying... Now here's the tutorial!

I did mine in the front and the slided it in the back.

You will need a fukuro obi that has at least 30cm of design on the tesaki part.

a. fold the tesaki diagonally and fan it, like in the pic below; I secured it with a small rubber band:


b. fold the rest in half and wrap it twice around your waist, finishing with the taresaki part over the tesaki part:


c. make a knot just like here:



d. bring the folded tesaki under the taresaki, but over the knot you previously made...


e. ... and then fold the taresaki part in 4 (fold in half and then again in half), putting it over the tesaki and secure the whole thing with a koshihimo:


f. unfold the rest of the taresaki...


g. ... and then prepare it just like you would for a otaiko and place the makura and part of the taresaki right over the koshihimo:


here is where you add the obiage, which I only added later - I forgot :oops:

h. continue doing the otaiko, and secure the musubi with the obijime; I forgot to take a picture of that too.


i. this is where you slide it to your back; if you didn't use padding (like me :) ), you will need to add something inside the taiko part, to make it look bigger/fluffier; I used a purse wrapped in a furoshiki:


j. lift the ends of the folded part of the taresaki, to create a pouched shape to your musubi and you're done:



If anyone feels I left anything out, please let me know. And I apologize for the non kimono presentation, but it's past 11 pm here.

I hope you'll enjoy this one :)

Sunday 7 March 2010

30th Birthday!


tdy5
Originally uploaded by ume bloom
After a long break, I finally got to wear kimono tonight. I went out to celebrate my 30th birthday (coincides with Hina Matsuri) with some of my friends (those who know my kimono habits).

Initially, I wanted to wear my furisode for the last time, but then decided for the more subdued early showa purple komon. This time I chose a fukuro obi that had shades of green in it and, though you can't really notice it, the white and purple obiage.

For the musubi, I decided I's give a try to Yamatoku's "How to wear townwear kimono" musubi which I named apple musubi. Still a lot of work to get the shape right, but I hope I am getting in the right direction.

More pictures on my flickr account.