one more time...

Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007 6:48 AM

...I worked at making kanzashi tonight and by the end of the night I made one that I'm happy with.  I'll show you the mistakes first:

 My method: I made rice paste using rice flour mixed with cold water first (equal amounts of each) and then a third part hot water until it was thinner (but still covered the spoon.. so not so thin it was soupy).  I brushed the rice paste on the fabric and let that dry.  I then cut the pieces in 2 inch squares and followed the folding directions I linked to earlier.  Instead of using rice paste as the adhesive, I cheated and used a hot glue gun.  I encountered some problems at first with the glue being messy, but using smaller dots of glue, my flowers eventually improved.

Here are the first two:

Here is the one I was happy with, shape-wise (although I'll probably pick different fabrics and buttons later):

Despite the need for more tweaking, I feel pretty jazzed about making these...Mine aren't the most perfect or fanciest out there, but these are totally a labor of love...and I think they are close to looking like what they are supposed to... YAY!  Now only to pick the right fabrics.....