Hana Bag & Kanzashi Brooch Workshop: 22.03.14

Katie Chaplin (or "the Japanese lady" as we call her) hosted this fabulously interesting workshop to teach us new Japanese craft skills.  As ever, she entertained and educated us with the background and customs of Japan as she taught us how to make these beautiful items.

We had a full class with a good turnout for the WI for this much-sought-after course.

We started the day by making Kanzashi Brooches.  The array of traditional Japanese fabrics to choose from was mind-boggling and for some it took longer to choose the fabric than to actually make the brooch!

We took a piece of beautiful fabric and with some clever folding and more than a little glue we formed petals:

Which then formed flowers!

Katie showed us some beautiful REAL Kanzashi which had been made into hair ornaments - so intricate and truly beautiful!  She explained that the hair ornaments worn by the Geisha start out very long but, as the lady works her way up the ranks, her hair ornaments get shorter and shorter until there is no drape at all.  She said that the very top Geisha don't even look like a Geisha but a 'normal' woman as they don't wear the bright costumes or extravagant hair adornments. 

It takes ten years of training to be able to make these flower petals (so we did well in one morning!)

After lunch we started on the Hana Bags!  Again, it took some tight to choose the fabrics for the bag as every piece was so beautiful!

We chose two co-ordinating or contrasting fabrics and performed some clever folding and stitching:

It was very therapeutic to just sit and chat while stitching something beautiful at the same time.  The finished bags were gorgeous, with a contrasting fabric 'secret' pocket on the back and the front, and undoing the drawstring gives you plenty of room inside.  This could become addictive!

We were all VERY interested to hear of a JAPAN DAY hosted by Kimono World to be held in Northallerton on 17th May 2014 and will definitely be discussing this as a WI event as it is an unmissable opportunity!