Kawasaki Daishi

We visited Kawasaki Daishi in Kawasaki city on Sunday. It's one of famous Buddhist temples throughout Japan. Even it was really cold, there were many people both inside and outside the temple.

This is the entrance of Omote Sando Street.

It was hard to walk! Look at those people! People were buying gifts along the street.

I saw lots of daruma shops today.

If I'm right, draw an eye of your daruma when you make your new year resolutions in the beginning of a year. Then, if your resolutions come true by the end of the year, draw the other eye.

Sleeves are done

I've just finished the sleeves last night.

Well, in the other post I said about this kimono fabric that was from my grandma, and I've been working on it now. During the day, there is no time to spread all the kimono fabric, ruler, scissors, needles and etc because I need to prepare our dinner and do more housekeeping. Also once my daughter wakes up, I will have to put everything away before she touches them! So, I decided to work on the kimono only at night.

Speaking of this kimono, I already put the decorative stitches on the edges to show it's done. Also this type of stitch has another function that can keep the shape well.

After I finished them, I started the body part. Hopefully I can show you soon!

Banana Bread

Do you like baking? I was really craving for handmade buns and bread for a looooong time. I don't even remember when was the last time I baked...(Oh, am I too old to remember things? hopefully not!) Anyway it should be before I had my daughter in 2009, so it's been over a year.

So, I suddenly decided to bake some table buns in the Saturday morning. There were enough bread flour, butter, active dry east, eggs and milk in the kitchen. Also there were some bananas.

I poured warmed up milk instead of water and added bananas, and kneaded for about 10 minutes. The dough was placed in a big bowl for raising and rested for 20 minutes. After that, I went through some steps and divided them into 6 pieces. I put each dough in pudding cups that has been her toys recently... Of course I washed them before use.

Anyway, they were raised again and sent to the oven! They sat inside the oven for 10 minutes and came out!

If I get a chance gain, I want to bake Danish bread. It's so buttery and yummy. When I smell the butter from the oven, I feel like I want to open the oven right away and put some in my mouth!! Oh, I should stop thinking about it now; otherwise, I have to bake it now!

Tulips

My niece give me two tulip bulbs before and I left them in the kitchen to plant them later. They were in a plastic bag and I was going to wait until spring; however, I saw shoots from the bulbs!!! So, quickly I pulled out little wine glasses out of my cupboard and placed them in each glass. I heard putting tree blanches in a container if you plant them in water keeps the bulbs fresh. If the bulbs is soaked in water all the time, the bulb gets rotten or something. I just got the information and ran to a park and picked up small branches. Some are already placed in the glasses.

Kimono Coat, haori

This is called a "haori" in Japanese, which is a type of kimono coats.  Well, I have to admit that this is not sewn by me.  My mom sewed it when she was in her 20's or so for her daughters even though she wasn't married yet and had no kids at all!  Luckily she had two daughters!

Anyway, what I want to say is how this was sewn well.  As a professional kimono sewist, my mom sewed lots of lots of kimono until she retired.  I always admire her.  In Japanese culture, we find beauty and elegance in something small or somewhere you can't see.  For example,  it is common that you give money when you attend a wedding or a funeral.  However, there are some rules to give money.  You can use a handkerchief (called a "fukusa") to wrap the envelop but you need to follow a certain way; otherwise, you can be rude! Ouch!

Oh...it was hard to think of examples...anyway, in the field of kimono, a sewist makes decorative stitches to show that the kimono is brand-new.  

Usually, unlike western clothes a collar on a kimono is really long and it comes to the bottom of the kimono. And in this photo, it shows the bottom and the photo below shows the both sides.

Can you believe you will take it out the decorative stitches before you put it on? It's too pretty to take it!

New Bib

Here is my new bib.  I used echino chelsea fabric in front and regular double gauze fabric on the back.  　At first it was going to be a velcro type but I realized that gauze fabrics on both sides would be messy if I use velcro.  So, suddenly I changed the design to a ribbon type. 

I like echino brand a lot.  It's so lovely!

Kimono okumi

My grandma left 1 tan of kimono fabric that had been unsewn and washed, and my mom has kept it until now.  Unlike recent mainstream fabric, which is silk, my grandma's is wool.  But the fabric has many holes eaten by bugs and you need to fix them before you sew it again.  Why did my mom keep it?  I'm sure my mom didn't want to waste it.

Actually, my grandma divorced when my mom was 17 yo and left the house.  Last time my mom met her was more than 35 years ago and my grandma passed away!  I think my mom couldn't dump it! 

Anyway, I decided to sew it for my training and have just begun sewing.  Today, I did marking on okumi that comes right next to a collar.  I needed my memo to work just to make sure everything is alight. 

Another Pincushion, Peony-Silk

This is my new pincusion, Peony.  It's all made of silk except the bead on top and the stuffing.  This is a little bigger than Camellia for 1/2cm.  The diameter of Peony is 5 cm.  This is also listed on my Etsy!  Please have a look as well!

Saving Your Time and Money

We got new cookwares last weekend. They are a pressure cooker and a frying pan from Fissler.  Is it famous brand?  I'd never heard of it until I bought.  Ok, we had a really small pressure cooker but had never used it for a long time for some reasons.  Even though it was a pressure cooker, it took time to be well-cooked.  I always thought "It isn't right!  A pressure cooker shouldn't take that long to cooooookkkkk!!!!" And it was too small for three of us now; however, it was just better than nothing.

The big difference between the old one and the new one is whether you use a weight or not. This new cooker doesn't need a weight at all.  So, I'll get burned less!!  According to the book I got, it only takes 5 minutes to cook 4 servings of rice.  It's so amazing...

My regular rice cooker (electric) takes 40 minutes to cook the same amount of rice, so it's way short!  I can save my electric bill and my time.  I can spend more time on crafting. hahaha.
Anyway, I believe cheapness is not always good.  Probably you'll need to buy new one more frequently than buying a nice one.  There are lots of 5 dollar frying pans at a supermarket but in my opinion, it isn't worth buying unless you are lucky.  From now on, hopefully I can save my time and electricity!


This is the new frying pan. I have a frying pan from Tefal but it's not good for high heat cooking like Chinese dumplings because it'll damage the surface of the pan. When you fry dumplings, you pour water, right?  And my husband and I like dumplings so much(oh...we can't stop eating it once we start!), so this pan is perfect for me.  On the other hand, Tefal is good for baking pancakes I believe.

Camellia

This is a new pincushion, Camellia. It's a very oriental pincushion that will fit in your sewing box! Or, do you need to get gifts for someone? This is perfect for your best friends who sew! This item is rare to find in outside Japan because all the materials are from Japan and the design is really Japanese.

Here are the details;

The diameter of the flower is approximately 4cm and it is perfect for your sewing box. The flower is made of muslin and the leaves are made of silk. For the center, I put a bead on it.

The item is already listed on my Etsy shop, so please have a look!

hatsumode

January 10th was Seijin-no-hi, Coming of Age Day, and lots of young people who turned 20 in 2010 became officially adults. On this day, many women wear a furisode, which is categorized as the most formal wear for single women, on the other hand, men usually wear a suit these days. I sew lots of women in beautiful furisode everywhere on the 10th. This day should be the first time to wear the kimono for them but they won't wear it once they marry. Married women are supposed to wear a tomesode, which is very simple and not colorful as a furisode. Also who wears the most formal kimono every day now? right? So, they don't have many chances to put on a furisode; therefore, they enjoy wearing it.

But I admit that wearing a kimono for the first time isn't comfortable and makes me want to take it off right away! You need to get used to it... but yukata, which is casual and for summer, is ok.

Apart from Coming of Age day, both of us are already 33 years old now, so we just went to a shrine for hatsumode. We wished our good health and happiness at the shrine. I was glad the shrine wasn't crowded at all on Sunday.

I was longing for wearing a kimono because it is hard to wear a kimono and go outside with a small child now, so I was really happy about it.

Oh, I have to tell this! Because our family was spending the weekend at my parents' house, I didn't bring my kimonos to their house. After I started changing, my mom and I found out she didn't have any obiage that wraps up!!!! While I was changing, she looked for it everywhere but couldn't find it. There was one way I could do was to wear a coat! Mmmmm....no one can't find out that there isn't an obiage but also notice what color of kimono and obi I'm putting on...

I thought and thought! How smart I am!! I found a piece of silk cloth that is about a yard and started folding and put it inside obi as though it was like a real obiage. I think it worked unless someone looked at me from the side.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. Have a nice week!

Happy New Year!

How are your holidays? We spent three days over the new year eve with his families. Three families got together(parents-in-law, sister-in-law with her kids and her husband, my husband, our daughter and I) and had a great time.
Needless to say, but we eat and drink lots every time we have a party. Especially my husband eats and drinks the most and gains a few pounds by the end of the holidays.

Anyway, my daughter was happy all the time because her cousin who is 7 years old played with my baby. The both girls became good friends then.


At night of the second day, her two cousins made cocoa and left the bag of milk cocoa powder on the table. Everybody forgot about the cocoa powder left on the table and did something else on their own. Suddenly my husband started laughing and screaming at the same time, and my daughter was in his arms.

OMG... She opened the bag and dug her hand into the sweet cocoa powder! Her mouth and hands were all chocolate brown!!! She'd never had such sweet stuff in her life yet, so this was the first time to taste something sweet. Look at her. Even after we took the bag out of her hands, she still licked her hands and around her mouth! It must have been so delicious for her.

That was the funniest thing over our holidays. Luckily, it happened right before she took a bath... How about yours?

Thanks for reading. Have great holidays.