Farewell to Shinjuku Gyoen Garden

I first saw this garden on 1st December last year. This year I was 10 days later and initially I thought I'd missed all the beautiful autumn foliage.

Not that bare trees don't have their own kind of beauty, but I wasn't in the mood for a Tim Burton kind of stroll.

I consoled myself that there were still the lakes to look at and headed off for the 'Japanese Garden' (which does make sense in a Japanese park because some of it was formal french - whatever that is - and so on). It turns out they'd kept a little bit of the autumn colours for me.

There is also a huge greenhouse on site. It's so humid inside there are lots of signs about dripping condensation falling on you.

They had a special display of orchids.

These unfailingly remind me of the singing flower scene in the proper Alice in Wonderland film. I adore that film and that scene in particular.

Definitely a bossy woman in a bonnet telling someone off (probably me)!

The gardens in Japan have been such an amazing resource and I wish I'd got into exploring them earlier last Spring. I told myself in the summer that I'd be able to go back to them in 2015 but that was when we thought we'd be here til May so now I won't have that chance. Here we are just a week from leaving and there is still a fair bit to get done. But then we may come back here to live one day. Pooch loves it here and if it weren't for the language barrier I would too. I just need to start learning it now, then I'll be ready in about ten years or so!

More Finished Objects

These are a combination of more christmas presents and some of that stress induced creativity I posted about a few days ago.

My final make for my niece is these Meg and Mog dolls. I was surprised not to be able to find a pattern for them already out there so maybe I'll share mine when I once again have a scanner. My one went on Sunday. The closest I found was a knitted Mog on Ravelry but I wanted to sew these.

I used a thin blanket fleece kind of thing in black and white and then some yellow felt for the eyes and shoe buckles. Where suitable, the sections are lightly stuffed to make them huggable. I've also got her a set of books in a bag and she already adores the first book so hopefully these will go down well.

I have also finished the Clapotis and hat for our Japanese husband and wife friends

The hat is another Luuk one, linked in my previous post. The Clapotis is, I think, my third and I had forgotten how boring they were to knit. I remember the novelty of dropping stitches on my first one but this one was a bit of a slog! These are joined by a pair of Mojo socks for a different recipient. The balls of stripey blue were 30g (common in Japan) so I needed a little additional yarn for the toe - bring on a bright yellow remnant!

I have another pair in shades of white/beige (so also have yellow toes) on the needles. Then this one actually needs the button to be sewn on but is a small cowl.

Finally, this is something where I bought the bundle of plastic flowers about six months ago because they were so bright and cheerful, and decided to add them to a hair barette about 3 months after that. It's taken our leaving for me to finally get the glue gun in gear.

Not exactly seasonal, but very cheering! And it's good to have a bit of a cheer when you've no kind of chairs to sit on, or tables to sit at, and spend your days maniacally crafting between bouts of dividing possessions between five boxes. Rubbish and charity (both unlimited), suitcase (extremely limited), air freight (very limited and will take 2-3 weeks to appear in London) and sea freight (limited and will take 2-3 months to appear in London). I am maintaining my sanity by crafting (maniacally) and watching Muppets Christmas Carol. Watched it three times already. I sing along. Maniacally.

Finished Objects

I was pondering my decision on 'November Makes' not to post xmas presents I had finished in case people saw them. But I think that's unlikely and in any case only one of these has an obvious recipient and she never reads this. So...bring on the hat montage.

You might suspect I'd only made two and then photoshopped them, but no. I just figured there was no need to use five different patterns if I found just one or two that I liked. Both of these are free and the vertically ribbed one is an authentic WW2 Watchman's hat (Rav link) while the other is the Luuk hat (Rav link) which I really do like the look of. I may make myself one.

I also made another Sew Together Bag, this time for my sister Sian, mother of my beloved niece. I bought the blue dot linen especially since I know she'll like it.

A little blanket stitch in my favourite thread - variegated DMC cotton.

I've rather belated realised that I've not done the hole in the A but there we go - onward! She likes yellow too so I think she'll appreciate the inside.

I had to take a trip to Shinjuku to get the zip and some other bits and I suspect that might be my last craft shopping until we leave. I treated myself to a very sharp pair of small scissors for snipping tiny bits. My 'fabric' fob on my fabric shears has been quite successful in getting Pooch not to use them in the kitchen (that and howling with pain whenever I've seen him picking them up). I therefore thought another one was in order. It is suitably tiny to match the scissors.

Finally, I finished off those Quiet Book pages I showed yesterday. The fish got their googly eyes, the marble maze was completed but the door never got its button handle.

I used a variety of i-spy type prints for the backs of each page.

I thought about sewing them back to back but decided it would be too bulky. I am pondering whether to use binder rings or ribbon to bind them - I may consult my sister and see what she thinks. Either way I want the option to add extra pages as I make them in the future. I also need a cover of course!

This weekend will see me trying to engineer a delicate balance. I need to sort out the craft supplies I need until about 5th Jan - considering the holidays I don't see our air freight reaching us before then - and put aside all those to be given away at my last Stitch n Bitch on Tuesday. It all strengthens the decision I came to about stashing about 2 years ago - or basically when Pooch and I divorced (we got back together and remarried for anyone who is confused by that). There's no point stashing more than you can use in the next month or two because you never know when you might have to move, or if there'll be a flood or a fire which will ruin it all. I'll naturally be moving some fabrics and notions back with me but only about two boxes worth. In fact we're hoping to only have to ship about twelve boxes in total, although that might be a little optimistic!

Stress Induced Creativity

Occasionally it strikes me that, were I to be imprisoned for some crime or other, not having access to craft materials would be one of the harshest penalties for me. That and chocolate. I know I must be finding all this moving stuff stressful because I find myself going a bit hyper on the craft. For instance, I spontaneously started designing and cutting out the felt for a Quiet Book a few evenings ago - and I never start new things in the evenings partly because I can't be arsed and partly because the light isn't good enough.

I had never heard about Quiet Books until Pinterest came along. Now it seems like the best ones come from Russia. I have no idea why. They are essentially books to keep children occupied by themselves. I have a Board on Pinterest about them and there are tonnes of other examples on there. Here are the pages I have so far for my 19 month old niece.

Let me admit straight away that I used hot glue for all of these pages. The stars are ones I picked up in Dongdaemun Market and I glued ribbon scraps and velcro to them before threading the ends of the ribbons through a small hole in the top right corner. I then used hot glue on the other side to secure those ends. My ickle niece can count the stars, name the different colours, move them about, pretend they're shooting stars, make wishes..I dunno. As with all the other pages I am going to layer this with some batting underneath and some interfaced fabric behind that and sew the lot around the edges. I'm going to leave the edges raw apart from a bit of fraychek on the fabric. I haven't decided on binding yet but I am probably going to use those little rivet porthole things along the left edge and use ribbon to bind them behind a cover. Second we have more stars - this time buttons on the end of ribbons.

You can pull on the ribbons and the buttons stop them coming through the felt. Of course I had to include a counting page since apparently all Quiet Books have something like this.

Mine is very simple but the beads move on the ribbon and again it is secured behind with knots and hot glue. The only other page I've finished is this one with more velcro, but this time with flowers.

She can swap the flowers around and make her own in time. I think I got the little buttons at the handmade fair I went to a few months ago.

The other pages I still have a bit to do on are firstly this little house.

The cat was also procured in Korea - and of course I had to get cats into this book somewhere. I need to add a button door handle to the door. Then the fish need their googly eyes.

They can slide on the ribbons. And then there is this rather dismal (so far) looking maze.

A bead on a string goes from start to finish through a series of little felt tunnels (the dark blue rectangles). I couldn't go on with that one until I know how big my bead is going to be.

Seven pages in one day - not bad considering I seem to spend most of my day arranging who is taking which bit of furniture and when they can collect.

November Makes

With all the ups and downs connected with whether we will stay, go, go somewhere else and so on, November just seemed to fly by while at the same time many of the individual days dragged by horribly. I don't feel like I really finished anything much but on closer inspection I find I have managed a fair few, including christmas presents. The latter will be delayed and included in December's round up to keep them hidden.

We have, going clockwise...

1. Pincushion from a Japanese kit I picked up at the Yokohama Quilt Festival. So cute!
2. Another pin cushion made for a bloghop. Tutorial here. 
3. The quilt I made Noriko. So pale!
4. The cross stitch I made for my lovely cuz.

Adding in the christmas presents I am actually pretty surprised at all I did manage to make. 

December promises to be really weird and I have no idea how much time I'll have for jiggery makery. I know I'll be without a sewing machine from the 14th but knitting will continue so we will just have to wait and see what results. 

Seoul Part 2

I only had time to see one Palace so I chose the Changdeokgung Palace where I started with a guided tour of the buildings before moving on to the ....Secret Garden. These buildings are rather impressive, although the ground around them always seems to be strangely bare. This is one of many ways they definitely differ from Japanese buildings.

The colour scheme for this Palace was repeated on all the buildings and was said to be partly to ward off insects that would eat the wood and partly for decoration. I felt it went above and beyond pest control.

The beautiful roof tiles were mostly grey except for the King's special building where they were a beautiful dark blue which apparently looks amazing when the sun shines on it.

Sadly it was very overcast when I visited. Not that that stopped me for getting my photo fix.

The Secret Garden was the private one of the King and Queen and only they and their invited guests could use it. Access was via guided tour only and there was a bull dog type guy who stayed at the rear of the group and growled at anyone not keeping up with the Guide. The Autumn Foliage was at peak perfection.

The gardens were huge. The 90 minute tour kept up a good pace and involved many extremely steep hills.

It then ended with a 750 year old Juniper tree.

Fairly impressive when you think about everything that has happened to Seoul while that tree has been growing.

I had spotted another impressive looking place from the taxi window (taxis were amazingly cheap) so I wanted to go and have a nose about. It turned out to be the Jogyesa Buddhist Temple and it was in the midst of some sort of celebration.

The outside was beautifully decorated with paintings and carvings.

I went in, took a cushion, and had a little meditate. It was beautifully decorated.

I have always loved Buddhist lanterns and there were shops nearby full of everything your practising buddhist needs.

Sadly the lanterns do not fold flat - if they had done my suitcase would have been stuffed with them.

I had been to one market but it was discussion of Dongdaemun which had got me started on the idea of visiting Seoul in the first place. Can you guess why?

There are two buildings, each with basements and about another 5 floors on top of that. Each building is huge and each is stuffed with stalls. There may be 50 - maybe more - stalls for the same sort of thing in one area of a floor, be that buttons, yarn, ribbon, fabric or anything else you can think of.

Every knitting stall had its own mini knitting group sat around or within it. 

With my sense of direction I was instantly lost as soon as I made my first left or right. Stalls seemed to go on for miles. It was a tad confusing for me too because we are returning to England so I knew I couldn't really buy anything as I'd just need to pack it - and I already have enough to pack. Yet everything seemed pretty cheap. A conundrum.

My final visit was to the National Museum of Korea, which is kind of like the UK's British Museum and the V&A combined. It was mahoosive.

The collection went from prehistoric flints to current day design and was extremely impressive. A few things stand out in my mind, all Buddhas as it turns out. This one is from the 16th Century. Only the head had survived and the shiny nature of it really creeped me out (I'm so cultural in my descriptions).

This painting is about the height of a three story building and a couple of hundred years old. The condition of it was amazing.

This 10th Century iron Buddha has the casting marks still on it.

The audio guide I had rented (for less than a pound) explained that bronze or copper had been the preferred metal for statues like this but a war had caused a scarcity and so this was one of the early iron ones which had to be cast differently because of the weight of the iron. I find those casting marks mesmerising. My absolute favourite piece was this though.

An early 7th Century bronze "Pensive Bodhisattva" which is apparently what this pose of one crossed leg is referred to as. Isn't he amazing? He was only about 30cm tall but I spent ages looking at him.

I did enjoy my time in Seoul, despite the heavy rain of the final day, but it was overcast by the uncertainty of what Pooch and I will be doing next as we prepare for returning to the UK. I certainly could have done a lot of damage to my wallet at the Dondaemun Market had the situation been different!