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.

Seriously Sunny at Ikegami Baien

Ikegami Baien is a garden in the south of Tokyo with 370 plum trees covering 30 different varieties. This isn't one of those gardens that was created for the naughty whims of the Ronin to be fulfilled in - it belonged to an artist and then a restaurant owner before being bequeathed to the city. It isn't huge but it is plenty big enough and very beautiful.

Plum blossoms are different to the cherry ones in that they are sparser so you don't get the massing of colour - it's more like polka dots. And I do like polka dots.

The blossoms are amazing close up.

There are the pure white, pale pinks and the amazing cerise pinks. There is also a lovely, very subtle, scent in the air. You can see all my photos here.

As you can see from the photos the weather was perfect and Noriko and I had a wonderful time wondering around taking lots of photos. After half an hour Noriko turned to me and said "I know what you are thinking Alex - you are thinking about how you could make this into a quilt!" So true. I was thinking of this one I saw a while back in a library book.

Now that is cherry and this was plum, but still...kinda wonderful! Cherry bl ossom will be out in a few weeks time. You can be sure I'll be out seeing plenty of that too!

In February...

My January post seems like a lot more than a month ago. There has been lots happening on the personal side as well as what has been going on in my role as a craft buddha. Here is the mosaic of finishes for this month.

Quite a variety - washi box, jewellery, patchwork and more. And there are all those other projects on the go - the one block wonder patches waiting to be assembled into something. The blue/grey hexagons in traditional woven cottons waiting to be a bag, the jumper I'm knitting and then not to mention the projects I have planned. Quilts for two people, egyptian socks, various traditional japanese things including what I think are called Hinakazari decorations although I'm not sure of that. They look like this.

Bit blurry I know but these are photos I took at the Quilt Festival last month. They come in an infinite variety of designs and combinations.

I've had some library books about them and have taken careful note so hope to have a few flowers and animals produced soon. Perhaps for March's mosaic!?

My One Block Wonder

From little acorns...

...do aimless patchwork pieces grow. The thing is I can't decide how to arrange them or what to use them for.

Or some other way.

Whatever is does end up as I am still amazed at how much variety there is in the blocks.

I used EPP for the triangles and then stitched them together to make the hexagons so all hand sewn. But seriously, what to do with them?!

The Costume Museum and Vintage Shopping

Two outings to share today. The first was actually the vintage shopping which took place in Koenji. I have read that there are more than 70 vintage shops in this area and it is easy to believe while strolling up just one of the neighbourhood's  streets.

 

If you didn't know it was vintage mecca you would take it for a suburban neighbourhood with little old ladies and mothers with babies very much in evidence. I suspect it all changes at the weekend but as this was a weekday I was free to stroll around and browse at will. Shops varied from general...

...to those covering a certain period...

Prices also varied from reasonable to astronomic, although some of the dresses were absolutely divine.

One of the things I am not sure about is what the well dressed Japanese was wearing in the sixties, which I will have to look into in more detail. I had hoped for some enlightenment at the Bunko Gakuen Costume Museum but as luck would have it I happened to time my first visit with a special exhibition of European fashions from 1800-2000.

It was almost as if I was in the V&A in London as I strolled around the beautiful but tiny outfits from 200+ years ago. As time spooled forward I noticed some familiar outlines and very familiar names. A Jean Deses draped evening dress from 1953 was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. No photos in the museum and I can't find it now on google. A purple Thierry Mugler jacket from 1988 was sadistically beautiful.

While a Balenciaga pink silk evening dress was a masterclass in pattern cutting. Like this one but floor length and cerise pink.

There were also a small number of modern Japanese designers represented which naturally must include Issey Miyake. The dress shown was a 'Rhythm Pleats' dress from 1990.

I ended up pretty much pirouetting around the dress as I tried to work out how it was constructed. Astonishing that there isn't any wire involved. The one I saw was red and yellow but otherwise the same with the neck and one armhole on one side (within one circle) and the other armhole on the other side. It must feel amazing to wear something like that - as if it's alive!

Sew One, Get Three

I realised that the Triple Zip Pouch Swap posting deadline is Saturday, and while I'd got the fabrics I hadn't done anything about putting them together. That is no longer a problem!

Once again I uphold my reputation as someone averse to right angles. Everything about this is very slightly wonky but the fabric is lovely and the zips all work and the Japanese tortoise print on the inside will hopefully please the recipient! Now I just need to work out what to fill it with before sending. In case you want to make your own the free and excellent tutorial is here.

As I was getting ready to give it a final iron, I remembered two I had started last summer. I always meant to finish them but it was while the big packing and clearing mission was getting underway and they got packed and cleared. Happily, if perhaps strangely, I brought them with me. It turns out one was actually 100% complete while the other just needed the final seams doing. I must have been really struggling when I packed them up not to be able to do something so simple. Two minutes work and ...

They are both for family members so I shall be despatching them very shortly, along with the greenyblue one.

I do love the quilt-as-you-go method and this particular example is really the only kind of quilting I can do with a borrowed and extremely basic machine. Not that I'm complaining - I'm very grateful to have it! But there's no free motion option and the stitch lengths and widths are fixed so there's limited options there too.

My attempts to lure the neighbourhood birds to the balcony continue. Having become a daily stopping point for brown eared bulbuls I've also achieved sparrows and, just this morning, our first visit by a Japanese white eye.

These tiny birds are maybe 15cm long and have only just appeared in the neighbourhood so I guess they have wintered elsewhere. The picture (taken by someone far cleverer than me) shows the shade of green but not their iridescence. They are so beautiful and, to me, amazingly exotic! I have only seen one once before on the way to the post office and it was pecking at half an orange so you will not be surprised to know 'oranges' have now been added to my shopping list. Tweet tweet!

Crafty Divergence

It's not something any crafter likes to have occur to them, but I have been wondering if I have too many different projects on the go. Lots of knitting projects - yes. Lots of sewing projects - yes. But lots of projects, each one for a different craft - no. My brain is trying to think of too many things at once. The tipping point seems to have been casting on the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I made this before when I was heavier and wore it a lot but gave the too large jumper away when we moved to Japan.

I bought some RichMore Percent Gradation from Yuzawaya this week having got bored of wearing the three warm jumpers I have here in rotation non-stop for the last two months. I remain optimistic about the unexpectedly stripy effect working out for the best, despite the evidence so far. This was begun on top of the latest EPP project I've started - making the base of a new bag.

This uses the bundle of Japanese cottons I bought at the Quilt Show last month which looked blue together but which are definitely more green when pieced like this. I do adore this type of fabric which doesn't seem to have a name in Japan. The cotton is thicker than quilting cotton with a slightly brushed effect which makes it feel very soft. The patterns are woven rather than printed which also increases the bulk where there is a feature such as a flower (top row, 3rd from the right) or a dot (second row, 1st on the left). These features also give it a lovely texture and the colours are all very dusty and muted. Beautiful. I have also been hand sewing the roof of the little 'house' sewing box I also got at the quilt show.

I've been using printed Japanese cottons for this. These have the same kind of weave as the above ones but tend to be darker and with a pattern printed rather than woven in. I picked up this sample pack at Okadaya. I have a chimney ready to go and am going to hand quilt some roof tiles before adding some binding. Then I have been decoding the back of this.

I had done quite well using this page of common sewing terms but then had to get Pooch to help with the last few. The sizing is quite impressive - for people from 48cm tall to 180cm. Japanese patterns tend to go on height rather than 'size 14' or 'Medium' which makes sense really. It is certainly handy when it comes to baby clothes since my 9 month old niece now wears a 12-18 month size. So that means my mind is also full of sewing clothes. I plan a sample dark blue cotton jacket with added sashiko stitching. I've always wanted one like that since first discovering sashiko embroidery a few years ago. Then lastly I finally found a decent sized polystyrene ball so can set about trying my first Kimekomi Ball.  

They are kind of fabric temari balls - something Knitting on the Green taught me to make many moons ago. But instead of effectively embroidering the ball you make cuts in it, using the same measuring technique as with temari, and then wrap the fabric around it, pushing it into the cuts to hold it. So my mind is also full of those.

As a break from all this self-imposed craft pressure I took myself off to the beloved cat café yesterday. The cats were all extremely mellow - I think it was the sunshine after the snow. This lady, called Yuzu, in particular was loving the sun patch she found herself in.

She only woke up when her sister Anzu came over and started cleaning her before doing the same to herself. They are both a breed called Ocicat which are spotted like wildcats despite having completely domesticated cat DNA. They are very beautiful.

Her waking up meant she was in time to see this guy...

...wake up and take it into his head to have a chew on the folder he'd been sleeping on. He is called Nats and is an Abyssinian. They are quite wiry with very short but very soft and silky fur.

Nats and his sister Coco are usually to be found playing with the toys and cantering down the room before doing a death defying leap from one ceiling height perch to another so it was quite unusual to see Nats so docile. Two others deserve special mention. Ramu is a very beautiful Ragamuffin cat - they tend to go limp when picked up and are quite big and very soft and fluffy.

Ramu likes being up high so she was on top of the cat tower and every now and again a whole leg or her tail would drop down through the hole.

Very cutely she was thrilled when another visitor started playing with her with the rope you can see above. This breed is known for being quite playful but also quite lazy so she rolled around on the platform while the rope appeared first on one side and then the other. She didn't seem bothered about catching it, she was just enjoying keeping track of where it was. Very sweet. The other I spotted when I was just leaving. This is Lili who is a Ragdoll - very similar to the Ragamuffin but not quite as fluffy.

When I first caught sight of her I thought with horror that her face had swollen up but on closer inspection she's cradling her face with her paw! I've never seen a cat do this before and the staff were really amazed by it too and immediately started taking pictures for the website. She seemed very comfortable and didn't move it when she woke up amongst all the attention. So all in all it was a very mellow and happy visit! And now, back to the...what? Knitting? Sewing? Ah...supermarket run!

Kawaii at Kiddyland

Last night's Stitch n Bitch (on meetup.com should you ever happen to be local) was near Omotesando which happens to be near Kiddyland. I had heard that there was a toy shop aimed at adults rather than children and decided to pay it a call. I had no idea what to expect plus I only had half an hour but it was 30 minutes well spent.

My eye was immediately caught by a sign to Snoopy Town in the basement.

I am a keen devotee of Snoopy but in a kind of casual way. The basement of Kiddyland is enough to make me think I've been wasting my life. So. Much. Snoopy.

Snoopy clothes (adult sizes, although there was small baby section), slippers, crockery, cutlery, bento boxes, hair slides, biscuits, tea...

Oh wowsers, it was Snoopy heaven. I was ridiculously restrained and simply bought a patch for the bag I started decorating before xmas.

The physics geek in me cannot resist when two enthusiasms, such as Snoopy and space, combine. On the way back from SnB (which was awesome again) I read about Snoopy's involvement with Nasa - or possibly I mean Charles m Schultz's involvement with them. From Wikipedia "Following the Apollo I fire, Snoopy became the official mascot of aerospace safety, testing and the rebuilding of the Apollo Program, due to his refusal to accept defeat and his "'outside the doghouse' way of looking at things." " Mr Schultz reciprocated, including several space travel stories in his Snoopy strips. I never knew that before. See how foreign travel expands the mind?!

Having so blissed out in the basement I had very little time to explore the other three floors but they were similarly kawaii (cute) and had all sorts of characters. Including the slice of salmon seemingly known as Kirimi.

Let me know if your life needs a slice of salmon pencil case to be complete and I'll send one on!

 

SnB has been too briefly glossed over. It really was good and for once I was not the new kid! I was able to tell two others about my favourite knitting shops and in return learnt about a village of Japanese farmhouses, an alternative to Craigslist for selling furniture when you leave and an idyllic island an easy train ride from Tokyo which has lots of galleries and art projects going on - Naoshima.

Looks kind of nice huh? Just need to wait for this snow to clear up and for it to get a little bit warmer so I can paddle!

As Many Crafts As There Are Stars In The Sky

We have had more snow in Tokyo so it has been a good time for more crafting. Before it struck I made a second visit to Asakusabashi, where I went on a craft tour a few weeks ago. I had done some more research and found this website by a woman who writes crime mysteries based in Japan. She has some great tips on where to go in Tokyo. I had just been intending to get a ring and bracelet finding from one of the bead shops and then check out the washi paper shop to make sure it was worth bringing Mumsy here when they visit next month. It's so hard, though, to go to a bead shop with 4 large floors and only buy findings from the ground floor. Especially when they have examples on display. I basically had no chance.

Especially when the tutorial sheet was 50 yen (about 30p). Isn't it purty?

I've never used glass gems in settings before. It was very fiddly but once you get the first spoke down it gets easier. I think the materials cost about £5 all in. I will definitely be making a few of these as presents!

Then the washi paper shop. Wow, that place is good. It is basically chock full of kits for all sorts of traditional crafts and you know how I am about trying a new craft. Plus Mumsy has already said she is after exactly this kind of thing so I kind of had to try one to see how she'd get on with all japanese instructions. I was just being a dutiful daughter...

You get given the scored cardboard, black paper, templates for cutting out the papers, wooden knob, instructions (with lots of pictures) and can then choose your own washi paper from about 50 designs - traditional and modern in the most amazing colours. I was immediately drawn to this one. You know I am powerless against polka dots.

I have never been particularly interested in paper crafts but these are a whole different kettle of fish. The kit was about £7 including the paper and you use masking/sellotape and white glue to do the rest. It probably took about 3 hours all together but isn't it beautiful? I have told myself I cannot go back until Mum arrives as otherwise the flat will be full of boxes and baskets and purses and pictures and more, all made out of these beautiful papers.

And what of the findings I went for in the first place?

Not my neatest of projects considering I just hot glued the stuffed fabric into place but perfectly feasible. Plus a surefire way for me to stop stabbing myself with the pins and needles I end up sticking in my jeans when I am in full flow. So far I am using the ring one the most but once I am machine sewing again I expect the wrist one (which is actually intended for use as a hair band) should be very handy. I do have one of the commercial wrist ones with the plastic strap but they are always very scratchy and uncomfortable. This is much nicer and the insertion of a 1 yen coin at the base of the blob means I don't stab myself. Always a bonus!

Some people would think this is enough craft for one week but they would be wrong. I finally bought the fabric for my one-block-wonder which I signed up for back in September. I decided on EPP since I prefer hand sewing patchwork to machining it. I carefully folded and cut the fabric and am gradually transferring the left (the original fabric) into the right (four hexagons).

I am not fussy cutting (i.e. trying to get certain parts of the pattern into certain triangles) so this is entirely a random process but I've always been fascinated by it when I've seen quilts using this technique before. As always with this technique, I am inspired by my favourite from last year's NEC quilt show:

It always fascinates me how this technique exaggerates the elements of the original - focusing your eye in the quilt above on the different patterns within the fabric. With my fabric this is even more exaggerated given the difference between the pink flowers and the green background.

Pooch's response to my various finished objects is generally to nod, frown, and ask what I'm going to make next. Usually I don't have a plan but as it happens I have been thinking a lot about Pojagi (or Bojagi) which is a traditional Korean patchwork way of making wrapping cloths (something that is also very traditional in japan except their cloths tend to be whole cloth with a printed design rather than patchwork). It is also a technique for making transparent quilts and there was a great one at the recent Tokyo Quilt Show.

I have been researching the seaming technique involved and almost bought some chiffony stuff on my last fabric expedition before reeling myself in and telling myself sternly I should practice with existing fabric before I commit. So at some point in the near future that is what I'll be doing.