Kimono Friday!

I normally try to wear kimono every month because it would be a shame to have such pretty clothes sitting in boxes and never seeing the light of day.

So when The Birmingham Japanese Society organised a lecture from the author Lesley Downer I would not resist!

Since April was a native of Birmingham she gave Lesley the guided tour of Birmingham.

http://www.lesleydowner.com/2012/10/14/birmingham-japan-society-october-2012/

As normal, I forgot to take photos of my own outfit so I have to rely on Lesley and April.  

The kimono that I am wearing was the very first kimono I ever brought and I think I have only own it a couple of times.  It is not the most fanciest kimono in existence but the beauty of the kimono is when you look at the pattern.  It is made up of tiny hexagon and tiny dots which can only be seen from close up.  

The obi is one that I brought off a good friend and I have been dying to wear it since I saw it!  It is a cream obi with green, dark red, blue and yellow ovals dots all over it.  It is a tricky obi to co-ordinate because it is so busy but it went wonderfully with this kimono. Since the red oval dots match nearly perfectly with the red on the kimono.

It is these lovely coincidences that I love the most when I am collecting kimono and obi.

An Evening with Immodesty Blaize!

There are days when you think I have to go to that event and yesterday was one if those days.

As ever reading the facebook grape vines I heard if Sparklewren opening up her corset boutique. Great I love corsets however there was one thing that really grabbed my attention and that was the appearance of Immodesty Blaize!

Yes I went eeeekkkk when I read that name so I brought my train tickets. Of course I had to wear a kimono but this seems like the perfect time to wear one with a corset! Originally I wanted to wear my purple corset with the white and purple yabana kofurisode but it just did not work. So I used my faithful black corset and wore my latest ro kimono.

Perfect! Train tickets brought and outfit sorted, all I needed to do now is wait. Rather then moan about the trains being delayed I will skip to the opening. I got there just in time for Immodesty Blaize posing in the window display.

She was wearing a gorgeous corset dress made by Sparklewren and she looked lovely! I took a lot of pictures here because the light was good. 

After a little champagne, my friend and I started to chat with Sparklewren herself. She heard about me because I mentioned on twitter that I was going to turn up in kimono and corset so instant recognition.

She had a few piece out on display and oh gosh I wish I had the money. Lovely corsets with lace and crystals completely impractical to wear but a girl can dream. 

We even got a chance to talk to Immodesty Blaize and of course the conversation turned to kimono! I think she would look lovely in a hiki!

Anyway that was my short adventure in meeting Immodesty Blaize!

Kimono De Jack Meetup in Birmingham

It was only a two weeks ago since Hyper Japan but yesterday was August meetup and this time we decided to have a picnic at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Here are the other members posing in the Japanese garden by the bamboo water feature.

We all made too much food for the picnic but that is never a problem and although Lyuba could not be there with us I took along the Lyuba kokeshi doll.

It was a fun day as you can see here where April and I were testing the see saw in the children's playground.

The next KDJ meeting will be in London for the London Matsuri. I'm not sure if I will be able to make it because it is on a Sunday but that doesn't stop all you other people who live closer to London.

My my time does fly!

So 2-3 April was Kitacon 3 for me and my kimono buddies!

As always we made plans but it didn't quite work out however we got our stall setup in time and it was time to trade.

For our first time, I think we didn't do to badly! Lots of lessons have been learnt and the next time we will be better organised.

Here are some photos of the day from my friends' cameras since I didn't get a chance to take pictures.

This is picture is just hilarious. Tom was such a laugh and doesn't he make a lovely oiran.

And as Hong was all dressed up wa-lolita style we thought we would have fun.

For some reason I can pose as a man really well (who would have guessed)

And here is April showing Lyuba who is boss.

The weekend is coming!

In just over a day I will be attending my first convention with my kimono friends to sell some of our collection and to spread the love of kimono to as many people as possible.

It is very exciting!

All I need to do is pack my bag and I am ready.

February KDJ meetup

Okay Kimono de Jack UK is meeting tomorrow and we are invading Cadbury World!

Yummy free chocolate..............although in a weeks time my nice brother will be visiting my favourite Belgium chocolate shop (yes I have a favourite chocolate shop) and he has promised to send my 1kg box of chocolates. I can't wait!

But back to KDJ UK! I thought I had a kimono all setup but then one of my friends said it would be best to wear a synthetic kimono which made me reconsider my choice. I am not getting my purple iromuji dirty for chocolate. So that does that leave me? I don't have a purple synthetic kimono but I do have a dark blue kimono with pink and white dots which looks purple from a distance but my pale yellow obi doesn't really match.

Then of course I could wear my dark red chrysanthemum kimono that I wore recently with a black obi but that is boring.

Well I have to decide tonight as I will need to pack it all up since I'm catching the 07.54 to Birmingham.

Busy Weekend - Part two KDJ UK

Waking up on a dark Saturday morning isn't easy and this Saturday was no exception but I must get up. For one thing, I am not sleeping in my own bed and I had to get ready for Kimono de Jack UK get together at Birmingham Christmas Market.

Once again, plans were made to arrive at Birmingham New Street train station at 11.00 but we took our time having breakfast which meant getting ready was delayed and we missed the intended train. Nevermind, there was another train and in the end we were only half an hour late.

At the station we met up with our fellow kimono friends and off we went to tackle the market!

Wow it was busy, I know that Christmas is just round the corner and everyone was feeling very festive but the crowds were unbelievable. Putting this aside, there was so much to see and eat! I could happy go from one food stall to the next eating but I know that would be bad for my health and finance. So I did a lot of window shopping and thinking "hmmm that looks yummy!".

Now this is a German Christmas Market and one can not go to such a large Christmas market without going to the grilled sausage stall. So we all shuffled our way to purchase a nice grilled sausage in a ridiculously small roll. Very traditional since that is how they sell them in Germany. After demolishing that, it was dessert which was a nice waffle with cherries and cream. Again this was polished off very quickly as I am a sucker for a nice waffle. Hmmmm should I purchase a waffle pan I wonder??

Here is our little group. There are no pictures of us eating because that would be unflattering and all of us were eating which is far more important then pictures.

We thought this was an ideal time to take photos so here are some more.

Feeling somewhat stuffed and in need to get away from the crowd, we thought a visit to see the Staffordshire Hoard was in order. We spend sometime wondering around taking in the history and art that was on offer, not to mention savouring the peace and quiet. Also another chance to take pictures. Here we saw the kimono that Liz was wearing, a kimono with lots and lots of dots. How resistible!

However we all needed to find a place to sit down and have a nice cuppa. Off to Cafe Rouge! And on the way we found Mr Alien joining in the festive cheer.

Now we were refreshed, one of us had to catch a train so we walked her back to the train station only to find out the train has been cancelled! Oh Virgin why did you do that? Knowing it will take some time to sort this out we said our goodbyes and off she went to find someone to tell her what to do.

The remaining group decided to commence shopping since we couldn't leave the market without something to show. I brought five doughnuts (or berliner) while Lyuba decided to get some freshly cooked dutch pancakes! Don't they look nice.

Then one of us remembered that there was a sweet shop called Cybercandy where you can buy all sort of sweets from other countries. We like discovering new and wonderful sweets so we minced our way to the shop and brought a load of them. I was still holding a box of doughnuts so I thought it was best that I didn't buy any sweets. Although if they had a particular type of chewy sweet which my partner enjoyed once in Canada then I would have probably brought some but I was saved.

By now it was 16.20 and although my train didn't leave until 18.03 I thought I would make my way to the train station with my friend from London. The others lived near Birmingham so it didn't matter what time they left.

Yep I waited at the train station for over an hour but at least I got on my train and managed to get my seat without too much hassle.

And folks, that was the third KDJ UK get together.

January 2011 is being arranged as I type and hopefully it will be announced on our facebook group soon.

If you are wondering about those five doughnuts that I brought, no I didn't take a photo of them because I forgot and yes they were very nice.

Busy weekend - Part one kimono demo

I have been hoping that the snow and ice would melt by last weekend so that my little trip to Birmingham was not hindered by the cold.

Well I made it to the train station on time and yep the train left on time however due to signalling issues between Sheffield and Derby I managed to be delayed by 10 minutes and missed my connecting train to Birmingham. Sigh...................................

So much for my careful planning.

However I got the next train which was a twenty minute later and then had a nice chat with a lady on the train which made the hour journey seem to disappear. Strange how a conversation with a stranger makes a journey more enjoyable.

Arrived in Birmingham around 13.30 and found Hong (with her boyfriend) looking a bit tired. Well she has been ill for the past week so I'm not surprise. After another 20 minutes wait for the next train to Blake Street, we all arrived at April's house and accommodation for the night around 14.30.

She has two gorgeous shiba inu, Azuki and Cassey. Azuki was very laid back when we invade our friend's house however Cassey was a bit nervous but she eventually calmed down.

All we have to do now is wait for the remaining guest (Lyuba) to arrive, have a bite to eat and then off for the first event for the weekend.

ETA was 15.00 but when 15.00 came she still has not arrive. So we waited and waited until it was time for dinner. By now it was 17.00 and we were wondering what happened to her, did she get lost in the wilderness of the Midlands? Well we found out around 17.45, it appears she took a wrong turning and was lead astray by her satnav. One should never trust their satnav is the moral of the story.

Fortunately we still had time and after dinner we got our kimono and kitsuke-ware together for the journey back into Birmingham city centre for Birmingham Japan Society Christmas party and kimono demo.

You would have thought with all our adventures that this journey would be incident free but you are wrong. Being slightly unsure of the route we missed the turning however the mistake wasn't as bad as we thought and in the end, it turned out to be a nice if a somewhat unplanned detour to the Brasshouse Centre.

With plenty of time, we got ourselves dressed and by 19.00 we were all dressed and ready for the demo.

Here is Liz looking gorgeous in her green furisode with pretty butterflies.

Hong is sporting a hikizuri which has a co-ordinating dounuki. This made all of us drool because just look at it! The colour and patterns on it are amazing. However we had to fudge it a little because none of us had experience in putting on a hikizuri but Hong spent most the time sitting down so no one saw any mistakes. Lyuba decided not to change and instead become the photographer for night. Hmmm I wonder what pictures she managed to get?

It started off slow but it picked up and we even had two lovely ladies who were more then willing to try on kimono. They are the ones on the left and right, if you are wondering who is the one in the middle well that would be me. I never realised how long my hair has grown and how thick it is when plaited until I saw this photo.

We always enjoy meeting new people and as these two were so enthusiastic we told them about our Kimono de Jack UK get together for the following day. As they say, the more the merrier.

Well time flies when one is in good company and conversation and soon it was nearly 21.00 and we had to be gone by then or we would have been locked in. After exchanging mobile numbers with our two latest members to the the KDJ UK group we hastily packed up and made our way back to April's house for some sleep.