I had been tempted to hand dye crocheted flowers, but I never got around to it with moving and settling down in the new place.
I love the colors of crochet yarn! Whenever I browse Etsy or local craft supply shops, those yarns are just magnets to me. And I have to admit that I can't resist buying them. I end up having tons of yarn.
However, when I wanted to create ombre, I realized that it means that I would have to have different shades for each color. And that also means more money. Plus the ombre effect did not come out as I wanted. I was thinking what I should do in order to create ombre. I browsed and browsed and found out about hand-dyed crocheted flats. This DIY look awesome! I wanted to try it on my crocheted flowers.
Unfortunately, Ritliquid dye is not easy to come by here. I've checked out several craft supply shops in Tokyo and most of them have only a little selection of colors. Rit powder has more selection. But I found it to difficult using powder dye. Since I use very very little amount at a time, it's easier for me to use liquid dye instead of powder. So I use Best Color, a local product I think. They don't have as big selection of colors as Rit but it's not bad. I've learned to mix colors to produce different colors.
I also found that using size 40 yarn produces very nice outcome.
My first attempt of hand-dyeing crocheted flowers is on the flowers of some of hoop earrings. I tried to create ombre on tiny roses and orchid. It was not easy since they're so tiny. But I managed it somehow. Fortunately.
But for these lilies, I did not create an ombre effect. I simply hand dyed some parts of the flowers.
I'm quite satisfied with the result. In fact, I'm kind of addicted to hand dyeing crocheted flowers :)). But I will not hand dye all the time. I will use colored yarn for my future crocheted projects for sure.
A friend of my husband once asked me why I didn't join a craft show held by the local craft community instead of holding a solo craft show. Well, there are some strong reasons as to why not.
First of all, in a group exhibition each participant is allocated very small space to exhibit their works. Therefore, I can't exhibit all my works due to this limited space. Secondly I prefer doing it by myself since I can set the date according to my timetable. As a part time English instructor I have a weekly teaching schedule that often changes from time to time. So holding a solo exhibition sounds perfect.
I held my exhibition in April so I simply called it a Spring Craft Show.
For this show, I had prepared, of course, loads of tsumami kanzashi and tsumami zaiku. I had also made crochet jewelry! Yes, I've been taking up crocheting since last winter (see My First Crocheted Pieces). I especially like crochet jewelry.
The exhibition went well. I sold about 10 or 12 tsumami kanzashi and tsumami zaiku and some jewelry. But I don't think I can do this craft show too often I think. The amount of time to prepare is just too much plus I had to pay extra for renting the room. However, it doesn't mean I won't do it again. I will, but not in the near future I think.
And these are my crocheted jewelry. I couldn't make a lot because I didn't have enough time to do it. I'm planning to sell some of these pieces on etsy. I will write it on my post when I do :)
Although winter is not the season I hate the most (I hate summer the most), I have to say that winter often prevents me from making a lot of tsumami zaiku/kanzashi. The glue takes aaaaages to set, not to mention the coldness makes my fingers all stiff and almost numb making them so uncomfortable to use tweezers.
This is not my house :D Just a building across
If there were central heating in my house, this wouldn't happen. But just like most houses in Japan, our house doesn't have a central heating system. We use portable heater that we bring to the room where we want to do our activities there. The heater is not enough to warm the whole room, just its surrounding so I have to sit very close to it. The only room that has an air conditioning is the living room so in winter I prefer staying in our living room to staying in my working room. However, I can't do my work there. The room is so small, I don't want to clutter it up. But I didn't want to stop making things just because it's winter.
I've always been fascinated by the crocheted pieces I come across on Pinterest, Etsy, and other sites. I thought why not teaching myself to crochet. I was thinking of making Christmas presents. Besides I could always stay in the warm living room all the time!
I bought some yarns and crochet hooks at the nearest craft supply shop and started learning. There were tons of tutorials, I was unsure which I should learn from. I thought youtube was a great start.
My first project was to make a flower. This is what I made.
I found the tutorial on youtube but I can't find it now. I don't remember the url. Well, anyway, I made this based on that tutorial. I used cotton yarn.
Next thing I made was a beanie. I found the tutorial here. I was making it for me. My head got cold when I was walking in winter so I thought I should make a hat. I added a little flower. I used acrylic yarn.
But I never wore it because my husband said it looked as if I had worned bandage around my head ha ha ha. Well I'm not a hat person.
Then I made a kindle case using the same color of yarn. I also learnt from this tutorial on youtube. I had wanted to make this kindle case for my sister who owns a kindle.
It's not as pretty as the one in the tutorial but it's not bad I think ha ha ha. I sent this case to my sister in Indonesia. She loved it but unfortunately, it didn't fit her kindle case. Too bad.. I had thought her kindle was the same size as the one in the tutorial. Anyway, she likes it and said she'll use it for other purpose.
It's probably kind of late to write about peonies since according to seasonal kanzashi calendar, February or March is the month of peony. But I'm not a traditional tsumami zaiku crafter so I don't have to follow the tradition, do I?
The thing is that I like to make tsumami zaiku which is wearable for all occasion and fashion. It is an art but a craft at the same time. This tendency is also happening among the tsumami zaiku crafters in Japan. They make tsumami zaiku to cater not only the kimono wearers but also those who don't wear kimono.
Anyway, peony is usually presented as a single flower. However, I had an idea to make a triple peonies like a bouquet. Consequently, I had to make very small peonies so that the three make up a moderate size as a hair fascinator or as a brooch.
I tried to be a bit more adventurous with the fabric choice. This time I used kimono hagire or kimono silk cuts, batik cotton and chirimen.
From left to right: chirimen, kimono silk, batik cotton
Clockwise: kimono silk, batik, and chirimen
This may look messy but when the glue dries, they look much better. Sorry for the bad quality of the photo. I used my cellphone camera to take this picture.
Although I always plan everything beforehand, I often make some changes in the process, like changing the color combination. So these are the results. I switched the chirimen. Somehow I thought, the scarlett would look brighter with light green chirimen.
If you see from these pictures, they may look big but they are actually about 6 cms or 2.3 inches altogether.
Last month when the heat of summer reached its peak (about 37 - 38 degrees Celsius), I managed to accomplish my resolution: cleaning upmy working room.
After months of working and creating in this room, I suddenly realized how cluttered my atelier was. Actually this is not an atelier per se, but a spare room that my husband
and I use to store stuff such as my books, his music instruments.
However, there's some space for me to use it as a craft room as I can watch over tools such as pins, needles, scissors, etc from being scattered elsewhere. Anyway, when I couldn't think clearly all of sudden, that's when I saw that my craft room desperately needed cleaning up.
BEFORE
AFTER
It took me 3 days to tidy up the craft room. The heat was so unbearable that I needed to take a break every 2 hours. But the result wasn't bad, was it?
I know I haven't written much about the new craft activity I've been doing for the past one year. There's a big gap between the time when I was writing a lot about batik and the time when I started making and selling kanzashi.
When I decided to try selling batiks, I actually hadn't considered about the fact that tailors were extremely rare in Japan. In Indonesia, my home country, we do buy clothes at department stores, boutiques, shopping malls, etc. But also, we do LOVE having our clothes made specially for us. The existence of tailors is just important. The cost to have your dresses made ranges from 7 U.S. dollars / 700 yen (approximately) to over 1 million rupiahs (over 100 dollars). It depends of which tailor and whether you go to a dressmaker (who usually have better knowledge about fashion than a tailor). Therefore, it is quite common for us to purchase a good piece of fabric and go to a tailor or dressmaker to have our clothes made. In my parents' neighborhood, there are at least 5 tailors. That's to give you an idea of how tailors are not rare. In Japan it's the opposite. People prefer to go to department stores to buy clothes rather than having their clothes specially made for them. They don't care about one of a kind thing. They don't care if somebody sitting next to them on the train is wearing the same shirt or same skirt. No wonder, tailors are very very rare and consequently very very expensive. My mother in-law's tailor charges US$ 40 for a man shirt while the tailor who sets up his sewing machine under a tree in front of my parents' house in Indonesia charges US$ 7 for a man shirt. Both are the same quality.
Anyway, as a result of lacking of consideration I failed to sell batiks that I had imported from Indonesia. And consequently, I had piles and piles of batiks that I couldn't sell... Then I talked to my husband what we should do with these batiks.. I came up with the idea of learning to sew by myself, which my husband immediately approved of. Then my sewing adventure began (check out my posts on sewing adventure Stitch Thru' Batiks) and so did my kanzashi adventure.
When I began sewing, I noticed there's a lot of scrap fabric that was not big enough for big project such as an apron but it's too big to be thrown away. I was thinking and thinking what I should do. Then I thought I could make it into some accessories. Fabric flowers were the first ones that popped into my head. So I browsed the net on how to make it. And this is what I found first:
This is what I made based on this video:
You see the tiny flowers? I stuck the flowers on a leather bracelet cord with hot glue gun and voila! A fabric bracelet! I don't have this bracelet anymore with me because I gave it to a good friend as a birthday present and she loved it! This is a photo Natsuno sent to me!
Do you see the bracelet she's wearing? That's the one I made. Also the dragonfly brooches. If you pay attention the blouse she's wearing is the same material I used to make the bracelet and brooches. Yup! I made her the blouse and the accessories/jewelry with the same material. Less waste. Quite eco-friendly, don't you think?.. :)
I also make some more accessories for another good friend. She likes to wear a headband for her beautiful silky hair.
Just as Natsuno, I made the same set for Ayu. Check out her blouse and headband. I used the same material for both!
I'd often been asked this question about my works: Is this a brooch? Or been asked to make a brooch. That made me consider to make a brooch but I still like to make hair accessories.
While I was browsing parts on Etsy, I stumbled upon what's called brooch/hair clip tray. This is really cool! This part allow you to wear this as a brooch and hair clip. One for two! So, I thought why not making a brooch which also serves as a hair clip? I decided to give it a try. And that's not bad.
silver tone brooch/hair clip tray
bronze brooch/hair clip tray
I will post some of my works that have this 2 in 1 function.
