I don't know about any of you, but I've been ahving serious problems getting DevArt to work lately. I haven't been able to add anything to favorites, or view galleries, or much of anything.

This is lame.

At least,I wish that was the case.

So far, people have been asking me to make them kanzashi and repaying me in fabric! Mostly just simple sakura blossoms in different colors. Some polyester satin is giving me some horrible trouble with fraying right now--I'm looking into getting a pinking blade for my rotary cutter now. But it was the fabric Catherine picked out to match her homecoming dress. I finished the prototype set of those. I'm not terribly happy with how they look, but I was experimenting with sizes. She wants two sets of three flowers: a large, medium, and small. We pantomimed out with each other what the sizes would be approximately, and so some of my petals are uneven in the assembled product. I'll get a scan or a picture this week of them.

Also, my high school friend Tripi is going to be in my area and would like one! I don't know exactly what to make for her, but she makes me think of Kim, so I'll make her something pretty and unique.

Working on a mock-up of a Turkish vest currently. I can't find a pattern than satisfies me. (Either won't fit right, not the style I want, or I don't want to pay $10 for a pattern encompassing a half yard of fabric with nap.) I'm basically abbreviating a bodice pattern and toying with the neckline a lot. It's just about done!

I have a new e-mail for my craftyness. It's kanzashikitty (at) gmail.com. Feel free to drop me a line!

The kanzashi are making their rounds. Mollies gave me a bunch of silk scraps from her clothes-making. Stephi gave me a ton of fabric she decided she's never going to do anything with. I made upwards of 15 poinsettas (it was nice to do something repetitive,and they were very pretty) and didn't even use half of the yard of fabric I bought for it. It's cotton, and a deep red that's patterned by what look like rose petals, but they're so close together that they jumble up and don't look like rose petals, but just a kind of texturization. Just like poinsetta leaves! I used a pinch of gold seed beads for the centers, since poinsettas aren't all orderly in the middle.

I made sakura blossoms for Jon's neices (9 and 5), which they like and wear a lot already. I made a purple one for his mom since she's obsessed with purple. I made one of the poinsettas into a barrette instead of a Christmas ornament for his sister.

I'm almost finished with Molly's. Molly is a special person and gave me free silk, so I put a lot of thought into hers. Molly's a kitchen witch, but also delicately decorated her dorm room with scientific drawings of poisonous flowers. (I'm trying to find her DevArt account name as I write...) I originally decided to make falls since she expressed an interest. But fuji falls wouldn't quite fit her, I think. So I decided to make the falls rosemary leaves, especially since one of the bolts of silk she gave me are an exact match to that specific color. Then I took that idea and ran with it. Poisonous flowers and herbs. I toyed with ideas, eventually threw out the idea of water hemlock (tooooo many teeny flowers) and eventually decided on some very tiny wood sorrel flowers framing a larger bloodroot flower. Oh please google them! They're just asking to be made into kanzashis. But anyhow, I'd be done with the whole thing now if our roommate hadn't seen my finished but unattached rosemary leaves, decided they were just carefully folded scrap fabric, and threw them away... So I get to make all new rosemary leaves...

Simon came over and told us he felt he needed to get Kim something for a late Christmas present, and then agreed to buy me materials as a labor fee for making her a couple sets of kanzashi. We picked out some very pretty cottons, one bolt pink with black polka dots and the other black with pink. And we picked out some appropriately loud ribbons from the remnant bin, a few butterfly beads for accent, things like that. They're going to be beautiful.

I'm thinking, since my "camera" that I currently use is nigh worthless, I might use my scanner to display the pictures...

Molly's DevArt is Wildcrafter. I don't know how to embed the little icon thing. = P

I created my first good kanzashi the other day. And then I continued to make more. I bought a yard of fabric, and the petals were two inches square,so I still have plenty more to go. I gave them as Christmas presents to my teachers and some class mates. They were all very excited about them. My school has no Japanese department except for a teacher with free time who teaches a couple conversational classes. I'm an anthropology major, who wants to focus on the geisha sub-culture...and I can't study that here. My options are Africa and South America. I don't mind those two at all,but it's just not what I'm mainly interested in.