Kyoto Baby!

I have been absent for the last week or so simply because I have been so busy doing things. 300+ photos later and here I am, ready to catch up, firstly, on my trip to Kyoto this week. I was only there for two days but was with Noriko who, as well as having been many times and so knowing exactly where to go, had also rented a car. Thus equipped with her language skills, car and her encyclopedic knowledge of everywhere ever we went on a non-stop tour of wonder and amazement. My 161 photos from the trip can be found here but these are the highlights.

We took the Shinkansen - the super speedy train - from Tokyo so by 10am we were there and ready to go. The station is ultra modern which didn't seem so strange to me at first - that was until I saw the rest of the city.

An advert at the station showed a kimono clad japanese woman getting out of Back to the Future's Dolorean car in one of the back streets and that is how it is to be in Kyoto. It is like a stage set for a samurai film. But more of that later. We started off in the famous bamboo grove of Arashiyama.

The bamboo grows up to the sky on both sides of a narrow road and it is very quiet and cool. The road leads to one entrance of the Tenru-ji Temple, which has the most amazing gardens.

Pretty much all of the sites we visited were UNESCO world heritage sites, and you can see why.

Isn't that tree being supported by a pole out over the water amazing? And can you see all the huge Koi swimming around? It is breathtaking in real life.

Outside the temples there are amazing views and statues too. This is the Kamo river and some little statues I spotted alongside it.

Our next stop was the Ryoanji Temple Stone Garden where you are not supposed to look for meaning in the stones, but let your mind wander over them and achieve a sense of peace.

There was also a garden here too.

Visiting at this time of year we were perhaps 2-3 weeks short of the autumn foliage and after the summer flowers, but even at this time of year the amazing intensity of the greens and the smell of the earth made every landscape a fully sensuous experience.

All of this was just the first few hours of our first day, after which we were ready to check in at the hotel, where I was almost as thrilled to discover we were staying at the Westin Miyako - where the Queen, Prince Charles and Diana stayed when they visited. The view from the bedroom was amazing!

Noriko, as well as being a geographical genius and expert park'r (thus also being my exact opposite in skills sets), is a prime enabler. She knows my weakness for fabric and so she had several shops lined up for us to visit and these did not disappoint. The first was a Kimono Shop specialising in the most amazingly beautiful pure silk vintage kimonos. I didn't see any that were less than £100, and rightly so. However, luckily for me they had a whole room dedicated to offcuts and scraps.

I was amazingly restrained and only came away with three pieces - including this amazing children's print commemorating the Russian's putting a dog into space.

Plus one small scrap bag, although I was amazed by how big the pieces still were.

By now the light was fading (sunset was about 6pm) so we had a stroll through some of the backstreets as the light faded.

We also found a little shop crammed with cats!

The next morning saw us at Nanzenji Temple, very close the hotel.

The main building was supported by these amazing pillars, worn smooth by 700 years of hands.

This beautiful urn is where you light incense and waft the smoke over you for good health and to keep evil away.

I did that bit while Noriko also said a little prayer. The grounds of the Temple included an aquaduct which you could go up on top of - none of your health and safety here.

The grounds were extensive, and there were little sub-gardens all over the place. Like this one.

Jaw droppingly beautiful and you could walk right the way around it on beautifully kept paths.

Another "sub-garden" was the immediate surroundings of a beautiful house. This one started with a rock garden...

...and continued with a series of gardens resembling the stages towards paradise. I am probably missing some of the detail in that statement, but that is what Noriko told me.

Can you see the two ladies tending them? They were essentially giving the moss a manicure.

You could walk through it all on the covered walkways.

And of course several of the rooms, most with beautifully painted screens, looked out onto beautiful vistas.

This one inclues a perpetual motion fountain which was beautiful to watch and listen to. And speaking of listening...

A genuine Nightingale Floor! I had read about these in historical texts as well as in Terry Pratchett and was so thrilled when I realised I was walking on one. I had expected the floor to make a high creaky sound but no, it actually is a proper chirrup like a bird. I was foolishly excited and scampering about like a toddler with a puddle.

I mentioned that Noriko was an enabler and she had googled for any textile hotspots before we went. One that came up was the Kawashima Textile Museum. I hadn't spotted it in any guide books but readily agreed. We arrived and realised it was a factory museum - something quite common in japan but not generally on a usual tourist route.

That's it on the left and sure enough, we were the only ones there. Not even an attendant - and anyone familiar with the overstaffing levels in Japan will be rightfully gobsmacked by that. Most of the large pieces could not be photographed, but these should give you an idea. All my photos from this visit can be found here. If you're a textile geek like me you'll be pretty amazed.

One example of design...

...with a working drawing...

...to fabric...

...to patent certificate.

After a visit from the Emperor and Empress in the 1960s they commissioned a wall hanging which then took four years to complete!

Here it is in one of the Imperial dining rooms.

Amazing. Such an opportunity to get close to these items.


After lunch (delicious sushi, fresh from the tank where the poor critters were swimming about right up to their final moment) we went back to the area we'd walked at twilight and had more of a daytime look. I'll give you a montage since you must be wondering if this post will ever end.

Those last two are another Kimono shop we stumbled across. This one was owned by the man in charge of distributing a particular type of Kyoto brocade, highly prized throughout the country, and he went all over the place with his samples. And he then needed to shift those samples once they were finished with. 30x50cm pure silk for Y200 (about £1.50) - er, yes? I kept saying to Noriko "Are they really only 200 yen?" as I picked up samples of amazingly beautiful silk. Just a small haul.

We then skipped to another part of Kyoto, this time where the Geisha Houses are. This is one.

You can tell it is one because of the wooden plaques to the top right of the door - here there are 5. Each has the Geisha's name on it. There were a large number of posh flower shops in the area - all for gentlemen to send their gifts from. Another montage.

Before we left we had time to raid the food halls near the station to make sure the Pooch was even happier to see me return than he would otherwise have been. It may only have been two days, but it was an amazing trip and enough to last me for quite a while!

Latest Cat Interlude

My visits to Nyafe Melange in Ebisu now number 32. How do I know this? Because I am on my fourth loyalty card. It's Bruiser. I find him so endearing. For instance, could this really be the paw of evil?

Well, yes, it seems so. When I was a child I would have nuzzled the family cat's paw with my nose were it so presented. Were I to do this to Bruiser I have no doubt that I would lose not only my nose but a good chunk of cheek and possibly an eye. While I was there he urinated on a snuggling blanket and half-nelsoned a smaller cat to the ground. It's a small improvement on his deciding to mate with one of the munchkin cats right in front of me. But on this occasion he was under pressure. Three valley girls had come in and were trying to take selfies with the cats. As one cat circled as it got ready to sit down the girl shuffled in a circle around it, keeping her pout in place, waiting for the perfect angle. This was particularly funny with Bruiser as he makes a point of looking away when anyone points a phone at him. The secret...

...is to catch him when he's exhausted himself after all that hating.

I had a lovely time with "Little Ginger" (on the left) who is the youngest of them all and seemingly related to the two adult gingers there. Here he is snuggled up to his sleeping uncle (I think this is his uncle - the other adult ginger is definitely his Dad, but they're not close).

He had a good sit on my lap first and got thoroughly stroked for twenty minutes until he'd had enough and moved to Uncle. He loves cuddling up with his Mum too.

The "Old Man" (creative with my names, aren't I?) was lounging on his own sofa. He's a bit aloof but seems respected by everyone, even Bruiser. If he were a person he'd live in a loft with deep leather armchairs, sherry and lots of old books and be consulted on matters affecting 'the family'. .

I do love all those little cats. They have such distinct personalities.

Multi Crafting

I have had a busy few days. Saturday was my first paid teaching gig - four ladies learning Sashiko (traditional japanese embroidery).

The next workshop is on Saturday when I will be teaching people how to knit. Then I got to grips with Noriko's quilt and washed, ironed, cut, sewed, ironed, cut, sewed and ironed until there were 48 of these.

So pale and delicate looking. While out shopping I came across some mini roses being sold and couldn't resist the matching paleness.

Then I moved on to a present for my niece. Do you know the song "Three Little Men in a Flying Saucer"? I didn't before she learnt it.

Three little men in a flying saucer
Went to the moon one day
They looked left and right
But they didn't like the sight
So one man flew away

Two little men ...etc

She loves it so I thought I'd make a play version.

Feeling like a cheater, I have glued rather than sewn, although it does await some batting so I can make the whole thing into a kind of briefcase, folding in the middle and fastening with a magnet at the top. The pleather handles will mean she can carry it about. The little men fit in the zip up pocket to stop them getting lost. And then finally I am knitting on seemingly chunky #9 needles.

A striped raglan for my ickle brother, who is about a foot taller than me. I was intending to knit him a jumper for his last birthday so I'm only a year behind. I'm hoping to have this done in time for this year's in November.

Onward!

September Makes

I've seen multiple blogs complaining that September was over before it really began, so I won;t bore you by saying that again. Thinking back I am not really sure what I have finished apart from that teapot. There must have been something else though...thank god Flickr can jog my memory. It would appear that I actually had quite a creative month.

From top left...

1. Fabric teapot from a kit. 
2. Bloghop bag accessory which I ended up throwing away.
3. My sister's hat
4. Kanzashi flowers for a workshop coming in a week or two. 
5. The pottery bowls I actually made in July got their glaze and are so funny!
6. Three more Lucy blocks made for my quilt. 
7. A one pocket Sew Beautiful bags for a present with sashiko ish embroidered outer fabric. 
8. Lucy block for a swap
9. Lucy block for a swap
10. Lobster pillowcase for the Pooch. 
11. August's cross stitch made into a book cover. 
12. The blank, which represents three projects with no photos!

Those three are two skirts - one simple and one complicated - and another cross stitch which is a present. I have also been slogging away on a pair of knitted, cabled socks which will probably be a christmas present for someone. I had a real growth spurt with them and have almost finished the second now. 

October's makes need to include the two (count'em) quilts following my disaster with the first. The second has been cut up into pieces ready for assembly so next week will be a big sewing week!

Tokyo Spinning Group 2014 Show

This was on Monday and was the tenth annual event they have held. This is their website and they are on Facebook too. I went along with some of the others from the Tokyo Stitch n Bitch group (which has daytime and evening factions - I occasionally do both). I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be a kind of smaller version of a UK Knitting Show, except with weaving as well. This is the view from the main room looking into three rows of exhibitors.

By Tokyo standards it wasn't crowded at all because you could easily move your elbows. There were some great things on show.

There were some practical demonstrations going on too, although I had missed the live sheep shearing the day before.

There was also the usual straying into needle felting that seems so common now. This lady had made her own horns and pet dragon that way (and was very happy to pose for my horribly blurry photo).

While this guy had had his horns made for him.

It did all feed my desire to get more into weaving. Especially after I discovered a book about Sakiori - Japanese rag weaving. This photo is on Flickr and belongs to Jim Austin so I have merely borrowed it to illustrate.

Not only is it rag woven from indigo cotton, but it is also sashiko embroidered on top. Pretty cool. There were two people wearing tops made from sakiori on one of the stands and their clothes were seriously amazing. I've done a bit of reading about it since the show and the cunning thing about making clothes from the woven cloth (and I suppose from most handwoven cloth) is not cutting it as that will make it unravel. This either leaves you with seventies boxy things like tabards (uk style) or avante garde draped angled creations (japanese style).

So many crafts...so little time. Meanwhile though I am spreading the with my first taught workshop tomorrow - Sashiko for Beginners. It is full (although who knows if they'll all come) so hopefully by lunchtime tomorrow there will be six new sashiko-rs making their way in the world!

Whacking the Wadaiko

Wadaiko are tradional japanese drums and come in many shapes and sizes.

You get school bands that use them and they appear in every festival and parade. There are even arcade game versions.

Last night I had the chance to attend a lesson and concert from a group called Wadaiko Sai (the link is to their japanese website and includes videos of them playing). It was awesome! The group leader explained various things about the drums (most of which sadly passed me by as it was in japanese - who'd have thought?) before calling on volunteers to come and try playing them. I was with a complete mix of nationalities as this was a meetup.com event and got noticeably British in my reticence to go on stage, contrasted with my bouncing about in my seat with excitement at it all. I eventually got volunteered by the guy on my right, who was a solar engineer from India, and went up in the third and final group. I was the last one to climb on stage and was presented with the mahoosive drum mounted on its own frame which no one else had played up til then. It was just so huge I couldn't stop laughing. Behold the Byrne in strangely flat faced profile in the background of this photo!

This one puts the size of the drum in context.

It was the Big Daddy of drums. But before I got my turn there were some terribly cute little drummers who had a go.

The little one more or less hidden behind the drum in this one was eventually given a chair to stand on.

The elderly lady is laughing because she had just been told off by the musicians for being too keen and energetic as she started drumming before he said 'go'!

The concert itself was played by the five guys there who had the most amazingly toned arms I've ever seen. Photos were not allowed so I can't share, but they didn't just sit about and whack them with sticks. There was real dynamism in their performance and at one point four of them were lined up with drums in front of them and were playing each others drums and rippling the strikes back and forth along the line - it's hard to describe but it really was amazing. And quite sexy, as a french neuro-surgeon, also part of my eclectic group of watchers, put it in his equally sexy accent. As I told the Meetup's organiser afterwards, it is so brilliant to have the opportunity to come along to these things - especially as a government grant meant we had got in free. I am getting better at using google translate to google for things in japanese but I still mostly search for events in english and never would have found out about this one without the meetup group.

By the by...don't these soldiers also have the same profile as me?

"Odo bayeux tapestry". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Never occurred to me until I saw that photo of Drummer Byrne. I never knew my forehead was that flat. I shall have to examine my parents in greater detail when I next see them, although my Mother still occasionally reminds me that the forceps required to get me out, way back when, did leave me with a pointy head so perhaps they laid me down on my face too early and only my nose sprang back? Or maybe I'm just a Roman throwback?

"Dio coin3"Uploaded 4 May 2006 by E.coli. Licensed under GPL via Wikimedia Commons.

Crazy.

Material Discord

There has been a tragedy Chez Byrne. It has brung me low.

It is no doubt partly because I just posted about how I choose fabric, and said I had gained confidence doing so. Suffice to say that the outcome is the ripping of all blocks for a king size disappearing nine-patch quilt top which had been assembled into rows ready to just sew the rows together in order to finish it. But then, just as I was laying it out to pin the rows, it was like I saw something familiar from a new angle.

It was FUGLY! How could this have happened?

*sob*

I urgently beckoned the Pooch, who, hearing the pure terror in my voice actually put down his laptop and came over. "Do you think this quilt is ok?" I asked, piteously. "Ummmm." said the Pooch. Now although he is not always a terribly intuitive man, and does not pick up on subtle signals unless they're being semaphored directly in front of his glasses, he clearly sensed that this was a delicate moment. "Hmmmm." he said. "Errrrr...it...ummmm.... It might perhaps be.... a ....little....bit....busy?" he said with the sentence ending at a very high pitch to make it clear that this was not his opinion - but only one possible opinion that a group of strangers might give were they asked about it.

I slept on it. Not literally. The next day was ripageddon.

This was the state of the floor and of my person below about waist height once it was all over. Fabrics had been amputated and all other big squares, small squares and rectangles of two orientations had been decoupled and ironed. In the end it was these four innocuous looking baddies which had been the key culprits.

So now I have lots of small pieces in ironed piles plus an extra couple of simple half metres I can use to replace the rejects. I just need to doodle a pattern and sew it up. 'Just'.

*sob*

Everything in my Etsy Shop Half Price

My idea to sell second hand japanese craft books has not really taken off. So, to clear those that I have I am offering everything half price! That includes all the washi tape and kits and so on.

Click here to visit the shop.

To get your items half price enter the word HALFPRICE (no space) in the coupon box when you checkout. 

Fab Fabric

With one quilt nearly finished (the top at least) for an english friend, it was time to start talking turkey with my japanese friend, Noriko, about a quilt for her. I know I have occasionally mentioned her in the past but I don't think I've really gone into how good a friend she has become. She started off as the-woman-pooch's-company-hired-to-help-us-move-to-tokyo. She was awesome at that and made the logistics of the move amazingly simple. She found our temporary first flat for us. She then took us both to be registered as foreign residents, took me house hunting, took me to ikea to furnish the flat once she had negotiated the lease and done all the paperwork, took me to the supermarket to tell me what all these crazy vegetables and sauces were and which went with which. She helped me open a bank account, register at the library, find a doctor...everything! She went above and beyond what the company had contracted her to do and once she found out about my love of craft she took me to craft shops and the amazing Folk Craft Museum, which we actually visited again together a few weeks ago.

We soon started going for regular lunches and she would whisk me off to beautiful gardens or lovely shops. Her husband, Nari, is also lovely and it probably helped that he was very into the two games Pooch has been working on - Metal Gear Solid and Pro-Evolution Soccer (called 'World Soccer' in Japan). So I knew I wanted to give them something lasting before I left and a quilt seemed called for.

Noriko and Nari lived and worked in England for about two years and Noriko became a National Trust addict. I wanted to make her something that would tie in with the countryside chic sort of thing and also fit with the decor of their mountain flat where they vanish off to for occasional precious weekends. She told me it has oatmeal walls with white tiles. So countryside chic and neutrals - completely outside my usual palette for a second time! Here is what I came up with.

And the pattern is going to be a simple nine-patch with white sashing.

I used to have no confidence at all in putting together fabrics for projects. It was only after taking an online colour course by Stitched in Color that I really got the hang of it. And while the course was very good, I think it was getting into the habit of choosing colour palettes that helped - overcoming that initial fear and just getting stuck in. My current method for choosing fabrics goes like this...

1. Think long and hard about the person you're making for, and what kind of things they like. What clothes they wear, how they do their hair, whether they are an angular or curvy person, plain or print etc. 
2. Go to an actual fabric shop - I am still not confident about choosing online - and spend a long time mooching around. Look at everything. 
3. Find one print that you think the recipient would like. For me it was the second one from the left in the photo above. Hang on to that bolt of fabric like your life depended on it. 
4. Carry that bolt around the shop with you and keep laying it next to possible fabrics. Pick out a colour from the print you have chosen and look for fabrics that use that same colour until you find one. Now you're carrying two bolts of fabric. 
5. Choose another colour in one or both of the bolts you're carrying and find a third fabric. Now you're carrying three bolts
6. Repeat until you've got enough. 

Of course this is if you're going for a melodious, harmonising colour scheme. If you're making a blue and orange beastie then you'd be looking to make sure your blues and oranges were matching each other and none of the minor colours were clashing with each other. But I would still start with a single, favourite fabric and go from there. 

The Rush Hour Bloghop

Many thanks to Carol and Madame Samm for this one!

I didn't use the specific material but I did stick with the palette. Black, grey, red and white are sooooo not my usual colours so I was left with a quandary as to what to make. Plus I am a lucky housewife at the moment, so I am not even commuting or working. Was there anything I needed that would use those colours that came into this category?!

It was on my way back from the cat cafe (click here for endless posts about Tokyo's cat cafes) that my idea came to me. I had stopped by the supermarket and my tote bag was loaded with groceries, my beloved pepsi and various notebooks, pen and wallets, all sitting on top of my phone and keys. Regardless of the size of the actual bag, the ability for your phone and keys to vanish into it has always amazed me. I cannot begin to estimate how many times I've had to stop and empty out my bag, convinced that I must have lost one or both, only for the missing article to appear in a fold I swear I already looked in three times. Thus I was to be found squatting on the pavement outside my block with the contents of my bag spread out in front of me as I looked for those damned keys/

*gasp*

Hadn't I seen a bag pockety thing on Pinterest a while back?

Wouldn't that be perfect for my pocketless tote bag?

This was what inspired me and this is what I made.

I used some Marvel comic fabric I had just taken delivery of from the Fat Quarter Shop (my favourite online fabric shop) and some tape measure type printed fabric tape I had left from a previous bag project. I also added a couple of metal snap fasteners so the straps could be fastened around the handles of the tote. So this is the bag closed...

And this is it open...

Travel card, keys and phone, all safely tucked away but - very importantly - easy to find without having to rummage and rummage and rummage for them!

I made this last week so this gave me an opportunity to road test it for a few days.

...hmmm...


After three days I threw it away. USELESS! I was deeply disappointed.

Now don't get me wrong - the concept is great! It is my design (essentially just flat rectangles) and the length of my straps that were at fault. The key problems I had were...

1. The pockets were not deep enough so things fell out, leaving me still rummaging.
2. Something with any thickness (even just the thickness of a phone) in a big pocket meant it was hard to use the smaller pocket, which was effectively on top of the big one. 
3. The straps meant the top of the pocket was in line with the top of the bag - which seemed sensible to me at first - but then when my phone was basically visible on the top edge of my bag all the time I started getting paranoid about it getting nicked. 

I can see on the original that her main pockets were the full length of the insert and her straps were longer so I am considering this one a trial run and planning to make a second in the next week or so. Luckily I have more of my comic book fabric left!

Here is the schedule for the rest of the hop so please go and visit those taking part!

Wednesday, September 24

Stitchin’ By The Lake

Buzzing and Bumbling

Lixie Makes It (me)

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Living With Purpose

Madly Mid Mod

Coral Canyon Quilting

Thursday, September 25

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Kwilty Pleasures

Selina Quilts

A Stitch in Time

It Seams To Be Sew

Pig Tales and Quilts

Lakeshore Stiches

Tea Time Creations

Friday, September 26

The Quilting Queen Online

Quilting Quietly

Vicky Myers Creations

Grammie Q’s

From This to That

Quilted Delights

Coeur d’Alene

Sew at Home Mummy

Monday, September 29

Grandmama’s Stories

Kris Loves Fabric

Jane’s Quilting

Life, Quilts, and Cats, too

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Creatin’ in the sticks

Bquiltin Studio

Tuesday, September 30

Lily Patch

MooseStash Quilting

Words & Stitches

Karma Willow Designs

Kwilt Krazy

How arT you?

Sew We Quilt