Ripple Blanket

I am in the middle of this embroidery now, but keep on doing the same thing is sometimes boring. At the same time, I have a pile of old wool on the living room floor, and I feel that my husband want to have a word on it soon, I was wondering what I should do about that pile.

Then I found the use of these yarns on ArtMind. The ripple blanket. And as she says, there is the tutorial on Attic24. 

Following Lucy's instruction, I started working on this blanket. The pattern is simple, so once you remember it, you can keep on crocheting on and on. I did it so intensively that now my nail on the index finger have a little crack and my thumb hurts :p. 

I wanted to make this blanket look like the one Caths Kidston might make, shabby chic-ish, but I had to use up my old yarns, I don't know it looks like it. if you look at this closer, you might find that some yarn's shades are different. Also I had to omit one purple line. It's just because when I had to add new yarn, the manufacturer changed the shade or discontinued some colour this year and I could not find the exactly the same colour. This might be a kind of fun to make something from the left over yarn, I mostly used for making Amigurumi, before. 

I really enjoyed making this blanket, was amazed that we can make the nice pattern with the very basic stitches. Now I reduced the volume of the pile of yarn. Unfortunately not used up :). Have started thinking what I should do about those...

Japanese sweets

Sometimes I feel sorry for my daughter because she always has two school's homework. The one is for her local English school's, the other is for the Japanese Saturday school's. It seems that English school's homework is much easier for her because she understands English better or it's because there is a gap on her confidence for English and Japanese. She is more conscious about Japanese language as she thinks she does not know the language enough to command freely.

One of her Japanese homework is "Read Japanese books aloud."

Our current choice is 和菓子のほん The Book of Wagashi, Japanese Sweets.  

Amazon.co.jp： 
和菓子のほん 
(たくさんのふしぎ傑作集): 
中山 圭子, 阿部 真由美

I have been here in England for about 8 years now. I like many things about this country but I also miss something about Japan, too. One of the things is to feel the change of seasons by seasonal food/sweets. I mean Japanese culture loves to admire the season on many things, such as the pattern on the kimono, or even haiku poem has to have seasonal word in it. Not only England but in most of the developed countries, it's getting difficult to get seasonal food because our life is now very convenient, if you go to the supermarket, you can find tomato, which is summer vegetable, all year round. Japan might be the same. But I want my daughter to understand this Japanese sentiment on the season through traditional Japanese sweets book.

This book is made in the cooperation with the one of the oldest Japanese sweets shop, Toraya. Those traditional shops tries to capture the beauty of the season and nature and design their sweets.

This is their "Sweets Picture Book" written on 17th century, when Japanese sweets became as they are now. Even now, they sell seasonal designed sweets. Here are some spring sweets;

This represent plum flower that blooms at the beginning of the spring.

This sweets represent a bud under the snow.

This colours represents those of colours of Hina doll's kimono. We have the Dolls festival on March 3rd, wishing girls' happiness. This festival is for the girls. We display Hina dolls that wears a ceremonial robe of a Japanese court lady, which layers many kimono with different colours. Even the combination of those colours were difined by the season.

This sweets is stands for plum flower under the thin layer of snow. 

   

(via this site)

This is actually the summer jelly, which amazed my daughter most. As you can see, this is a goldfish in the water. Maybe I cannot eat this, because it's too cute and beautiful.

My husband often go to Japan on business so next time I would ask him to bring back some? Hoping not squashed in his travel luggage :).

A story in the shoe box

My crochet haven't progressed as I thought. Actually, it's almost done, but could not finish this weekend. The reason is this.

This is my daughter's "English" homework. Yes, "English" homework. Her task is that make imaginary world in a shoe box and write the story about it. The homework is this former bits :).

She says that she wants to make the scene on the moon in the shoe box. As Japanese people believe that there are bunnies on the moon and they make mochi, which is the rice cake made with a steamed sticky rice, she wants to make the moon with the bunnies on it.

It might be much easier if I let her make a kind of 2D world. But I made things a little complex ;).

We made the moon with papier mache, on the lit of rubbish bin ;), paint it, and cut it to fit into the small shoe box. Not only glued star shaped table confetti but hung them using nylon thread.

She drew bunnies. My favourite is this one;

Homework's done. She will bring this to the school tomorrow. Now I can start working on my "task" again, at last...

Cute girls love to crochet

Hello :)

How are you?

I'm fine. But my old bad habit came back again and I started another project.

Actually, it's almost done.

I have thought about it for a long time, and as it took so long that I could not find the colour I wanted. Some are already discontinued. :(

The hint is...

This is what I found on tumblr today. This is my tumblr site. I am not a cute girl but love to crochet!

WIP old clothes remake quilt 3

3...I don't know how long it's going to take to finish.

I finished one pink flower block, which means I think I have decided how I would stitch these flower pattern. This is how it went yesterday.

As I have to leave some space for quilting, I have just stitch along the line of the pattern.  I have several pink blocks left and blue and orange/green blocks to stitch. As to other colour ways, I might use a little brighter colour than original print. I'm still thinking about it but the brighter colour gives this fabric more vibrant effect...?

WIP old clothes remake quilt 2

Good morning!

Here is my current project's progress.

I have just started embroider these flower pattern. I just choose the colour which is closer to the original print. I still looking for the stitch that make the centre part of flower look nice. Using only satin stitch might be boring, right? ;)

And, felt animal ... nothing has changed...

Well, well, before I start this, I have to do house chores, anyway.

Books wish list

Yesterday, when I went to the high street to buy Little Miss Chatty's school tights, I popped in to the book shop. I found two book for her, which sounds interesting by shop's review in 3 for 2. We had better be good mathematician, when you find anything "3 for 2" as sometimes we end up buying a thing we actually don't need at all. But even if you bring two books labeled "3 for 2" to cashier, shop assistant would say "These are 3 for 2, you had better to find another book, as one of the book would be free anyway." This is true, too. Thinking which way of shopping is better for me, I walked around the shop and found this book.

This is Ways of Seeing by John Berger.

This cover is now revised as this;

Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics): 

Amazon.co.uk: John Berger: Books

As I was always interested in this book, and I liked new cover, I added this book as a part of 3 for 2 shopping. Yes, this book also a part of shop's 3 for 2 deal.

I have just started reading, but these are my wish list in the future...

Looking into Amazon, their cover image are mostly old one. I don't know they have the books with the new cover. I hope they will revise those before I finish reading the first one.

Penguin on Design