My first snow in the USA

When I found out that we will be moving to New Mexico, I absolutely did not expect to see more snow than I did in England. Yup, that's right! We got snow this weekend! It probably will be gone in a week and we will see no more, but still!

Of course I had to use this opportunity to take photos in the snow. I wanted to wear something very bright, so I found my much-neglected red komon (but it looks like iromuji from far away) and paired it up with one of my recent purchases. I've been looking for an excuse to wear this chuya obi for a while now, and I thought it would stand out nicely against the red. Unfortunately I don't really have anything else blue in the right seasonality, or even close to it, so I went with the next best thing - this purplish haori. I also thought of wearing one of my blue hats, but I just really wanted to wear this red beret.

The haori has some mint leaves designs on it, so I figured that would be the color of my accessories. The gloves are very close in shade to the green on the haori, but the obiage is not the same shade. It is actually a light blue, but it looks very similar in the photos. I figured that might happen, as the same thing happened in my photos before.

At one point I slipped and almost fell in the snow.

One thing I wish I would have done differently is wear a different lipstick. I thought I would wear some pink for a change, but in the photos it looks like I have no lipstick whatsoever. I know it's a little thing, but little things like that are the ones that literally make or break a photo.

As always, you can see the rest of the photos in my Facebook album.

~ Lyuba

How I store my obiage

Few weeks ago Naomi showed me a blog post about vintage gloves storage, so we immediately started looking for these storage containers to buy for our gloves and possibly for our obiage. After looking at many different version, we eventually settled on these ones, as they seemed to be the most sturdy of the bunch.

Well, after organized my obiage AND gloves, I'm proud to say that these containers work for both, but you will need to fold your obiage quite a bit to make it fit.

New life for an unwearable obi

Hello Everyone, 

A while back I won this gorgeous obi for very cheap, but at the time I didn't realize WHY it was so cheap. You can see below the reason why no one else bid on it. I wasn't upset though, because I saw the potential for a nice tsuke obi. 

Not only was the bottom of the obi in a completely unwearable condition, but there were tiny little holes everywhere on the front. Luckily for me, the obi has the same design on both sides, and the other side was in perfect condition! All I had to do was iron out the fold and make the drum part from the good size.

The first thing I did was cut the bottom so I could shorten the stiffener, then fold the fabric. It made the end understandably shorter and a little unbalanced in terms of the design (you can see it in the finished photo), but I'm not bothered by that.

Since it's a tsuke obi, there were lots of hidden spots where I can cut off some fabric to cover the holes in the obi.

By the way, I decided to do it all by hand because sewing by hand is very relaxing for me. It's much faster to do it with a sewing machine.

Here is the back side so you can see how I constructed the tsuke obi. It's actually really easy to do, and I really should stop procrastinating and convert some of the other obi I have.

Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX

Hello Everyone,

Last week I went to a whole day event called Fandango. It is organized by one of the local photographers I've met earlier in September, and I was invited to go as one of the models. I brought several outfits with me, so it felt like I was traveling with my whole closet lol! Of course one of those outfits had to be kimono.

I woke up very early in order to be ready for 4:30 am leaving time, put the kimono on and proceeded to go to the first location. Our first photo shoot place, and the only place I've worn kimono that day, was Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo. From the road the place looks pretty unimpressive, but when you get closer to it, the whole funky potential opens up.

I was very happy I put on the kimono at home! During the ride there my obi fell apart, so I had to fix it on location and boy was it COLD! I could barely feel my fingers, so it took me 3 tries to put the obi back on. After a while I've managed, put on the rest of the accessories and went to take photos.

Photo by Kathy Duncan

The day before I've actually coordinated 3 different kimono outfits, because I was hoping to dress up another model in one of them and also have a change for myself. The cold weather made me change my mind about changing kimono, since it would have taken so long to change. I am pretty happy with the outfit I picked out though, and I still have 2 other outfits to use for something else.

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Kathy Duncan

Photo by Carol Davis

Photo by Tom Heisey

Overall I'm very happy with the photos! I want to thank all of the photographers that photographed me. I simply love your photos!

Have you been to the Cadillac Ranch?

~ Lyuba

Photo shoot with Wayne Hall

Hello Everyone,

Back at the end of July I was contacted by one of the photographers on Model Mayhem, Wayne Hall, who asked me if I would be interested in a TF shoot with him. We decided on a date, and went to the Oasis State Park in Portales. The place was really cool, with lots of wild sunflowers blooming everywhere. Until this point, I've never seen wild sunflowers, and they are really cool!

The day was super hot, so I opted for wearing my sha kimono with ro obi I got from Hong in a trade. I also wore my new straw hat I got in one of the vintage shops here, and the boots from Irregular Choice. All in all, we were able to last about 2 - 2.5 hours there, because it just got so HOT at 11am that I couldn't pose anymore without looking like a tomato.

I'm extremely happy with the photos! Thank you, Wayne Hall, for working with me on this photo shoot!

~ Lyuba

Just Arrived #28

Hello Everyone,

After selling off MOST of my sale stuff at the Japan Fest in Atlanta, I was able to buy me some things that I would actually wear. I have a LOT to show you! I'm pretty excited about all these things, even if I'm not quite feeling up to wearing kimono as often as I used to right this moment.

First up are chuya obi I got. Chuya obi are my weakness, I absolutely love them and simply can't pass them up.

I also got more haori. This one is a gorgeous dark emerald green color, almost the same in shade as the obiage you will see in a moment. In the photo it doesn't look that great, but in person... it's OH MY! The other haori is gorgeous too, even if I can't quite figure out the seasonality.

And here is the obiage and obijime I was just talking about. It's such a deep green color!

I got more nagoya obi too, but I'm only going to keep two of them. Unfortunately they are not in a great condition, but fortunately if I make them into tsuke obi, they will be wearable again.

I'm always on lookout for a ship obi, except I don't particularly care for shusu silk and painted obi. When I saw this obi, I knew I had to have it! It's a gorgeous lavender color with a woven ship pattern! I'm not keeping the other obi.

When I first got this obi, I wasn't sure if I'm going to keep it. I'm simply not a fan of birds, plus I thought this obi is going to be very bright yellows. Well, it turned out to be a gorgeous yellow-green-olive color, plus pretty long for a vintage obi! It was love from first (in person) sight for me! So now this obi is added to my collection and it's not leaving it!

Before coming to the US I sold my favorite black and white kimono to help off set the costs of shipping my cats to the USA, so now I'm hoping to replace it with something similar. This kimono is in no way similar, but

it is black and white, and synthetic. It fits me beautifully! Sometimes I forget how it feels to have a properly fit kimono LOL!

Finally, here is another striped kimono I got! I already worn it to a photo shoot last week.

Told you I got a lot of stuff to show you! :D

~ Lyuba