Kimono and Craft May Meeting 2014

This month  Katie Chaplin introduced us to the art of Kimono dressing. She explained about the fabric of each layer of the outfit and some of the ritual and story behind the item as she dressed her mannequin.

Katie dressing the mannequin in the under kimono over the cotton underwear slip

 

The kimono being held out so we could admire the hand painted and embroidered silk

Katie adjusting the fit of the kimono with a tie

A sash is fixed around the middle to be tied at the back

The sash is tied at the back in a special way over a little pillow

The fully dressed mannequin apart from the socks and shoes

Katie informed us that in Japan it takes about four hours for a woman to be dressed properly in a kimono! It looked beautiful but very few of us would want to spend that kind of time getting ready.

After lunch we started the craft part of the workshop where we each chose two fat quarters of Japanese fabric to make a small folded hand stitched Japanese bag. The fabrics we chose from were beautiful many printed with flowers and gold.

By the end of the afternoon most of us were finishing off the bag by threading the draw string and adding the beads.
We all felt pleased wth our hana bags as we took them home and a big thank you to Katie for telling us a bit more about Japanese culture.

A completed Japanese folded bag with drawstring