Cat Walk

Sunday saw Pooch and I at the Kagurazaka Bakeneko Cat Parade near Iidabashi (pronounced Ee-der-bashy). I went for the black cat look, complete with ears.

The van is for the most common delivery company in Japan and just happened to be outside when we were leaving. Pooch went for the completely-not-dressed-up look, as per, but coped very well with being accompanied by a wife sporting cat ears as we ate lunch at a pizza restaurant and traversed the metro. When we got there it was like I was finally meeting with My People.

There were probably about 200 people dressed up and another 100 or so there to support them at the start point. All 28 of my photos are here but a few personal favourites...

A running nun cat, catching up with the end of the parade.

Freddie Mercury Cat, accompanied by Batman and friends.

This kitten.

French maid cats.

And of course, traditional dress cat, blowing a conch shell. This guy was about 6 foot tall and very polite and serious when I complimented his outfit. He stopped to bow.

I suppose you could say, he...paws'd.

Oh yeah.

There was also a band, including two bagpipe players, all dressed as cats and possibly not all playing the same tune.

It can be hard to tell when bagpipes are involved...

Three Little Men in a Flying Saucer

It's finished!

I started this project back at the beginning of the month and finished it yesterday. I am very happy with it for now but we'll have to see how it stands up to play, or if she actually plays with it at all. My sister was saying on our last Skype how she was looking for toys to spark Jasmine's imagination so hopefully this will help with that. I've added little pleather handles so she can carry it around.

It looks like a gnome's briefcase.

Inside there is a zip on the flying saucer for the three little men to sit in.

I was thinking of Ghostbusters when I cut out their hair, hence the one on the right modelling an "Igon Spendler" do.

The numbers were iron on ones I got locally. The stars were from a length of wired ribbon type stuff, detached and dewired. Everything else I just made up.

I have been collecting "quiet book" page ideas on Pinterest (this Board) and if she likes this I'll definitely be making more.

Three little men in a flying saucer
Flew round the moon one day
They looked left and right
But they didn’t like the sight
So one man flew away
Wheeeeeeeee!!

Two little men in a flying saucer...

Day One on the Black Cat Bloghop! And a Giveaway!

Oooo I had so much trouble deciding what to make with this one. I have had two of the fabrics from the Black Cat Crossing range since the start of September but they were not speaking to me at all. I couldn't think of anything at all so I decided to take a break from them and make something else I'd been thinking of for a while. I took inspiration from the Japanese designs I'd been seeing...

I used some of the lovely woven japanese fabric oddments I've been picking up for all the outside fabrics.

The inside is a thrifted handkerchief. The frame was added with glue which is not strictly the japanese way, but my preferred way. As is traditional, the amount of glue you get on the fabric is related to the amount of trouble you took over decorating it - meaning I got a lot of it everywhere. But I did end up with a pouch to keep nail varnish and a small bottle of remover in.

This still left me with the black cat fabric and no ideas. I went back to flicking through a recent Japanese quilting magazine (my favourite is a bimonthly called Patchwork Tsushin and you can have a good dig around the website using the translate function on a Chrome browser) and saw this.

Aha...I cut five strips roughly 48mm wide across the width of the fabric and got to work with my new bias binding maker, which I picked up in Kyoto.

This gave me a series of 25mm strips ready for weaving. I cut the cream ones into four and left the black ones whole. I ironed thin interfacing onto the back of the whole to keep it in place and whipped up this drawstring bag.

The string is made from a thinner strip of the black fabric.

Phew - I finished this yesterday morning, just in time for the bloghop. Thank goodness inspiration struck at last!

Many thanks to Wicked Wendy and Madame Samm for this hop, and please go to the end of this post to see the full schedule and especially who else is taking part today - go and visit them too!

The Giveaway!

Regular readers might remember this Sew Together bag I made a few months ago?

Despite travelling a few times since then I have never actually used it. Deliberately challenging my usual colour palette is all very well but does tend to leave you with something that is not to your own tastes. Duh! So, would you like it? To win you just have to complete the Rafflecopter below. You get one entry for commenting (about anything) and another if you are a follower. I'll post internationally.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now go and visit today's hoppers!

Monday, October 20

Why Knot Kwilt?

Lixie Makes It

Miss Priss Quilts

The Slow Quilter

Patchwork Sampler

Tuesday, October 21

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Coeur d'Alene Gifts

It Seams To Be Sew…

A Geeky Crafty Place

Wednesday, October 22

Creatin' in the Sticks

Living With Purpose

Moose Stash Quilting

The Quilted Cat

Lines, Color, and Art

Thursday, October 23

VroomansQuilts

Lovelli Quilts

Pampered Pettit

TeaTimeCreations      

Whims and Fancies  

Friday, October 24

Just Let Me Quilt

Buzzing and Bumbling

Thimblemouse & Spouse

krislovesfabric

Quilt Doodle Doodles

Monday, October 27  

Ridge Top Quilts

Dancing Moon

Kwilt Krazy

Lydsfire Sewing

Grandmama's Stories

Tuesday, October 28

Selina Quilts

Jane's Quilting

Quilted Delights

Words & Stitches

Seams To Be Sew

Wednesday, October 29

That's Sew  Julie

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilting Queen Online

Sew Peace To Peace

A Stitch in Time     

Thursday, October 30

On the Banks of Frog Creek

How Art You?

Cucki Stitching Cove

Dancing Moon Farmstead

Life in the Scrapatch 

Friday, October 31

From My Carolina Home

Mammy Stitches

Bumbleberry Cottage

Just Because Quilts

Sew We Quilt

Thick Socks

Time for a quick knitting catch up. These cabled socks came off the needles last month but never got photographed.

The cables make them very spongy and the yarn - Madelinetosh Sock, bought many years ago in Amsterdam - helps with this too. The pattern is from a two-at-a-time-toe-up book but I only used the stitch count and cable chart and went cuff down. The second pair are made with the same yarn in a lighter shade.

These are a free Knitty pattern called Twisted. I have had it queued since 2010 and finally got it going this year. I have only made one sock so far but they knit up quite easily with just knits, purls and slips.

I have been looking to reduce my stash with a return to the UK in mind, hence my finally using the good stuff. Plus, what is the point of hanging on to yarn indefinitely and buying other yarn to use instead when the stuff you've got could get moth eaten or spoil some other way? Yes - a big change to my old yarn buying and stashing habits! I must be getting old...

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!