Neighbourhood Patrol

I had a good march around the neighbourhood this week. It is all becoming quite normal to me but so many things are completely different to the way London's residential areas are I thought you might be interested. Let's start with our flat which is within this building, forming the back half of the second floor.

Unlike London, as soon as you move off the main thoroughfare, you are on single lane streets.

Pavements exist occasionally, but usually you just walk along the side of the street. Bicycles are very common but they tend to ride on the pavements or sides of streets like this rather than among the cars. It's a little olde worlde in that people don't bother with bicycle locks - you see them outside lots of houses just on their stands.

Often they'll be alongside pot plants which decorate a large number of doorsteps. With land at such a premium people tend not to have gardens, so decorated doorsteps is very common. For anyone who has lived in London this seems really odd. I was astonished - no one steals the plants, or the bikes. No one even knocks them over. No one sprays graffiti on them. It's really quite weird for someone so used to London ways. As well as plants you get knicknacks. Pottery frogs for example.

These are often themed - either seasonal or all disney, for example. Recently these have been new year themed.

And sometimes you want to decorate the doorstep because of what is just next door. The one above had one of the ubiquitous vending machines next to it.

These are endemic. You get them absolutely everywhere including inside temples, on underground platforms and at the entrances to the poshest shopping centres. They give out the usual bottled soft drinks for about 75p a time but also hot drinks such as tea and coffee. Some have beer or whiskey in them. You also get others for cigarettes and sometimes for ice creams and snacks. Veering off the tour for a moment I was surprised to find a 2.7 litre plastic bottle of whiskey in a supermarket the other day.

About £11. Bargain. Anyway, back to the tour. Because space is scarce, any empty lots become these mini carparks.

Some may only have two spaces in them and they are all automated, which is odd considering how overstaffed other activities are. For instance, any construction work is accompanied by a man making sure no one is struck down by vehicles connected to the works which might come racing up at 10 mph every 3 hours or so.

I always say thank you to these men even when the road is empty, as it usually is. I feel so sorry for them. Must be almost as boring as this police duty.

Whenever there is an embassy nearby, and there are several near here (Argentinian and Swiss - nothing threatening), you get a policeman ready to block the roads with his expandable blockade in the event of a crisis. He has an orange baton too. Poor things. They just stand there, hour after hour, scowling at the traffic, in case someone starts storming the Swiss Embassy by car from 300 yards away. As soon as you get away from doorsteps and security risks you can tell when you are getting to the main shopping streets as they are decorated. These are our local ones.

Azabu-juban, which is a richer area and more touristy than ours, has slightly snazzier ones with flags as well.

As well as shops and doorsteps, we also have a large number of temples and shrines near us. You can tell the two apart because a shrine will always have a gate like this at the entrance.

There are at least four within 10 minutes walk of here. This is one of the temples.

This houses a lot of grave monuments.

They also often have their own gardens of various sizes. Aren't the branches of this tree amazing?

This one is alongside our main thoroughfare - which was bustling at midday on a weekday.

You might remember me mentioning a pet hate about waiting endlessly for the green man to appear on empty roads. You can see that happening here. Alongside it runs the odd looking Furukawa River.

Until I looked it up I assumed it was more of a spillway than an actual river but - London residents may again not believe this - there are no shopping trolleys in it. Or bikes. Or pushchairs. Or anything much except rocks, water and perhaps even a fish. As a final stop on this tour, and just down the road from here, is a Nursery. When passing I was delighted to finally see an example of what I had heard stories about - children in carts.

Older children are taken out for walks to local playgrounds (there are two little ones nearby) but the younger ones get put in carts and wheeled round to them. So cute! The youngest get put into 4-baby carts with seats (there's one in the background here) while the others stand in this type of one. Almost next door is a dog grooming parlour. These are much more common than nurseries since the birthrate is quite amazingly low in Tokyo especially, where dog ownership seems much more popular. You see the poor things dressed up in jackets and trousers, trotting along the pavements with their hair permed or whatever it is they do in dog parlours.

So there we are. That is my local neighbourhood, and off I go now into it to do the daily food shopping!

Sewing Conundrums

I have two, no, three sewing issues at the moment. These buttons are not one of them.

I made them for Jasmine's dress to cover up where the poppers are. I used a little button covering kit I came across in a 100 Yen shop. Love those places.

My first conundrum is what to do with this.

It's a 12" block which I made for a 20" cushion cover - so I always knew it would need a border. So I made one but it's not long enough.

So do I make it longer, or do I make some little corner inserty patchwork thing? I'm starting to regret making it to be honest. The linen means it is always going to look crumpled. Bleh. Anyway, onward. Second conundrum is what to make with this:

Two different fabrics which have just arrived for the bloghop "She Who Sews". The print is much bigger than I'm used to so small patchwork designs aren't going to work. Something simple maybe? I dunno. It's just not talking to me. My third conundrum is what to make for the Sewing Room Swap. My partner has such wildly different tastes to me that I don't seem to have any fabric that suits her style. Do I simply use what I have or do I buy something especially? Tough, tough.

Simpler is something like this.

These are the first Basil seedlings from a grow-your-own kit I got Pooch for Christmas. So exciting! Almost as lovely to look at as the birthday tea container I gave Pooch yesterday.

It caught my eye amongst many others because it seems to be made from Silver Birch wood. I don't think I've ever seen anything made from that wood before and I used to love the trees when I was little. On my recent "exploring the neighbourhood" patrol (post to come tomorrow) I found a wonderful shop full of traditional tea and decorative things. I'll definitely be taking anyone who comes to visit there. As well as other things there were wrapping cloths in cat designs.

I was powerless to resist - and this is probably why my discontent with the cushion cover has come to a head - and think they would look beautiful incorporated into different things. This one says (approximately, according to Pooch, reading from top to bottom and right to left) "Everyday, happiness increases." Certainly, every day I visit a cat cafe, my happiness does increase!

Kyushibarikyu Gardens, Take Two

(click here or on the image)

Back in June Pooch and I visited these gardens as part of our whirlwind tour of the city. We went back again today to see how they looked in a different season. In a word? Beautiful.

On our first visit it was about 30 degrees, humidity of 99.9% and raining on and off from grey skies. Today was about 5 degrees, normal humidity and bright sunshine from blue skies.

Back then there were perhaps 3 birds in the whole place. This time it looked like flocks of two different types of duck were either pausing in their migration or had bedded down for the season.

They had also tied up some of the trees in these kind of nets - not sure why. It was clearer what the nature of the protection was with these.

I *think* these are Peonies although I could be wrong. They certainly seem rather reminiscent of the fabric you see a lot of here.

Amazing colours.

Pooch and I went for traditional Ramen at a place opposite the station afterwards. Wonderful old dark brown wooden benches and tables.

There was an impressive amount of slurping coming from the tables around us which Pooch was more than happy to join in with. I remained more demure and tackled mine more like spaghetti. No mean feat.

Before you go I encourage you to revisit my previous post about shop windows. Wendy left a comment which answered most of the logistics questions I posed in among the pictures and it is all pure knowledge gold. Thank you so much Wendy! I've often wondered about all of that and now I know!

Shinjuku Shop Windows

On the whole, I am not a devotee of shop window displays. I used to occasionally stop to admire Liberty's but that was about it. But following Rachel's guest post about christmas windows I have been a bit more aware of them, and the ones in Shinjuku this week definitely caught my eye. I was on one of the main roads near the station and the juxtaposition of the Louis Vuitton opulence with the Oioi (I think) department store nearby was very effective*.

The one thing that does always occur to me with these windows is logistics. For example, were the flowers shipped to the store as is and over how great a distance?

How were they packed to ensure they didn't get crumpled and bent? Are those cherries vacuum formed plastic, and what about the balloons? Or sprayed polystyrene perhaps?

Could they even be inflatable? And what happens to it after this display is done with? Does every LV shop have the same display or were these designed specifically for this space?

Moving on I admired the contrast of old culture (kimonos and kabuki make-up) with new culture (comics and manga - although comics are also a little bit old school having now been around for decades) and very new culture (the cutting edge fashion).

With this kind of thing it is the timeline that interests me. Clearly someone had to come up with the concept, get that approved, then choose the items to be displayed, the arrangement and which window they'd be in, have the artist make the drawings, finalise the designs, get them made and then set it up to coincide with having the dresses etc in stock.

And unless that was all done quite quickly, the clothes and things would have been in store for weeks before the windows were in place, which seems pointless.

But then I guess they get previews of the clothes months in advance so that probably explains it. Still - you need a skilled kind of mind to envisage this kind of thing before you've got the real stuff in front of you.

*To put this in context - this particular road is kind of a New Bond Street type bit of street in central Tokyo. Posh shops in abundance which then break off into not so posh and scraggy ones. If you know London think South Kensington tailing off into the Tottenham end of Oxford Street. I constantly get Shinjuku and Shibuya confused, although they are very different in feel. Shinjuku is more for wealthy business types while Shibuya is more teenage. There is a phenomenon known as 'Shibuya Girls' who are the ones who dress all cutesy with ringlets and frills. You see them in twos and threes, usually giggling.

There is also the Shibuya Scramble - the most mental pedestrian crossing you'll ever find. There are about 5 crossings together which you would have thought form a satanic pentagon from the number of people involved. When the green man lights up, *thousands* of people cross at once.

Normality Has Been Achieved

My facebook status a few days ago read

Every now and again, I look up at all the neon and so on, and think "Holy shit, I'm in Japan."

This happened to me again on the train this morning, and again while I was pottering around the kitchen. I have concluded that this means I am finally used to being here. Being on the metro, walking around the streets, using ingredients whose labels I can't understand, is all quite normal to me now - it doesn't seem obvious that I'm in a different country. A pretty good thing after just 7 weeks on this side of the world.

Normality coincides with my first finished knitting project since I arrived (there was the blanket but that was crochet). It is a Multinomah Shawl (rav link to free pattern) with a beaded cast off.

It also coincides with my acquisition of this FQ bundle in very japanese colours.

It also coincides with another visit to my favourite cat cafe in Shinjuku. Prizes were awarded for...Cutest Feet:

Most Variegated Eyes:

Fluffiest Face: (can you imagine what this lady looked like as a kitten - omg cute overload)

Most Freaky Looking:

And finally, Most Likely to Become an Evil World Dictator:

As I was leaving I looked back into the room just in time to catch this crazyness...

I love these cats!

Japanese Craft Books

I have been having a lovely time over New Year, tucked up on the sofa under the new crocheted blanket next to Pooch, looking through a selection of Japanese Craft books. Not only do I have access to the usual bookshops (photos in this post) but also the Book-Off chain who do second hand books. And not only am I able to buy books and magazines BUT I have a library five minutes away which has a monthly quilting magazine you can read there AND a big craft section upstairs. I really am pretty lucky.

Those of you not familiar with japanese craft books, their usefulness lies in their extensive use of diagrams, charts and symbols. This makes them highly accessible to non-japanese speakers. There are a number of websites helping you understand them too. There is a brilliant collection of resources here and I have bought new books from Pomadour on Etsy before.

A few favourites from recent reads:

and this is the kind of instructions you get for the hexagon bag.

There are also usually templates either within the pages or on a fold out pattern sheet like you get with mainstream sewing magazines.

I know these books can be pretty expensive in the UK (actually they are expensive here too!) so I'm looking into setting up a little Etsy shop selling on the second hand books I can find that are at least half the price of the new ones and which are in good condition. If you'd like new copies I'd recommend Pomadour's shop, but otherwise watch this space for updates!

Washing in Tokyo

Space in Tokyo is really scarce. However, a lot of apartments have a small outside space or balcony - even if only because you need somewhere to stick the outdoor bit of the aircon unit which is standard here. On the majority of balconies you will see something I've only rarely seen in the UK - and which I've just found through googling described by an ebay seller as a "Plastic Fold Hanging Rack Peg Dryer Airer Wash Drying Hanger Indoor Outdoor Clip" which is quite a good name, or by Lakeland as a "Magic Hanger". These often hang from laundry poles for which there are standard fittings on most balconies. A la these in the flats I can see from our balcony.

I made myself foolishly happy this morning by using mine to hang out my knitted socks.

Eleven pairs in all. All made by me except for the pinky red ones second from the right which were a present and are lovingly cared for. They include the first pair I made using ProbablyJane's Bracket Fungus pattern (rav link and fourth from right in above picture) which remains one of my favourite patterns. In fact looking at Ravelry those are now more than 6 years old - Go Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock Multi! Although they are reserved for bedsocks nowadays since they have gone quite baggy. These are not all of my knitted socks and the presence of the Fungus ones is not my only reason to think of ProbablyJane. In fact the reason why hanging them out like this made me happy is because I remembered her photos of hers hanging on her washing line back in London!

Projects Underway in 2014

I have one finished object to share and six - count 'em - underway. First the FO. 

This is the one I started when we first got here as a replacement for the full size Babette Blanket I made about 7 years ago in London...

...and gave away just before we left. The replacement one is a lot smaller - more like a single bed one - and is more for the sofa than the bed. The yarn is Spectre Modem (rav link) which is a very nice 100% wool aran and I used 2 balls of each colour with an extra 2 of the dark purple for joining and an extra one of the same for a single row around the edge. The yarn was from Okadaya which is still my favourite craft shop in Tokyo so far. 

Now for the WIPs. From left to right starting at the top...

1. Cushion cover, using up some of the leftover curtain fabric from the bedroom. I didn't have enough to do a proper closure and no zip handy so I decided on button tabs. Except I still haven't sewn on the buttons. Been two weeks now. Yep. 

2. Artemis Socks, using my Meow Foundation cat yarn in the colourway 'siamese'. I am using the Aquaphobia pattern as it is good for breaking up yarn inclined to pool, which I suspected this might. It makes it look like a tawny owl!

And of course any mention of an owl makes me think of the Hungover Owls tumblr site, which has sadly called it a day at 500 owls but the site remains up. 

3. Pooch's Birthday Present, clearly it's a Sarah Lund jumper from series 1 of The Killing. It's what he requested. 

4. Noriko's Xmas Present, yep - running a little late there. It's a Multinomah Shawl. I've got beads to add to the edging. 

5. Dress for Jasmine, I found this amazingly simple pattern on Etsy. Only making one at the moment to see if it fits. I need to snip the seams more and top stitch before ironing and adding bias tape to the bottom edge. 

6. Lucy Boston Bee Block, the January Queen has asked for green, pink, yellow and orange. That's the thing about these Bees - you get asked for colours you wouldn't normally put together. Been rather fun putting this one together. The November one was grey and yellow which are also colours I don't normally use together. March is to be orange and grey while February is currently a mystery. I was December and chose red and white with the emphasis on polka dots - what else!

I also have a thread catcher in mind - a kind or portable mini-bin for all the snips of thread that currently litter my sofa - plus more red and white Lucy blocks for my own quilt and then something based on all the japanese craft books I've been inhaling. I have pictures from those to share at some later point.