
How to Make a Chanhua Trailing Jasmine Hairpin (Step-by-Step)
The trailing jasmine is the longest piece in our range: one 15 cm stem carrying a line of small blue blooms. It takes six to nine hours, and the stem is where most of that time goes.
The Silk Lineage Journal
Articles tagged “diy”.
Tagged: diy

The trailing jasmine is the longest piece in our range: one 15 cm stem carrying a line of small blue blooms. It takes six to nine hours, and the stem is where most of that time goes.

A small chanhua hairpin takes four to six hours to wind by hand. Our most complex designs have taken about a month. Here is where the hours actually go, stage by stage.

A chanhua phoenix brooch is built from long tapered feathers rather than round petals, which makes it the least forgiving design in the range. Here is how the build differs and where it goes wrong.

A chanhua lily of the valley is a curved stem of small bell-shaped florets rather than a round bloom. At about 8.5 cm it is a brooch first and a hairpiece second, and it takes three to four hours.

A chanhua hydrangea is not one flower but twelve to eighteen small four-petal florets gathered into a dome. It is the most forgiving first build, and it takes four to five hours.

Wrapping silk thread flat around a wire frame is the single motion the whole craft of chanhua is built on. Here is how to do it so the petal looks smooth instead of ribbed.

A chanhua graduation cap is a mortarboard covered in hand-wound silk flowers instead of paint and stickers. It takes 16 to 20 hours and should be started three to four weeks before graduation day.

A chanhua DIY kit contains shaped wire petals, dyed mulberry silk thread, a hairpin blank, glue and pearl stamens. Here is what each piece is for, what is not included, and how long the first flower takes.

A chanhua peony hairpin is made by wrapping fine silk thread around shaped wire petals, then gathering six to eight of them into a single bloom. A beginner working from a kit can finish one in four to six hours.
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