So what was in my Yamatoku Bundle of Doom

Blue green haori with kiku embroidery. Very nice and has a pretty animal patterned lining. 

 Next one is an unmade obi. The base is navy blue, which is not shown properly in the image.

 This nagoya is very small. I mean, really small! I'm not sure if I can wear this properly because of the lenght. Also the pattern runs a bit funny, so I'm in the belief that this has been a kimono once and has been remade into an obi.

Grey patterned obi. Might be a fukuro. I still need to measure it.

 Red and black komon. Quite small, needs adjusting for comfortable wear, but for hime style it's working.

Men's juban with tiger and dragon pattern. I offered this to fiancé but he said he was not impressed with the pattern. If this was women's, I'd wear it to bits.

 Pink komon. Has a shiny quality to it. Fit is ok.

 Girl's furisode. I'm guessing age 13 as it's quite long and does not have tucks. Has stains, but othervice in wearable condition.

 Another komon. I was not impressed with this one, might put it up for trade.

 This lightweight summer komon was hiding under another kimono and I fell head over heels for it. Rather short, but I'm in love.

A very busy patterned komon. It was not easy to look at this as I have a headache. Quite new as it has modern clothing tag attached. Which is funny as the kimono in itself is very short. I might have to take a peak into the lining to see if there's fabric to add more lenght.

So that was my 10 haul. I'm quite happy with my catch... Now to find time for wearing....

Wave odori with yellow accessories

I'm sloooowly turning to the wave odori for the graduation kitsuke. But I wanted different accessories than the white obiage and white/blue obijime. A trip to the local fabric store provided me with a yellow/orange cotton fabric for obiage and dark reddish gold "obijime".

Now I'm only pondering, wether to leave the juban collar white, or make it blue...

Kitsuke testing on Dolly

Hiya! Remember me?
Well, I'm a week away from possible graduation so I tried different combinations on what to wear.
Dolly graciously let me use her for this purpose... I don't know which one I'll actually be wearing, but it was fun to do this.

First up is the beautiful olive green, flowery kimono I purchased from the awesome Lyuba of StrawberryKimono. I wanted something pretty and flowery, without thinking much of the formality. I matched the kimono with my trusty silver nagoya obi. I only wished I would have more suitable accessories.....

The next is an odori kimono I got from Shinei's final eBay sales. It's a little small for me, as you can see I hardly got any ohashori done. Paired with vividly purple nagoya obi, it created a fully purple combo.

This one I got nearly two years ago, but never got around to wear it. Yet. I just felt I have not had an occasion to wear it. I used blues and watery themes as we are planning on going for a boat ride after we get our papers, but I'm also a little dubious on wether or not to use this as we are also planning on going to a restaurant. It's the white color that's making me edgy, I would not like to drop anything on it.

As a ro-houmongi, this one is the lightweight of the lot. I've worn it once before, last summer, so it might be time to take it out again. Paired with orange it's a rather nice, warm combo. There is a pattern on the waist part of the obi, but I tied it so that the pattern accidently is places under the left sleeve. D'oh!

And finally, the magical pain in the butt -kimono. Since some of the flowers are golden, I felt it might be festive enough to wear. And because it will soon be too hot to wear this until autumn comes. I kinda like the way it works with the "Cursed Vase" nagoya obi and the green accessories. I really don't know why I hung the Eye of Sauron necklace to the obi. I just felt like it....

Testing the May Day kitsuke, updated!

It's Vappu (May Day) here today, so before going out I tried the outfit I was planning on Dolly.

It's the purple checkered tsumugi paired with bright blue lupine patterned obi. I found a strip of bright blue fabric which I stiched onto the juban collar.

I'm not 100% of the hand crocheted "haori", but it's rather windy today, so I better wear something over the kimono.
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So, it took me time to get atleast one photo of the kitsuke on me. I'm sorry about the exhausted look o my face and messy hair as I had just trudged, like a little trooper, 10km on foot, in kimono, to get to work today.

What I learned? I need better shoes (my feet are aching), a closing mechanism to the vest (it kept slipping) and softer material for the haneri (it kept scratching my neck). And if I do all this, I could atleast try to get a decent photo.... phooee...

The Great Market, Hometown love and hime.

Our town hold a few market days each year, autumn market, christmas market, the great market...etc. In my youth they were held at the market square, but that has not happened for a few years because they are building a shopping centre and parking lot below the market square. For a few years there was a three-story deep hole dug in the ground, but this spring they covered it up and soon they will be able to open it again. Before the digging, there was a shooting accident on the square, of which reminders (paint circles of where evidence was found) are still visible during summer..... A lot has happened in the  square over the years and you could say it's the heart of Kuopio.

Aerial view of the Market Place before the digging started. Image from uusisuomi.fi

The hole they dug for the shopping centre and parking space.

On the left of the Market Square you can see the Market Hall that is open year around. It's the only clearly Art Nouveau inspired building on the centre and one of my favourite places in Kuopio. If you ever come here, that's the place to visit. The Market Square has been in function from the 1818.
There had been a parking space already under the square, but they are making it bigger as Kuopio has grown since it was first built.

Kuopio Hall. Kuopio.fi

For the last few years they've held the Grand Market in the Kuopio Hall. It's nicer in the way that weather cannot affect going. Kuopio Hall is usually used by sports teams for training and sports competitions.

Well, I think that's enough of hometown love for one go. What about the kitsuke? I was inspired by the Go Hime! -project and as I wanted to take part, I went for a little hime-ish design in terms of dressing.

It was so bright out there! It was impossible to get good photos with my face towards the sun. Sorry about that...

It's the return of the green-grey stripe komon! Matched with silver nagoya and bright green accessories to celebrate the (slowly) coming spring! During easter it's traditional to have something bright green and yellow in your homes, so I added the bright green into my kitsuke. I would have wanted to get the Tavistock boots from American Duchess for this photoshoot, but what can you do?

I'm also wearing the shawl I knitted my self a few years back. It's silver grey with sparklies! Goes nicely with the obi. The had is made from the leftovers from the shawl. The hat has a golden ribbon that matches to the gold on the obijime and the obidome. I also wish I had had either a light yellow or green obiage... I think the white doesn't go very well with the rest of the kitsuke... I have teal ribbon on my hair.

Without the shawl and the hat. Being photobombed by our newest family member Veetu. You can see the Lucrezia cosplay behind me.

Yorkshire terrier obidome. Well actually it's a pin.

Bright green collar.

First time wearing one of these... It kept slipping all the time, but it felt nice and warm against my neck. And I kinda like it with this kimono.

And what was our haul? What you really go there to get is market liquorice or metre liquorice and pretzels. The liquorice is not actually metre long, only 0.5. We usually get the 12 pieces for 10e on liquorice with different tastes. This year we went for the bigger pretzel. The pretzel is more like a big bun shaped in the form of a prezel. It's very soft and sweet.

Bag full of liquorice.

The pretzel.

And just end this long post with cuteness: Here's our two kitties enjoying the sunny day.

Kiki

Veetu

As you can see our big boy can be hand fed, but this trick does not work on Kiki. She takes only by stealing it off your plate or from the couch. Here you can see the size difference between the two. Veetu is younger and a male so Kiki (the smaller one) is the Boss.