Origami

Today, I went to a public library near my apartment.
I went by train. This is a picture from it.
There I read some guide books about U.S. and some books of Origami.
When I go to U.S., I want to bring some japanese papers for origami to give them as a little gift for who I meet.
So I wanted to practice some patterns of origami. I fotocopied some pages and now, I made some.

This is a lotus bloom. It was difficult to make the shape, so the bottom of it, I broke... I have to practice more about this.


This is a cat's face, actually, it's a box.

This is also a box. It's simple, but to make this, I had to hold on many many times. I can put some small gift in it. I'm thinking of put some items I made and list up on my etsy shop.

These are like japanese kimono, it's a cloth that people wear at the festival. I made them from one square paper.

When I went to Italy, I made many origami to whom I met there. And some of them, made for me their origami. We enjoyed that change of origami really much.

I wish I could make origami for somebody and they like it.

Here are some photos of cats that I met today.
They were at the top of the bank very high. They seemed to be relaxed.

She( or He) is the poster girl of this loto shop. We couldn't see any persons except her. She sells a loto?

I sewed a coincase and a wallet for my travel

I want to look the coincase like a sandwich. I put red zipper as a slice of tomato, and green zipper as a leaf of lettuce.
The brown trim looks like bread crusts.


It was my boyfriend's idea, but I couldn't make it so good...
But it is good for use, so I bring it for my travel.

And I made the wallet because my usual wallet is a little bit heavy.
I looked up the size of dollar bills through the internet. The biggest japanese yen bill is bigger than dollar, so I made the wallet rather smaller.



These days, I cannot sew a lot because I have to prepare for my travel.
But today, I could sew for several hours and I'm really content!

Onigiri, Rice balls

I made rice balls with my boyfriend.
He put the fillings on the top, I put them in the inside.
The rice contains some kinds of brown rice, so the color of rice is reddish.
I like rice balls because they are made by hands.
I ate his rice balls and he ate my balls.

Alligators and Bear cats and Giant tortoisesb

I traveled with my parents and my sister's family last weekend.
Only I live far from them, so we met at the middle of our places(About 300 km far from each city).
I went there by train, and they came there by car.

We stayed at an old japanese style hotel with hot spring.
The dinner was char-grill seafoods. They were gorgeous.


The room was tatami floored big room. We 5 adults and a baby slept in one room. It's japanese style!

This is the small bathroom in our room.



In the second day, we went to a park. There are a lot of alligators and bear cats.
The alligators are all sleeping in the morning. They didn't move at all.


Bear cats moved on trees. My little niece liked them.


And then, we met giant tortoises. One of them is more than 100 years old and more than 200 kg weight! We can touch them.
When a tortoise walked to my niece, my mother(She stayed far from us because she couldn't come close to tortoises) screamed that he eats her. My niece enjoyed them but my mother... couldn't. She doesn't like big animals.





We enjoyed the trip very much.

A festival of street performance

Last weekend, I went to a street performance festival in Yokohama.
There are many performers on the street.

I like this guy who does juggling and performance of bycicle. He jumped over 5 persons by bycicle.

There was a woman who danced with a doll.

And there was a girl who wore a costume like japanese manga. Her juggling was so-so but her story was interesting. She chose one of audience for her partner, an elder man, and talked to him as a girl and called him a name of girl("Umeko").

In another street, there were some jazz performances. There are many jazz bar near this street and they are local musicians. So the sense of unity between performers and audicence was really good.




There was a little girl who helped a street shop to sell "mochi"(sticky rice cake). I bought one from her. I liked her thanks in a loud voice. There were some children who helped their parents.

I enjoyed the festival with my boyfriend and our digital and film Nikon cameras. The photo of live performance is of the film camera.

I hand stitch about 400 yards a month.

I mainly use Dual Duty 250 yards thread.
I began to use a thread on April 1st and finished it on April 20th.

It seems very long, but I sew for 5-6 hours a day, only.
And at the weekend, I sew little.

These days, I'm sewing more than before I opend a shop on ETSY.
I'm really happy to sell my items on the shop because I can meet a lot of people through it.

So even if my fingers have many small holes ( by the needle), I continue to enjoy sewing!
I'm really happy now!

Our first film camera!

I and my boyfriend bought old Nikon film camera last week.
When we bought it, we soon tried put a film in it.
But we couldn't even open the back cover from where we put the film...
We read some instructions at the book store, and somehow we succeeded to put the film in it.
But,,, we put it in a wrong way. We knew that at the camera shop where we went to be developed it.
We disappointed very much...

Then we bought a new film and ask the man of camera shop to put it in our camera.
And finally, we could take some photo with it.
It's different from the photo which I take with my digital camera.
I like the photo of film camera more, but it costs...
So we decided to take with it several times a month...
Here are some my first photo, with Nikon FE(I think it's about 30 years old camera).

How to sew a patchwork furoshiki

Today, I want to write how to sew my patchwork furoshiki.
I sew it like korean patchwork pojagi, but I don't know how to sew it, so this process is my original.

At first, make the center of the furoshiki. Cut two pieces of fabric of same height. I've never measured the size...I cut them according to the mood.


And then, lay the pieces with right side together, taking a 4-5 mm seam allowance for the one piece and a 8-10 mm seam allowance for another. And stitch the fabrics.


Fold the longer seam allowance to half, like upper photo.

And then stitch the folded edge. You can see one stitch line from the upper side, and two stitch lines from the wrong side. The upper side becomes like above photo. This block is the first(center) block.


Then, go to second block. Cut two or three ( as you like ) fabrics as much length as the first block and the seam allowances. ( I've never mesure it and after I sewed the block, I cut to the right size.)

Sew the pieces like the first block. Mmm,,, I have to cut the right block a little bit, but after I sew them together.

Then, sew the first and second block each other, in the same way. Trim it to become a rectangle.



And then, go to the third block, and then, the fourth block...


As above, sew the blocks in order like the photo to become the size you want. I make this about 23-24 inches size usually.


At last, trim it with a bias tape.


Finish!!!!!

It's difficult for me to explain this process in English...
But I tried it for my friend!
Thank you for reading this.

You can use this furoshiki as a cover, or as a wrapping cloth.
And sometimes, as a small bag.


I'll list up this furoshiki on my etsy shop.