Hatsume 2006

My long anticipated and highly exciting weekend finally happened!

Christy and I have been planning this weekend for a couple of months now, and we were very happy that Kate was also able to make it down on such short notice!

Christy and her husband, along with their fuzzies Momo and Zoku arrived Thursday afternoon after a long 9 hour drive from Georgia. We had the chance to go to Basha Grill to watch Bacabuda Arts perform that night - but we decided that after the 9 hour car trip that Christy and her husband endured, that we would probably be better of just staying in and having a pizza and beer night instead. So we cracked open the case of Kirin beer they brought along and scoffed down on pizza and just sat around talking. Eventually - us girls started talking and gawking about kimono and the boys went the video/computer game route.

Friday night, Kate and her business partner Laurel made it over to my apartment. They drove all the way down from PA for the weekend and came baring lots of delicious goodies ranging from horse radish cheese - woopie pies - divinity just to name a few. We all had a lovely time getting to know each other and talked into the wee hours of the morning.

After all the excitement, I was only able to grab about 2.5 hrs sleep before I had to wake up at 6am to start getting ready to go to Hatsume Festival. We were hoping to leave early - but it just didn't happen that way. We ended up just taking our time and leaving later in the morning to get there.

We arrived at Hatsume Festival just as FushuDaiko started their first performance. We decided to head over and find Kate and Laurel first in case they needed any help with their stall and minded the stall while they were preparing Kate as a maiko. Kate was absolutely lovely and offered for me to put some of my PuchiMaiko items on the table - so the week before, I had made a new batch of kanzashi for the weekend. I am happy to say that both Kate did quite well with her stall this year - and will be coming back for next year's festival - and the PuchiMaiko items did well also :)

After we helped out at the stall - we started walking around the festival checking everything out. Christy and her husband had a chance to see one of the FushuDaiko performances and I had the chance to introduce them to everyone. After the performance, we headed up to the museum for lunch and to look around at the galleries. We ran into Rumi-san, who is one of the tea ceremony instructors. I know her from Bon Odori lessons and for helping with kitsuke backstage at various taiko performances. She was really happy to see the three of us dressed in kimono like we were and made a big point of inspecting us and complimenting us on our outfits and kitsuke. She really is such a sweet and lovely lady and I am very happy that they got to meet her.

After the festival - Kate changed into a lovely blue kimono and we all went out for dinner at Tokyo Sushi. As usual - the food was delicious!

Anyhow - enough talk and now for some photos!

This lovely young lady read my article in the City Link magazine and came to Hatsume Festival just to meet me :)


A gorgeous photograph of and her husband:


and Catgirlmecha's husband:


Dinner Time!



and I


After dinner:

Kimono Pirates Part 2

Right now I am sure everyone is rather intrigued with the Kimono Pirates photo right? So here is the story behind it.

I was at the Ren-Fest with Fushu Daiko and the theme for the past weekend was Pirates.

Of course - with FushuDaiko's stage being next to the pirate's cove...my brain got ticking over with ideas as soon as I heard of the theme weekend and wasted no time in emailing to let her know of the change of plans (we were originally just going to wear regular kimono).

I thought that it was really neat that although we had the theme of Kimono Pirates, the three of us all had vastly different outfits and styles.

Christy's husband dressed in a ronin style with a splash of Scottish added and a Turkish knife thrown in for good measure. He looked fantastic and most certainly piratey!

Christy went as a dandy/American Revolution style pirate. Frilled shirt under her grey kimono, and her kimono worn open at the top. She also wore men's hakama and obi with a studded belt and boots. The hat she is wearing was mine - and she did a fantastic job of sewing the pearl skull and cross bones on it. Originally I was going to wear it, but after we got dressed it was very clear that her hat matched my outfit more, and my hat matched hers - so we swapped :) I absolutely LOVED how her outfit came together - it really looked fantastic and sexy...a great mix of masculine and feminine.

My outfit ended up having more of an Edo-esque type feel and consisted of pink bloomers with eyelet lace (that I frantically sewed the night before while slightly intoxicated...heh), my bright pink naga juban, Christy's black and white striped kimono, my red hakata obi (which matched the red in the hat I was wearing), black and white striped stockings and slipper type shoes. I also borrowed a katana from Christy to finish up my outfit.

I think I can safely say we were the most interesting pirates there on the weekend - there were no other kimono pirates about and we attracted a lot of attention with our outfits :) I have to admit also, I cannot express how scandalously fun it was to walk around with my kimono hitched up and my bloomers showing ;P

Kimono Pirates?

I just had the most amazing 4.5 days and now I am sad and lonely that it is all over.

I need to do a big update tomorrow - but for a teaser....

Care for some kimono pirates?

Centrefold!

I was interviewed for a local magazine in relation to both Immortal Geisha and PuchiMaiko and they asked me in to do a photoshoot in kimono. Unfortunately, my kitsuke was rather sloppy - but the photos still came out nice :) It was a weird feeling driving around South Florida and seeing my face plastered every where though!

I decided to wear my dusty pink iromuji with my reversible Taisho obi and Taisho obi-age.









You can read the article here:
http://www.southflorida.com/citylink/sfe-cl-022206cover,0,2385691.story?coll=sfe-cl-top-promo

And a photograph that Malia took in the studio: