Another example of my continuing experiments with Kanzashi. All but the white flowers are made with standard cotton, the leaves are cotton, and the white flower is made from a polyester blend, I believe.

The cord is one of my old kumihimo experiments that I never got around to finishing - the colors went well with my friend's kimono, so I began a conversion using wooden beads that I picked up from Wal-Mart.


In previous projects, I was never really happy with how the leaves turned out - from the top, it looked like a leaf, but from the bottom, it showed the seams and underside of the fabric. I'm a fan of hiding signs that something was made and leaving visible the finished product, so I sort of improvised. Using a simple fold that I've used to created pointed flower petals, I was able to work out that they made an effective leaf if done properly, and it looks a heck of a lot better than the previous ones.

So, this little floral arrangement still needs a little tweaking and fine-tuning at some point, but my friend loved it, which is what counts in the long run!