By far the best kosode and other bits

Nothing short of STUNNING this white one. This is it from the back, thats someones dark jacket on the right side. Yup.... silk. The kosode not the jacket!
Now Anne admits these most likely would not be worn  in an everyday life, maybe as an art kimono, but she stitches them because she loves to do it, not so that they would be worn especially. 
These were just a few and she couldnt tell us how many she's made .... not only fabulous workmanship but all finished too!

Mind you we didnt ask her how many kimono UFO's she had at home....

Sashiko, which to all the world looks like our Blackwork, is simply running stitches. They made cloth stronger, made it more robust for every day wear. But obviously it was boring doing zillions of running stitches so they devised patterns and Anne made this short jacket in sashiko. This was made from squares so no fabric is wasted, to the traditional  short, almost boxy, jacket design.

Annes samplers for the jacket to get the hang of sashiko.........

Annes shibori............. and as she explained how its made, it makes you appreciate the hours that go into achieving this technique. A whole kimono might take a year of someone tying oober thin, but strong, thread tightly round ... pin head small points. Then when the fabric is dyed, the weeny pin points with thread round them, stay white! And they are ruched slightly and elastic, in that you can stretch the fabric a little. For that reason it is often used for the Obi ( sash) for childrens kimonos, allowing them less tightness on the waist.

This pale indigo kosode was shibori dyed cotton, but using running stitches and the fabric was then pulled tightly together, guess abit like when you smock, then popped in the dye pot.

The pink sample below shows the weeny, weeny sizes of pin points made to achieve the finer sized shibori effects and it was really very stretchy.

This silver fish was on the undersea kimono, on one of the pendulous sleeves.

The something or other tree here, its name escapes me, was on  another kosode, but I thought the way it had been stitched was wonderful. there were cranes below the tree.

No, birds .... dont be daft!

And lastly this quilt has been made by our childrens group EYELETS, and is being entered into the quilt competition at the NEC in March. Isnt it fun!