February 23, 2013

New kimono cupboards!

A few weeks ago my boyfriend and I had the idea to move the desk that's on our first floor landing, to our open attic kind of space. Which meant a lot of space for my kimono, yay!

Curious about what the best Ikea cupboard would be for kimono, I asked around on facebook (thank you Lyuba for your SK-post!). A few days later we went to Ikea in search of those Malm-cupboards, or chest of drawers. Almost next to the Malm cupboards stood a Hemnes-cupboard, the one Lyuba mentioned....

My original idea was to buy 2 or 3 Malm's with 6 drawers (123 cm high). They would fit perfectly underneath our tilted roof and we could place them right next to each other, so it would look like one very big Malm.

But... my boyfriend thought they were just to modern for our house (we live in a farm). So we went to look for other cupboards and there was Hemnes! A bit higher that the 3 drawer Malm and a bit wider but perfect for kimono! There was just one thing about them... Because the top of the cupboard sticks out on both side, they can't be put next to each other without space between them. We thought deeply about it and evenually bought 2 blackbrown Hemnes cupboards!

After clearing the landing and assembling the cupboards, it looks very very neat! Because we have only 1 light on our landing, it got a little dark at the far corner of the landing and cupboards. And that's where my sweet bf got the brilliant idea to hang a string of Christmas-light in the nook of a big wooden beam of our roof. And it's perfect!

It took me a few days to get to the organizing part of my kimono, how and where do I store what? See for yourself, this is the result ^_~

All pics are taken with my phone, quality can be dodgy...

Sorry for the flurry bright spot, that's because there's a very big window just above the cupboards.
A bit tricky to see, but this is in evening with the Christmas-lights on. Sweet don't you think?

Left cupboard, bottom drawer.
I was a but stunned that all my obi could fit this drawer, since previously they were in 2 roll-containers. Together with my 3 pairs of geta and zori.
In total there are 7 hanhaba, 13 nagoya and 10 fukuro obi in this drawer.

Left cupboard, middle drawer holds 3 yukata, 4 hitoe (unlined) kimono, 4 juban and a box with little pieces of fabric of which I want to make han eri or obiage of.

Left cupboard, top drawer holds my underwear, socks and a few more non-kitsuke things :-)





Right cupboard, bottom drawer.
This drawer holds my haori, 6 iromuji (all awase, lined) and my other awase kimono.



Right cupboard, middle drawer.
This is my 'special' drawer. In here are my 2 beautiful furisode, 3 awase pre-WWII kimono (at least I think they are, since they have red lining, which mostly indicated pre-WWII) and some kimono I like very much.





  

Right cupboard, top drawer.
All my komono nicely separated in boxes. Finally some order for all these things!

On top of the right cupboard are all my kimono-related books/dvd's and a box of ribbons.





















Now I've also got perfect spots for 2 of my dummies.

The third dummy may get a place in our living room, but I have to get her dressed for that :-)

And finally, after 1,5/2 years standing in a little corner of our living room, a nice place to hang my embroidered Japanese scene.

I am a very happy girl!

January 20, 2013

A new year, a fresh start???

 It has been a very very long time since I've worn kimono! The last time was to the Floriade with 3 other members of Kimono de Jack NL last September. That means I can honestly say last years resolution of Every month a kimono didn't last... It went well until July, August didn't happen 'cause of my summer holiday, September was KdJ and that was the last of it.
Let's hope 2013 will get better kimono-wise :-)

At least I've made a good start! Last Friday at a comicbookshop there was a booksigning by the French artist HUB. He's the artist and writer of the comic-series Okko, a ronin in a land that is a combination of ancient Japan and fantasy (because of all the demons). His drawings are very beautiful and I think very accurate (but I don't know that much about Japanese history).
So I decided to go in kimono. Unfortunately I don't have any photo's, but I wore my olivegreen houmongi with the orange/peach obi with (royal) cart on it. I chose this kimono because it's of perfect lenght and nice and warm. Of course because of the cold weather here, I wore lots of layers and luckily didn't feel cold.

So today I decided to do some more kitsuke. Not on me, but on one of my dummies. And I totally forgot how difficult it can be do put a kimono on a dummy. Putting the obi on took me 3 tries before it was on, and whèn it was on, it was way too low... Grrr... So now I will show pictures of a kimono on a dummy without an obi!


This kimono was previously owned by the lovely Lyuba of Strawberry Kimono. Together with this beautiful juban (with cure haneri fastened on it) and 4 obi they are the first kimono-purchases this year. I still have to take pictures of the obi, but once that's done I'll share them.