Cherry Blossom in Tokyo

The blossom is just starting to come out. Everything in the shops has been blossom themed for weeks but this is the actual event. Pooch and I went to drink it in by walking along the river at Nekameguro, about 25 minutes walk from here.

The blossom was about 50% out which was plenty to have attracted a lot of visitors. There were stalls and booths up both sides of the river selling food and pretty much every second one had a cherry themed drink. I had a Martini Rose with strawberries bobbing in it. The lanterns really were neon and are lit up at night. The writing essentially says "Buy the best from Cooper's Creosote Ltd" or the equivalent for the local businesses.

There was no scent from these but the colour was lovely. A very, very pale pink whereas the buds looked properly pink. It all reminded me of the flower fairy colouring.

Although looking at the flower fairy, she's not pink at all apart from her sash. Hmmm. Anyway. 

It was pretty awesome. 

Sadly things here have not worked out quite as planned for Pooch (I'm having a brilliant time, not working and all) so it is possible we will be coming back to the UK much sooner than we had originally thought. I won't know how much longer we'll be here for some time yet but in the meantime it means I am appreciating the experiences I am having all the more!

Making a Hat and What It Shows About Pinterest

Long story short, I made a hat.

I rather like it although Pooch's response has been less positive.

I mentioned my intention of wearing it on our outing today and he immediately told me there was no need because it was going to be very cloudy, no sunshine at all. This is despite the sun beaming in through the windows onto our breakfast.

I used a pattern I found on Pinterest which you can find here. I cut the pieces out of iron-on interfacing which I then used as templates for piecing scraps, sewing onto the iron-on/shiny side. Once covered I duly ironed and trimmed the edges then got to sewing. I made a lining but only interfaced the brim of that. The whole thing took about 2 hours which would have been less if I had just used plain fabric for both sides.

However, the interesting thing from my point of view is that this highlights how I now use Pinterest as my first choice search engine when it comes to patterns, tutorials and visual inspiration. A year ago I would have used google every time but this has definitely shifted. I use the 'search' function of Pinterest a lot. The benefit to me is that you are looking at links that have already been "peer reviewed" as worthy of pinning and they have sometimes made their own version so have road tested the pattern for you. It cuts out the adverts, selltorials and, sadly, rubbish versions nicely.

There is a counter argument to be made in that you are only seeing what others have already seen, but then it is a sun hat. I'm not trying to reinvent the bra or develop brave new nail designs.

So here I am...boldly going where many sun hats have been before...

...rather grainily...

R&R

I am so lucky. Don't think I don't know and appreciate it! I never thought I'd not be working when we came over here but I am so happy it turned out this way. It has meant I've had to improve my cooking skills and I have had to do far more cleaning than I would like, but the benefits outweigh that! For instance, the weather here is more like british summer then spring already. It's been at least 18 degrees the last few days and it went up as high as 23 on Monday. Which is when I set myself up like so on the balcony...

I stayed in the sun for half an hour before sellotaping the umbrella to the railing. It's not exactly elegant but pale skin and freckles do not a sun worshiper make! My chair has two drink holder pockets - one in each arm - but clearly these are better used to hold knitting and my phone respectively, so I could bliss out while listening to an audiobook for a couple of hours. I'm knitting baby Jasmine a lacy summer cardigan.

Japanese women apparently prefer to stay as pale as possible and so avoid the sun and use spf 50+ sun lotion - the lowest I could find in the chemist was spf 35. According to my in-depth research (google) a lot of japanese sun lotions aimed at women have skin whitening agents in. I'm not sure how true that is, but I'll definitely be avoiding those. I'm Casper enough as it is! Which reminds me of this meme:

My sister and I cackled when we saw this because it is so true for both of us. 

Nyafe Melange Cat Cafe in Ebisu

When Pooch told me there was a cat cafe within 10 minutes walk of our flat I was a bit skeptical. My experiences at the Ikebukero cafe had shown that these cafes could be pretty variable plus his idea of 10 minutes walk is very different to mine. So when I hopped on the bus for 15 minutes to get there I was playing it cool.

In size it is about half the size of Calico in Shinjuku with the above at one end of the single room and a wall of windows with more seating and cat beds at the other end. The cats can also get completely away from visitors off to the right of the above picture if they want to. There were about 12 cats all together with these two winning 'most adorable couple'.

There was quite a lot of friendliness in evidence.

The guys below were funny. The cat on the right was there first and the one on the left basically sat down and wriggled about til he/she was comfy.

It's not like there was a shortage of beds either - they just seemed to enjoy doubling up. You can't tell from the photos but they both had amazing eyes - like old fashioned clear glass marbles but one with blue centres and one with green. It was very striking.

There was also politics. The occasional tricky pass to be negotiated on the high levels...

And then there was Bruiser.

I thought he looked very sweet at first, then I saw his face. Even with the scottish fold breed ears this was clearly not a cat to mess with! He swaggered up and down the room with his shoulder muscles rolling and swatted at any cat that hadn't already got out of his way.

He wasn't above a bit of stroking but not until he'd put on a boxing show. But seriously - how can you be intimidated by a pussycat with pads on his feet that pink! It was like Barbie had a cat habit and this was him.

One other notable resident was this guy who was amazing to look at.

He was charcoal coloured but when you looked at the fur closer to his body it was pretty much white - so when he moved you got these lines of grey and white appearing. Plus if you look closely he's got an almost bengal type pattern of stripes in his fur. Very special. (All my photos are rather blurry because I had the flash turned off.)

All in all it was a good way to spend an hour but I've been spoiled by Calico Cat Cafe. Even when this little guy decided to sit under me when I crouched down to take a photo...

...it didn't change my mind. It may be twice the distance but I'll still be heading back to Shinjuku for my cat fix in future.

Ka(t)waii Bag

Remembering, as I am sure you have, that "kawaii!" means "cute" in japanese, the title of this post will make perfect sense. I have made a cat bag.

The features are needle-turn applique'd apart from the whiskers which were simple embroidery. On the back is a bow - because most cute things in Tokyo feature bows somewhere along the way.

The bag is a kit I got at the Quilt Show some months ago and my finally getting on with it was brought about by my previous cross-body bag suddenly breaking mid-jaunt a week or two ago. There is no doubting this one is cross-body when you see the length of the strap.

Which itself is a paw at one end, albeit rather sketchily embroidered.

The fabric is one of the lovely japanese woven ones with a polka dot texture (dots and cats - the kit was basically designed for me). In the pattern and instructions that came with it the bag was supposed to be a little bit smaller with an 8" zip closure. I've enlarged mine and given it just a magnetic clasp.

I also added an inner pocket for my travelcard using one of the sample squares I picked up still on the card at Okidaya.

The original design didn't have any lining but I've added this japanese lilac kitten and temari ball print I picked out of a bargain bucket somewhere this year. I've yet to give the bag a testdrive but I am rather smitten with it already! It is finished in time for the start of Spring which has begun here with some really lovely weather. 16, 18 even 20 degrees so that I sat here at lunchtime with the balcony door open.

From next week I will be able to sit out on the balcony in my red polka dot garden chair Pooch inadvertantly got me as a present. I say 'inadvertantly' since he has been in bed with the mother of all hangovers all day and to make up for the smell and the rest of it I told him he'd got me the chair in one of his lucid moments just as I arrived at the bedside with another cup of tea. He bravely muttered that there was no need to thank him.

While my Mum was visiting I got her to pick out some fabrics for a quilt and have since been going strong on an EPP quilt I have designed for her.

The sides are all 2" and so I calculate I need 90 blue hexagons, 86 whitish ones, 558 blue diamonds and 135 whitish of the same. So far I have 78, 12, 180 and 64 respectively. I have more fabric waiting for me for when I get back to the UK for a visit in three weeks, but this leaves me with a dilemma. Should I start sewing together the shapes or should I wait so I can fully integrate the new fabrics into all parts of the quilt? If I wait I need to keep cutting more and more paper pieces, whereas if I get on with it I can reuse existing ones but risk a patchy quilt. That basically answers it really - I'll have to wait. Having so many shapes left me in a storage quandry until I found these at the 100 yen shop.

Diamonds in the top and hexagons plus uncut fabric in the bottom. I'll need to swap those before long though. Mum asked for the quilt to be in blues so there are quite a few shades appearing already.

I am sure there will be many more added before I see this one off the needle though!

Blossom in Yoyogi Park

I am 90% sure this is plum blossom still - the cherry isn't due to start for another week yet - but I've not seen any with the green leaves like this. 

It was a beautiful day yesterday and a national holiday called Spring Day. Wikipedia says it is a time to commemorate ancestors by leaving spring flowers at graves and also a time to reconnect with living family, start a new hobby or spring clean. From our point of view it meant Pooch got the day off so we took a walk in Yoyogi Park. It is the same park I visited at New Year when I went to the Meiji Shrine (which looking back I realise I never blogged about) but it's the first time I had been into the park proper. My eye was caught by a dog area - specifically for dogs to socialise in. 

The signs are for under 12kg on the right and over 10kg on the left. The yapping from the smaller dogs was ghastly. However, in accordance with the norm in Tokyo, all small dogs were suitably dressed in at least a t-shirt and some in a full outfit. 

Very odd. 

It's been a quiet week since my back went ping again on Monday so I've just been quietly working on a few EPP sewing projects and thinking about the next jumper I am due to knit.

Meanwhile back in the UK it is SkipNorth this weekend! Can't believe I'm missing it but Nickerjac is keeping me up to date with frequent tweeting. I hope they are all having great fun!

Confirming Receipt

It has been a good few months for swaps. I ended up with two partners in the first swap of my English Paper Patchwork Group on Flickr. I scored these two beautiful pouches.

So different but both so brilliant. Look at the extra detail on the red one...

Completely non-functional but adding a really polished finishing touch. And with the clamshell, look how she handled where the two sides join underneath...

That represents a level of planning I rarely seem to achieve with my projects. I adore them both!

I also received my parcel for the sewing room swap, also on Flickr. The most brilliant bag!

My inspiration mosaic contained several cat pictures and I'd said that my preference was for jewel colours.

Inside there is an excellently deep pocket and the lining is another cat print fabric. Such thoughtfulness! This was my 'big' item and you also sent a small one too. My 'small' was not exactly insubstantial.

A lovely sewing roll! I can honestly say I have used the bag every day since it arrived on Saturday, starting with a visit to a food market when Pooch snapped these.

I really do love it!

The next round for the EPP Group is currently open for sign ups so click here to read more about it. There is no need to have a blog - just a flickr account is fine.

Kamakura's Big Buddha and Other Family

My parents are visiting this week so it has been sightseeing central. I have plenty to catch up on but since they are still here will content myself with a small peek at what we did yesterday. My friend Noriko very kindly took us off for the day to Kamakura which is a seaside town about three times the size of what I would think of as a UK seaside town since everything in Japan is either on a much larger or much smaller scale than anything in the UK. It has many shrines as well as lots of craft shops, a large sandy beach for surfing, views of Mt Fuji (only on clear days - alas not when we were there) and restaurants a plenty. It is an hour by train from Tokyo and is definitely worth a visit. Having grown up by the sea it was lovely to go back, even just for a few hours.

The weather was idyllic - the warmest day of the year so far - and the waves seemed to be good as the sea was full of surfers, even on a weekday. However, our first stop was inland. We got there, rounded a corner, and behold...

The effect of rounding a corner and seeing this kind of thing in the flesh is hard to describe. As we were leaving I watched others and there was always the pause, the widening eyes and the mouth slightly open. You know to expect him, but then suddenly there he is.

Photos really do not do justice to him. It sounds terribly twee, but there really is a feeling of extreme serenity as you look at him. I am not a terribly spiritual person and have no religion, but I felt very strongly that if I had the time I could quite happily sit there for hours looking at him, at the sky, at the trees, at the birds, and think lazy thoughts about nothing in particular and be very happy while doing so.

Some school children from another part of Japan had recently made him a pair of traditional slippers. You see these in paintings from the Edo period and they are still sold in many traditional shops around Japan.

Although of course very few of them are made for this sized foot. This pair were a lot taller than me.

The Buddha himself dates from 1252 and his story is told on a wall plaque.

I felt rather humbled by such an amazing...I'm not sure of the right word. Creation? Symbol? Icon? He seems too present to be just called a statue or something inanimate.

The rest of our day in Kamakura was spent in beautiful but rather less epic pursuits. It did however, in a way that brought me back to earth and reminded me of my true calling in life, bring me my first "Beware of the Cat" sign.

This was near another shrine we visited. Apparently the cats have a tendency to run out into the road. Earlier in the week I had taken my parents to the Calico Cat Cafe and bought Rob a pot of food without first warning him what the effect would be.

There was a cute stampede towards him. Fnah fnah.

Sadly they go back to the UK at the weekend so normal blogging will resume after that. Today Rob has gone off to the Railway Museum with Mr Pooch so Mum and I are going craft shopping in Asakusabashi and Nippori and then on to Harajuku for Tokyo's biggest 100 Yen shop. I took her to a smaller one in Shinjuku on Monday and she caught the bug! They really are rather wonderful places, especially when your previous experience of such things has been the UK's Poundland. There is just no comparison and I have to keep reminding myself that all the craft bits I find in them are only 65p a pop.