Red Plum Hairpin - Handcraft Ronghua Tutorial

25. Juli 2024

Chinese poetry often features descriptions of plum blossoms, such as Wang Anshi's "Plum Blossoms"—"A few branches of plum blossoms in the corner, blooming alone in the cold. From afar, it's not snow, but a faint fragrance drifting by," and Wang Shipeng's "Red Plum"—"Peach and apricot do not envy, for their nature is different. Still retaining the demeanor of frost and snow, not yet fully red." Plum blossoms are known for their fragrance in the cold, resilience, and unyielding spirit. This case uses "red plum" as an element to create a Ronghua hairpin.

Color Scheme Display

A. Preparing Velvet Strips

1. Prepare Velvet Rows: Take velvet rows, with 6 strips per group, and prepare a total of 9 groups. The middle 3 groups should be pure red silk thread. For the ends, use a gradient method by adding white silk threads to the pure red threads. The number of white threads can be 1, 2, or 3.

2. Spacing the Velvet Rows: The spacing of the brass wires on the velvet rows determines the width of the velvet strips after cutting. For this red plum creation, the spacing is 5-6mm. After securing the brass wires, cut them and twist them into velvet strips.

B. Assembling Flowers and Buds

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3. Shape the Velvet Strips: Use scissors to trim both ends of the velvet strips into a conical shape. Then bend the strips and twist the brass wires together to form petal shapes.
4. Prepare Gypsum Stamens.

5. Combine Petals and Stamens: Tie the petals and stamens together to create buds and flowers. Use 3 petals for buds and 5 petals for fully bloomed flowers. After tying, use tweezers to adjust the curvature of the petals—bend the bud petals inward and the flower petals outward. As shown in the image above, prepare 4 flowers and 3 buds.

C. Assembling the Final Flower

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6. Arrange Flowers and Buds: Arrange the prepared flowers and buds into the final desired shape.
7. Tie Bud Branches: First, tie 2 bud branches. After making one branch, tie the buds one by one, facing different directions as preferred.

8. Adjust the Branch Curvature: Adjust the curvature of the branches based on the previously determined shape.

9. Fix the Bud and Flower Branches: Secure the bud and flower branches from top to bottom, paying attention to the distance and angle between the flowers and buds. After tying all, cut the brass wires at different lengths diagonally, completing the red plum flower branch.

10. Attach to Hairpin: Take a U-shaped hairpin and fix the red plum flower branch to it, then use the finishing method mentioned in Chapter 2, Section 3.

11. Trim Excess silk threads: Cut off any excess silk threads with scissors, and apply a thin layer of white glue to the finishing area to prevent the threads from slipping. The hairpin is now complete.