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Kanzashi!
Kanzashi I made this week, which I hope to finish posting before KILLING THIS KITTEN WHO IS DRIVING ME NUTS WHY OH WHY DID I EVER THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA HE BETTER SETTLE DOWN AND SLEEP AND LOOK CUTE VERY VERY SOON OR I'M GOING TO BOOT HIS FUZZY LITTLE BUTT TO THE MOON0p-[980
Yes, he hit the keyboard again at that point. Anyway.
This one was better in theory than practice, I think. Well, it doesn't look as bad to me on the screen as it does in real life. :) The pile of pearls in the middle is a group of stamens I ordered from Zipangu Treasures.
It's made with a light gauge floral wire coming from the base, which is much easier to manipulate, so it's held onto the comb with a simple wrap around the top part of the comb.
A pair of small ones made from a fabric which is more purple than it looks here. You can see the stamens better here. I had to put a whole pile of them on the previous kanzashi because there was such a large hole in the middle, but these petals met in the middle with almost no gap.
Combs wired onto the back in much the same fashion as the first one.
A second pair made of the same scrap.
These are on clips, and I'm trying two different types of glue - the one on the left has some sort of craft epoxy-type stuff and I'm mostly using it to check it doesn't dissolve any of the materials it's touching, and the other is rice starch paste, which I fully expect will not stand up to these stresses and will eventually be replaced, possibly with the epoxy, if that works out. Rice starch paste dries more-or-less transparent - it's not yet dry in this picture. :D
My first pair of doll-sized kanzashi! These are going to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ro_anshi, for sending me the wig and the eyes. :) Next to a US quarter for scale.
The backs, which look a wee bit on the ugly side. :) The floral wire is fashioned into prongs, which is actually a traditional method of affixing kanzashi to the hairstyle (see next kanzashi below), and the join is covered with and reinforced by green embroidery thread and rice starch paste. The basic idea is that they can slip into the woven base of the doll's wig and stay fairly tightly, plus allow for gentle bending of the wire so the flower can be displayed in whatever way works for the hairstyle.ro_anshi, you ahve to tell me how it works! (I'll do my best to get them sent off this weekend ... er, you might want to re-send me your address.)
And one of them on a doll wig! And it seems the head I was given is slightly too small for the wig. XD No matter! It serves its purpose well!
And the other side, with a shy downward-cast gaze. Or what would be a downward-cast gaze if the head had eyeballs.
...Ah. Sora has finally gotten a sense of self-preservation and settled down onto my lap to snooze and look cute. Maybe I won't kill him today after all.
Anyway, here's the most complex one I've attempted yet. This was primarily an experiment to try out several things - putting several flowers together, using the stamens in a way from the Japanese kanzashi book I've got, making little teeny rosebuds, figuring out how to do the wisteria dangly bits, using a bira-bira fluttery metal thingy I ordered from the online store above, and affixing it all together onto a traditional kanzashi prong. Wow, that was a lot. I did it in a funky Goth-like fabric, so that I wouldn't feel too bad for messing up a more traditional fabric if I messed it up. XD I plan on making a more traditional spectacular piece to get attention at artist alleys, and it'll use these techniques.
And it's kinda hard to photograph well, since if you can see the black bits, the white bits are blown out.
There's a small white bead sewn on to the top of each wisteria petal/flower/whatever on the three dangly things, but I never got a good photo of them.
Closer on the flowers.
From the side. The wires all meeting and bundled together are a bit too fat. I need to work on that. It's all covered with wrapped black embroidery thread, covered in rice starch paste to prevent fraying.
And there's the prong it's attached to. I may have attached it backwards - the pics in the book didn't show it really well, but it looks kind of like the prongs are supposed to slide horizontally into a hairdo, instead of the way I have it, which is meant to slide down into a bun or ponytail base. But you can't really wear it the way in the book unless you have a hairstyle with the bun or some sort of heavy concentration of hair on top, and more girls nowadays are likely to wear it inserted down. At least I think so.
Quarter for scale. :)
Yes, he hit the keyboard again at that point. Anyway.
This one was better in theory than practice, I think. Well, it doesn't look as bad to me on the screen as it does in real life. :) The pile of pearls in the middle is a group of stamens I ordered from Zipangu Treasures.
It's made with a light gauge floral wire coming from the base, which is much easier to manipulate, so it's held onto the comb with a simple wrap around the top part of the comb.
A pair of small ones made from a fabric which is more purple than it looks here. You can see the stamens better here. I had to put a whole pile of them on the previous kanzashi because there was such a large hole in the middle, but these petals met in the middle with almost no gap.
Combs wired onto the back in much the same fashion as the first one.
A second pair made of the same scrap.
These are on clips, and I'm trying two different types of glue - the one on the left has some sort of craft epoxy-type stuff and I'm mostly using it to check it doesn't dissolve any of the materials it's touching, and the other is rice starch paste, which I fully expect will not stand up to these stresses and will eventually be replaced, possibly with the epoxy, if that works out. Rice starch paste dries more-or-less transparent - it's not yet dry in this picture. :D
My first pair of doll-sized kanzashi! These are going to
ro_anshi, for sending me the wig and the eyes. :) Next to a US quarter for scale.The backs, which look a wee bit on the ugly side. :) The floral wire is fashioned into prongs, which is actually a traditional method of affixing kanzashi to the hairstyle (see next kanzashi below), and the join is covered with and reinforced by green embroidery thread and rice starch paste. The basic idea is that they can slip into the woven base of the doll's wig and stay fairly tightly, plus allow for gentle bending of the wire so the flower can be displayed in whatever way works for the hairstyle.
ro_anshi, you ahve to tell me how it works! (I'll do my best to get them sent off this weekend ... er, you might want to re-send me your address.)And one of them on a doll wig! And it seems the head I was given is slightly too small for the wig. XD No matter! It serves its purpose well!
And the other side, with a shy downward-cast gaze. Or what would be a downward-cast gaze if the head had eyeballs.
...Ah. Sora has finally gotten a sense of self-preservation and settled down onto my lap to snooze and look cute. Maybe I won't kill him today after all.
Anyway, here's the most complex one I've attempted yet. This was primarily an experiment to try out several things - putting several flowers together, using the stamens in a way from the Japanese kanzashi book I've got, making little teeny rosebuds, figuring out how to do the wisteria dangly bits, using a bira-bira fluttery metal thingy I ordered from the online store above, and affixing it all together onto a traditional kanzashi prong. Wow, that was a lot. I did it in a funky Goth-like fabric, so that I wouldn't feel too bad for messing up a more traditional fabric if I messed it up. XD I plan on making a more traditional spectacular piece to get attention at artist alleys, and it'll use these techniques.
And it's kinda hard to photograph well, since if you can see the black bits, the white bits are blown out.
There's a small white bead sewn on to the top of each wisteria petal/flower/whatever on the three dangly things, but I never got a good photo of them.
Closer on the flowers.
From the side. The wires all meeting and bundled together are a bit too fat. I need to work on that. It's all covered with wrapped black embroidery thread, covered in rice starch paste to prevent fraying.
And there's the prong it's attached to. I may have attached it backwards - the pics in the book didn't show it really well, but it looks kind of like the prongs are supposed to slide horizontally into a hairdo, instead of the way I have it, which is meant to slide down into a bun or ponytail base. But you can't really wear it the way in the book unless you have a hairstyle with the bun or some sort of heavy concentration of hair on top, and more girls nowadays are likely to wear it inserted down. At least I think so.
Quarter for scale. :)