Sweet silk butterflies

When I saw this kimono in Tokyo I fell in love with the beautiful colours.  It was folded up neatly but when I picked it up to inspect it I found that the sleeves were missing and there was a lot of black gunk on the hem.  Fortunately the gorgeous butterflies weren't damaged.

Due to the damage, and I do wonder what happened, it was very heavily reduced, and today I gave new life to the old kimono and made beautiful kanzashi flowers.

The fabric is a beautiful, thick and luscious silk with gold highlights.  The deep pink background has a cloud pattern throughout it which gives it a nice texture (more visible in the first photograph above). 

As usual I think I'll have to keep one of these for myself.