My Little Niece

I last saw my niece in the flesh back in April when she was only just starting to crawl, and mainly going backwards.

Now she is on the verge of walking and the crawl is so high speed it is hilarious to watch.

She and my sister came over to my Mum's for the weekend and Mum has stone floors downstairs. Jasmine's little hands went 'slap slap slap' as she sped off across the floor, which I am sure is just what noise a running penguin would make were we to have one handy. She has added some new faces to her repertoire, of which I captured this one.

I also got her looking like a young Wonderwoman, with some help from me.

I got some great shots of her and my sister playing together too.

It was lovely to see them, and I'll be moving over to their house for a couple of weeks in just a few days. We have a few nights near St Austell booked so if it stops raining we are looking forward to paddling and making sand castles!

Is Cross Stitch Difficult?

This is something I was pondering yesterday when the Mater was waxing lyrical over my latest finished object.

To put this in context, Mumsy still praises me excessively when I manage to stand up without holding onto the furniture, a skill that keeps me one step ahead of my mini-niece (of whom more tomorrow). She is always very complimentary about the various things I make and assured me that she could never do cross stitch and there aren't many people who could do one like I had etc etc. I countered that cross stitch is easy because you get a grid of different colours and you transfer that grid onto gridded aida fabric and use the same stitch throughout - a simple cross which uses the holes provided. She wouldn't accept this though and so I started to ponder the various cross stitch projects I knew of. For example:

Anchor First Cross Stitch Kit for Beginners - uses 8 count aida which means 8 stitches per inch. With this stitch count you would use the whole of the embroidery thread so you just have to follow the printed chart and use the right colour on the right square.

(For those who don't stitch - embroidery cotton like this comes very loosely plied with an even number of plies - usually 6 or 8 - which you can subdivide to give you a thinner thread for working on smaller squares. For example, if you use 28 count aida, which means 28 stitches per inch, you would probably only use 2 plies together.)

I can imagine that you need to be a certain age to achieve a basic pattern - the reviews for the one above suggest about 10 years old is a good starting point. But then surely from there you simply need sufficient eye sight and time to complete a project? Scaling up to larger patterns is just a matter of spending more time on it. Smaller squares mean a greater degree of hand-eye-coordination is needed so perhaps you'd need to be 15 or so to do those, but after that, isn't it just putting crosses on fabric in the colour you're told to use?

I think a lot of crafty people tend to underestimate the skills they have because often, and usually after years and years of practise, it comes easily to them. But I always thought I had quite a good grasp of my own skills. I am a very good knitter. I am a good sewer. I can crochet, but nowhere near as well as knitting. I can embroider in a variety of different ways. But cross stitch being difficult? I really can't get my head around that.

One thing I did find difficult to work out before I sat down and read the instructions in this tutorial, was smocking.

Top right in the red embroidery thread - that was me without instructions thinking "it can't be that hard to figure out". The blue stitching is where I read the tutorial. I am making my Mum a peg bag and she has a great love for both red gingham (or in fact mostly any gingham) and smocking so for the first time I have learnt the technique and put the two together. It is so easy on what is basically a gridded fabric although I have seen it done with my own beloved polka dots in a japanese book and also on plain fabric where I guess you'd have to draw on a grid first in a removable medium. These are some examples from Flickr - click on the images to read more about them and see who did them.

Naturally there are Blythe dresses in this style too.

Gosh, there's even a magazine!

Amazing.

July Makes

A pretty productive month - aided by it being uncomfortably hot and humid outside.

Starting top left...

1. Woven coasters - these have been much in use. 
2. Pay It Forward gifts
3. Abortively awful EPP snap frame purses, now dead to me. 
4. Tomato - least said the better. Spider mites. 
5. Bobble hat for Jasmine
6. Bow cardigan for Jasmine in the same yarn as the hat, despite the picture making it look so different. 
7. July block for the I Love Lucy Swap
8. Sew Together Bag for Freddie
9. Mum's embroidery wallet
10. Curtain skirt
11. Washi paper and uv resin cats
12. Patchwork shoes
13. Sew Together bag for Stacey
14. Home Sweet Home cross stitch for Nic
15. Patchwork house blocks for a swap
16. Striped cardigan for Jasmine

My WIP list from last month was:

• Quilt for Nickerjac - fabric bought and design decided. Just pre-washing it all at the moment before starting to cut. (Now cut and started sewing)
• Two more 'sew beautiful' bags being made as presents. (Done)
• Applecore patchwork part done for a manicure bag I'm making myself. (Still going)
• Mum's EPP quilt which I've not worked on all month. (Didn't work on it this month either)
• Jasmine's winter cardigan - all knitted bar half a sleeve and a bow. (Done plus a hat and another cardi)

To add to those I've got:

• The shawl I was knitting for Mum's 69th birthday. She turned 70 in March. 
• One more cardi for Jasmine with petals on it. 
• Cross stitch book cover for me, half done. 

So, busy busy. 

Back in the UK

I am at my Mum's house for the next week before spending the following two and a half with my sister, followed by a few days in London before heading back to Tokyo. My Mum's house seems more like a Country Life editorial each time I visit.

Spot the cat in that last one? As a proud Nana I had printed her some new photos so added them to her brag board.

Still three of me on there so I'm not feeling jealous. Yet.

Patchwork Shoes

Do you remember that Jimmy Nail hit "Crocodile Shoes" in 1994? Probably not, but I do. It has nothing whatsoever to do with these shoes or this post, or this whole blog. but it just popped into my head as I typed "Patchwork Shoes".

I have been having trouble finding suitable summer shoes for Tokyo, in Tokyo. Women's shoes go up to about a UK 6 and I am an 8. Men's shoes are too wide and NOT PRETTY! I want ones with bows on and kittens and stuff.

You rarely see shoes like this in the men's section. So...I went online and found some fairly dull shoes but which came in my size and looked suitable for walking around a city with its thermostat stuck on 'high'. Then I started covering them with the aimless patchwork I started making way back in October last year.

I decided it looked a bit jobby, but it's hard to remove glue and fabric from white shoes without leaving dirty marks (guess how I know that) so I carried on.

Once the glue had dryed I gave them two coats of this spray-on walking shoe waterproofing stuff I had kicking about. I still think they look a tad jobby but they are much more colourful than any other summer shoes I could find in my size. I wore them this week for the first time and they held up well so I shall count that as a success!

Saying "Au Revoir" to the Cats

I know I kid myself that these cats realise I come to see them regularly, but I felt I had to say farewell, since I am going to be away for a month. I'm not sure how many of them noticed though - it was sleep central.

Of course Bruiser had also been asleep but woke up with menaces to make it clear he hated everything, especially me, whether awake or not.

Fortunately the young ginger cat was in a playful mood so armed with a rattling mouse we grouped around the shoe box.

The noise brought some unwanted attention from some of the bigger males. Young Ginger was forced to defend his box.

Having dealt with them things almost came a cropper when he was taken off guard by a surprise side-attack by the mouse.

I did think he was going to make a run for it but then he tackled the situation as only a cat could.

Then his Mum came along and, to his clear irritation, started cleaning his face for him. Mums, eh?

Speaking of which, I am looking forward to a week with my Mum's cat, but Artemis spends all day in the fields killing real mice and leaving their innards on the doorstep before coming back and dropping out for the count for the next 8 hours in front of the aga. I can't blame her for this but she has never been one for playing so I will just have to try and catch her 'awake' long enough for some purry stroking at some point. Plus she has an amazingly small head - never noticed that until I started hanging out with so many other cats.

Gotoku-ji Temple - Home of the Lucky or Beckoning Cat

I am not sure how it took me so long to hear about this place, but having heard about it yesterday, I was there today.

An ordinary temple, you might be thinking.

Pretty, but hardly worth the hour's travel each way when there are other pretty temples nearer central Tokyo.

Well, meow to you with nobs on. You round a corner and....

Yeah, that's roughly two kabillion "maneki neko" figures.

I love how in that last one there is just the one looking the wrong way. The wooden prayer cards (I know there is a proper name for these but it escapes me) are also themed.

You find boards like these at all temples. You write your prayer on the back and then hang it up.

Of course you can buy your boards and cats there. The shop is suitably marked with this sign.

Legend holds that the maneki neko originated back in Edo period. The temple keeper was very poor and had trouble keeping up the temple, but when he found a stray cat he decided to take it home and look after it. A feudal lord from Hikone was travcelling nearby and was sheltering from a storm under a tree when he saw this cat beckoning him to come into the temple. The lord followed the cat and as soon as he had moved the tree was struck by lightning. The lord wanted to thank the cat for saving him and collected enough funds to rebuild and claim the temple as his family temple, which eventually became Gotoku-ji. As time went on, people began to offer maneki neko figurines to the temple as a sign of gratitude when their wishes came true. Now those of us who know cats...

...know they are not generally given to altruism, but maybe this was a special one and this did happen. In any case, it was beautiful to walk around. The whole trip was possibly made worthwhile just by spotting the feet of this incense burner.

The sculptor definitely caught that expression perfectly!