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

What I've been up to since July

Hello Everyone,

As many of you know, we just did my 3rd (in my life) move across the pond, and that put a damper on anything kimono or blogging wise. In the past 2 month I just haven't been feeling like blogging, but here are some of the things that have been happening with me.

- Move back to the USA! Yay for normal roads and plenty of parking spots. Not-yay for no Starbucks where I live :(

- We bought a house!

- I picked up my cats from my parents house in Florida and made an epic 17hr trip with them!

- I had a kimono photo shoot, which most of you probably already seen on my Facebook page. 

- I went to Japan Fest in Atlanta with friends where we were kimono dealers. I now have barely any kimono or obi left for sale (MAJOR QUADRUPLE YAY!!!), but whatever I have left I will post in my Sale albums. 

- I'm transitioning my cats to the raw diet. 

- I got myself a pretty glass kettle pot (is that even right?) for my pretty tea! But now I can't find any raw heavy cream to make clotted cream, and might have to pay big money to import it from the UK. 

- I can still make scones! 

- I haven't even thought about starting a KDJ in the area because any decent size city is at least 2hrs away, and I'm not traveling that far just to find out that no one will show up. So there probably not going to be a KDJ where I live, and I'll just hang out with me, myself, and I, like I usually do. Ok, I did think about starting  a KJD. 

- We bought a Japanese cherry tree for our front yard! It's really tiny now, but I'm hoping that by spring it will be grown enough to flower! 

I can't think of anything else that happened, so for now that's all. 

~ Lyuba