How to Make Japanese "Kanzashi" Style Flower Brooches

I fell in love with these gorgeous little fabric flowers, "Tsumami Kanzashi", when I was living in Japan.  Traditionally, they are delicate little pieces made from a fine silk crepe and formed together to create the amazing Geisha hairpieces.  Not being an elegant geisha myself, I've made these brooches bigger and bolder and with antique kimono silks as a nod to their heritage.

They are quite simple to make and after you've done a few you could find yourself quite addicted...

What you'll need;

• A small piece of fabric, about 5 x 25cm is a good place to start.  It's good to use a fabric with a bit of substance to it, but not too thick.  I used interfaced kimono silks but a starched cotton also works really well.
• Hand sewing needle, thread, scissors.
• Five pegs (just from the washing line)
• Bead and bead caps (optional)
• Small piece of felt
• Craft glue
• Brooch back

Got your bits and bobs?  Let's get started shall we?

1.  Take the piece of fabric and cut it so that you have five squares the same size.  About 5cm is a good place to start.  Your final flower will be about the same size as one of those squares.

2.  Take one of your squares and fold it in half to create a triangle with the right side facing out.  Give the fold a bit of a finger press.  Fold that in half again, so that the triangle is half the size.  At one corner, the fabric will have two loose points.

3.  Take one of these points and fold it backwards so that you keep the raw edges together.

4.  Take the other loose corner and fold it back on the other side so that it looks like the picture below.  You've folded your first petal.  Put a peg on it to hold it in place.

5.  Repeat this until you have five petals.

6.  At the corner where you have the three points meet, very carefully trim a couple of millimetres.  This is going to be the centre of your flower and the trimming helps them sit a little neater.

7.  Take one petal and stay stitch in close to the corner.  A little thread sitting on the raw edge will also help keep everything together. 

8.  Making sure that it is facing the same way up, thread the next petal onto the cotton and stay stitch the second petal.  You won't be stitching the petals together just yet, but it's a bit like stringing beads onto a line.

9.  Continue until you have all five petals on the thread.  Line them up.

10.  From the line, take the outside edges of the first and last petal and hold them together.  Flip the flower over so that your raw edges are facing upwards.  This is where you want all your stitches to go.

11.  Stay stitch the two together very close to their corners.

12.  Then again about 2/3 of the way up.  You could do neat little stitches all of the way, but as this will be covered by felt later, I don't bother.

13. Then, with your first and last petals joined, grab the next two folds - what will be outer folds of the first and second.  Scroll down to a couple of photos down and you should get what I mean.

14.  Stay stitch in the centre again, and then 2/3 of the way up.  Don't worry that the stitching may be a little messy at this stage, it will be covered up later.

15.  Continue until all five petals are joined.  In the photo below you can get an idea of what the stitching will look like.

16.  This is my favourite bit... flip the flower over.  At this stage the petals will all be a bit pointy.  Take a finger or thumb and push the petal into a rounded shape.  It will take a little fiddling and squishing until the fabric wants to sit the way you want it to.  I go around the flower a few times pushing and squishing.

17.  You should now have a lovely little Japanese plum flower.

18.  Bead the centre of the flower how you wish.  I like to put a bead cap or two in and then a bead that will highlight one of the colours in the flower.

19.  Flip the beaded flower over and put some craft glue on the raw edges.  Adhere it to some felt.  Once the glue has dried, stitch the edge of the flower onto the felt to reinforce it.  Trim the felt.

20.  Finally, sew a brooch back on and it's ready to wear with pride.

Before you know it you'll be looking around at little bits of fabric you have around the place and your garden will begin to grow.

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Hoo Hoo

A couple of owl friends to join the Origami family.

Did you know that in Japan the owl is a symbol of good luck?  

"Owl" in Japanese is "fukurou".  The first part of the word "fuku" translates to "good fortune".

"Fu" in Japanese also means "without" and "kurou", hardship, so by a happy linguistic accident, "owl" can also mean "without hardship".  

Just another reason to like those cute little birds.

How To Make Japanese Paper Dolls

Last Sunday, I had a ball teaching the Brisbane Brown Owls group how to make "Ningyogami" - Japanese paper dolls. I think everyone was surpised at how easy they were to do.

What you need
* “Kimono” paper (I prefer Japanese Yuzen or chiyogami) about 5.5 x 12.5 cm
* “Obi” and “collar” paper about 1.5 cm wide, the length doesn’t matter too much. You can use different papers for the obi and collar.
* “Obi-jime” paper (again, I prefer Yuzen or chiyogami), narrower than the “Obi” paper. You can use a few different ones to layer if you like.
* “Hair” and “Fringe” paper – I use Japanese crepe, but a standard crepe paper will do.
* White card for head and body. The head circle is about 2cm in diameter, the body about 3mm wide, length isn’t too important.
* Double-sided tape (you can use glue, but I find tape is less messy).
* Sticky tape
* Scissors

1. Cut a small length of the collar paper and fold it in half to create a narrower strip. Fold this around the “body” to create a collar (actually the collar of the under kimono). Make sure that (as you’re looking down on it) the left goes under the right. This is the way a kimono is worn by all except for the deceased. Run a strip down the length so that it hangs over the edge, you will use this soon.

2. With the wrong side up, fold about 1cm of one end (if the pattern on the paper has a top and bottom, do this at the top).

3. Flip the paper over and fold about 0.5cm back over. This forms the collar of the kimono.

4. Tape the body and under-kimono collar into the middle so that just a touch of the under-kimono peeks over the top.

5. Fold the left side of the kimono over the under-kimono collar. Only press the top of this fold, not the whole length.

6. Fold the rest of the side over to create a straight edge down the kimono.

7. There may be a corner of the collar that goes further than the rest of the edge. Trim this so that it is all straight.

8. Fold the other side over. To get the angles matching at the top, I find it easier to crease from the bottom up. Crease the straight line up to the point of the slight corner on the other side and then fold in the top to match. This side doesn’t fully cover the other side. There should be a few millimeters of the first side showing. Trim anything that hangs over the side.

9. Put the piece of “obi paper” around the kimono so that it sits just below the collar and covering the angled folds in the kimono (where the angle of the collar change to the straight edge of the kimono). Tape this at the back. The long hair will cover the tape later.

10. Put a decorative piece of “obijime” over the obi. You can do a few of layers of this if you like.

11. Place a bit of the crepe paper on the head to make a fringe. It should sit about half-way down. Make sure that the grain of the crepe is running down, like hair would do. Flip the “head” over and trim off the excess. The trimming doesn’t need to be too perfect, this will get covered by the rest of the hair in the next few steps.

12. Tape the head onto the body leaving a bit of “neck” showing. I use double-sided tape, as this gets stuck to the rest of the hair in a moment.

13. Tape the back of the head onto the hair piece so that there is some space at the top.

14. Fold the hair to that it angles up to the middle (or a little past, you don’t want your doll to end up with a bald spot). I like to do a few folds to give the hair more volume.

15. Do the same on the other side and hold the top of the head.

16. Twist the top of the hair and then fold it behind the head. If using the doll to go on a card or bookmark, it is fine to just tape the twist in place on the back.

She’s finished!

Watch out, making these can get addictive.