Kanzashi

When I saw Kanazashi in Bloom on I forget whose blog, I knew I was in trouble. I really have a thing for round things, and for radial symmetry. The Yo-Yo Obsession of 2008 made that abundantly clear. The Martha Stewart ribbon rosettes came next. But this is better. Much better. And what a great use for little bits of dyed or otherwise irresistible fabric!

Diane Gilleland's directions are clear, complete, and well illustrated. Her example projects didn't really do it for me, but there's a wide range which gave me some good ideas. I did a little surfing and the clearest tutorial I found was a set of pictures by SpanglySpangle on Flickr and her quick little video (no voiceover). Her craft set has lots of lovely examples. I found an instructable for the pointed petal, but the pictures are a little small. There are a lot of super-amazing Japanese examples here. The individual pictures are big and beautiful and detailed, but I found them a little slow to load.

These are my very first efforts. Kanzashi are made from folded squares of fabric, and are remarkably easy (though I hesitate to say so, in case some of you find them hard). Looking at the book and my own creations, my favorites are the ones with lots of petals. They're like potato chips: I'll just make one more.


Here's a really large one, 6" squares maybe?, using a flower-shaped yo-yo for the center. It's a pointed petal, possibly with an extra fold.


This one is tiny, from 2" squares.

It's sometimes hard to decide which side should be up. Here I used the pleated petal, and for the rear view I squished it into a spiral.


Remarkably, I found a justification for all this. We are giving wreaths to the many grandparents this year, and I hit on the idea of adding giant red kanzashi in place of bows. This is made from 8" squares, folded in a modified pleated petal. I anchored the folds with a few hidden stitches, then folded up the sides one more time. I did most of them watching The Thomas Crown Affair for the umpteenth time, while taking a break from Thanksgiving pie-making, (It was the Pierce Brosnan remake, but some day I'll have to watch the Steve McQueen original.)

That's an extra-large (60 mm) yo-yo in the center. On the others I used a brass button for the center, which looked even better. (Well, really a brass-colored plastic button, but that is better anyway for outdoor use.)

It ended up very suggestive of a poinsettia.



I ran some wire through safety pins on the back, and wired the whole thing to the wreath. I'm hoping the bow can be removed and reused. And get this, Mr. Tea's mom drove up for Thanksgiving, so she could take her own home with her, and deliver two others on the way!