Marie in Japan

24 January 2012

Fabric Fun

I've been finding PLENTY of uses for all the Japanese fabric I bought in Tokyo before returning to the U.S. last year. I had originally bought the fabric because my aunt said that she would make me a Japanese quilt when I got home.

Apparently I had bought enough fabric for many quilts. So together we've been finding other creative uses for the fabric. From mini quilts, to bags, to knitting needle and crochet hook rolls, we've been unstoppable!

Here's our latest project. These bobby pin holders are so cute and handy! I found this idea on pinterest.com.

My favorite one is on the far right in the first picture, the fabric with Japanese hair accessories on a pale pink and white background.

I bought the paper clip holders at Staples, and the fabric came from my Japanese collection, of course.:)

Who knows what'll come next!

10 December 2011

My Japanese Stamp Collection

Actually, the collection belongs to my grandmother, but she gave it to me when I returned home from Japan this year. I was so excited to sort through and organize these little pieces of history.

Last Thursday, I visited Treasure Island Stamps & Coins in Palo Alto to find out a little more about these old stamps and how to best preserve them. After talking to the owner of the shop about the value of the stamps (the most expensive ones are worth from $25-$30) and how to keep them looking nice, I bought a small blue album with inserts for the stamps.

I loved looking at the different stamps and guessing what time period they were from. I especially liked seeing old images of Miyajima and other places I have visited in Japan printed on the stamps. Luckily, my grandma had preserved them well, so it was really easy to remove the stamps from the sheets and place them in the album. My grandmother said that she had only given me two pages out of many albums of stamps (it was a hobby she enjoyed with her mother), and that I should look at her other stamps, too. I have a feeling I'll be visiting that stamp shop again soon!

My grandma gave me the stamps on sheets like this. Many of the stamps had fallen off, so I first removed all of them from the sheets.

Then I tried to organize them by year, style, and/or shape.

After a few hours, all the stamps made it into the book!

This is one of the most valuable sheets in the collection. According to the man at the shop, it's worth $25-$30.

This is the other most valuable sheet, also worth $25-$30.

This is the most recent addition to the collection - I received these "Japan Sports 100th Anniversary" stamps from a teacher friend of mine as a gift before leaving Japan!

13 November 2011

Sushi Time!

A few months ago, I picked up the Lily Sugar'n Cream pattern book, Asian Inspiration, at Michael's Craft store and just HAD to try the project I saw on the front cover...sushi placemats! I thought the placemats would make the perfect Christmas present for my Japanese teacher in Japan. I love the cute little chopstick pockets on the right sides of the placemats. And the best part is, they can be used for forks, knives, and spoons just as easily.

Crochet away!

The finished products!

My chopstick collection (the Asahi beer glass is from a restaurant in Hitachi)

24 October 2011

Looking Back

I miss getting such nice letters from students in Japan!

Valentine's from the English Club - 2010

heart image: http://heartofwisconsin.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolve-to-make-heart-health-priority.html

23 October 2011

Eat, Drink, and be Scary!

Today I went to a Halloween pumpkin carving party at a friends house. While most of the guests at the party used images from a carving book to design their pumpkins, I went a different route. As I carved, people kept asking me 'Is that Mickey Mouse?!' and I'd simply say 'No, it's a bear.' Little did they know, this bear is a huge hit in Japan, and my favorite bear EVER.

Rilakkuma (リラックマ) or 'Relax Bear'

18 October 2011

A Quilter's Paradise

Last Friday, I went to the 2011 Pacific International Quilt Festival at the Santa Clara Convention Center with my aunt.

While waiting for the doors to open at 10a.m., I saw a woman wearing a quilted jacket and other women holding quilted bags or ‘Quilt Festival’ bags they purchased with their admission tickets. They were all ready for the vendors. This was clearly the place to be.

My aunt and I started at one end of the Convention Center and had to be sure not to skip any rows on our way through the show. Six hours and hundreds of quilts later, we ended up on the other side of the building, looking at the last quilts before we’d call it a day.

We even picked up a new project, called ‘needle felting,’ from a vendor. Basically, you take a piece of wool and use a very sharp, thin needle to work the wool into fabric to make your project look more real, or at least a little fluffy. We’re working on Christmas pillows, but the lady who demonstrated the technique to us was working on a beautiful quilt filled with needle felted llamas, foxes, bears, and other animals.

I liked seeing the Japanese quilts in the international section of the show. We also saw quilts from New Zealand, the U.K., and Israel among others.

While I’m not a quilter (yet), I was very impressed by the creativity, time, and patience I know must have gone into creating a lot of the quilts at the show. I don't think you have to be a quilter to appreciate a show like this.

My aunt and I sat down for much needed drinks before leaving the Convention Center around 4:45p.m.

On the way out, we commented on how we hadn’t even seen the light of day because we got there so early and left so late.

And we were fine with that.

Quilt of 1,000 cranes, created after the March 11th disaster in Japan

How one woman decided to preserve her grandmother's wedding dress - SO creative and beautiful

Our favorite quilt - all hand made

'Hey, I know this place!'

Another quilt made after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Helping hands

'Mighty Departure' - all hand done

A cute kimono quilt

Yes, this is actually quilted believe it or not!

28 September 2011

A Few of my Favorite Things

This is my new knitting bag, made by my aunt. It's PERFECT. Not only is the bag made out of fabric I bought in Japan, but the pockets are just right for all my tools.

The 'Daruma' fabric on the outside of the bag is from a store called Sanki, about a 15 minute walk from where I used to live in Japan. The blue fabric on the inside is from a fabric shop in Mito (Ibaraki Prefecture), I think.

I love this long pocket on the side- it fits my needles, crochet hooks, and other long tools just right.

I put the finishing touch on the front pocket - a Switzerland pin, and a cute Japanese Mickey pin I bought on my trip to Disneyland earlier this year.

This is my 'origami wallet'.

It's definitely one of the best purchases I made in Japan. This wallet is perfect for holding tons of coins, which makes sense, since Japan is mainly a cash based society.

I bought this 'tenugui' (Japanese cotton cloth) while visiting Yokohama, Japan. My aunt made this beautiful wall hanging from the cloth, which now decorates a wall in my room.

19 September 2011

My Eight Day Trek Across the U.S.!

While readjusting to life in America, I've been finding comfort in anything and everything Japanese I find in the states.

I recently returned from a two week road trip across the United States. Ben and I flew to the East Coast, stayed at his mom's house in Connecticut for a week, and then rented a car and drove from Connecticut to California. We stopped along the way for some planned (and a lot of unplanned) sightseeing.

My favorite stops were the ones we didn’t plan, at places we'd never otherwise bother to visit: the one and only Corn Palace in the world (South Dakota), a recreated 1880s town (South Dakota), and the Idaho Potato Museum, among others.

Ben and I had unique obsessions along the way. My obsessions were with the countless hay bales (hay bales in South Dakota are round and in Idaho they're square!), silos, and antique malls I saw in South Dakota and other Midwestern states. Ben was more interested in the windmills, crickets, buffalo, and oddly enough an 80-foot-tall dinosaur he spotted one day on the side of the rode in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know if these things were actually exciting, or just distractions from the endless, and I mean endless, roads we were on for a good chunk of the trip. We had to turn off the radio after a few days because we couldn’t stand listening to the same tunes over and over again. At one point, it got so bad that Ben started honking the horn when no other cars were in sight.

When we weren’t in the car the trip was more exciting. We tried some interesting food along the way. In Canada, Ben introduced me to ‘poutine,’ which I liked better than he did. ‘Poutine’ is french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy. At Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, we tried buffalo stew and buffalo chili. Both were amazing. And in Jackson Hole, Wyoming Ben tried elk chops and buffalo, and I had a flounder dish one night and some wild game bolognese the next night.

Some of the best parts of the trip for me were finding surprising reminders of Japan in the corners of America. At Mount Rushmore, we ran into a Japanese couple from Tokyo. I don't know if they were more shocked or excited that Ben and I offered, in Japanese, to take their picture in front of the mountain. They even asked to take our picture before we left!

In the small town of Cody, Wyoming we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant one night. It seemed a bit out of place but we were interested. Ben ordered the sushi and I got the tempura. Ben made a ‘note to self’ after that meal: sushi in the middle of America is probably not the best choice.

Also, I loved finding old Japanese antiques, like tea cups and decorative cloths, at different antique stores we found en route. And when we stopped at the Idaho Potato Museum on our last day, we found some old Japanese potato chips on display.

This is the ground we covered:

DAY #1 (Wednesday, September 7th)

Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York

DAY #2 (Thursday, September 8th)

New York, Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois

DAY #3 (Friday, September 9th)

Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota

DAY #4 (Saturday, September 10th)

South Dakota

DAY #5 (Sunday, September 11th)

South Dakota, Wyoming

DAY #6 (Monday, September 12th)