Landscape on Kimono - Sunday

We had a busy day today, as there were many visitors who couldn't visit during the week.

I wore my new pink hemp kimono, finished last week. Getting dressed in the gallery kitchen seemed the best idea. However, it meant I forgot to take several important items - my collar stiffener for the juban (eri shin), my obi makura (the pad that puffs out the back of the obi) and my obi ita (the stiffener that goes in the front of the obi, giving the nice round shape). And the clip I use to temporarily hold the back of the kimono collar to the juban while getting dressed.

The obi is a two part "tsuke" obi, one of two matching that I bought with an idea about having "staff" kimono ensembles at Festival of Quilts one year. Unlike my other tsuke obi, this one is hitoe. It really needed the obi ita and the obi makura, because hitoe obi don't have much body! It came with a rather odd hollow plastic makura, so I had to improvise with that, although it was very slippery and wouldn't stay inside the obiage sash easily (I will cover it with some jersey from an old T-shirt to improve it, as it was otherwise quite comfy to wear). I got around the obi ita problem by cutting one out from the cardboard packaging from the obi!

There wasn't much I could do about the juban collar. I had forgotten how hot polyester juban collars can be too. The juban sleeves are too short for this kimono anyway, and I will make a set for it about 1cm shorter than the kimono sleeves, when I get time. Still, not bad for the first time on for all of this lot. I got to wear my summer zori (shoes) too - linen with linen & velvet straps - after altering the length of the straps (hanao) this morning, with the hammer from the tool kit being close at hand. They are not as comfy as some of my other pairs, but didn't make my feet hot.

Kate (from the Immortal Geisha forum) came with her mum, who took this photo of us messing around and doing one of those "wingspan" poses from kimono style books. She had a really gorgeous shibori haori jacket, in that lush purple shade, with a tachibana (orange blossom) pattern over a rinzu damask silk weave.