Author: Angela

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I Can Learn to Love Again: A Crochet Story

My friend from the States (featured here and here) is a crafter, but in a very different way than me.  She loves pretty things and is an ace with a crochet hook (whereas I prefer to stab at things, have never crocheted or made anything remotely wearable, and sometimes I like ugly things). When she visited Tokyo, we found this book:

I begged my friend to buy it — not because I like doilies (actually, I sort of hate doilies), but because 1. it’s a beautiful example of a Japanese craft book and I wanted to share it with you, and 2. if you could bundle my friend’s personality into a book, it might be this book, all flowers and peachy-pink and cashmere yarn. It was meant to be.

My initial unlove for doilies was because they didn’t fulfill my first rule of craft: the things you make should be useful or contribute to the beauty of a useful item. Because seriously, what do you do with a doily?

Apparently you can do a lot of things:

I love that book cover. Psst — hey friend, hint hint. I love that book cover.

I challenged her to finish a doily before she left. She put my challenge to shame and made two. Show off.

She offered to make me one, so I chose the triangle doily. And I love it.

It turns out my new doily is lazy. It lounged on the couch for a week after my friend left. It was being a total couch potato doily. Maybe it was sad to see my friend leave. Or maybe it’s an inanimate object and I need to get some fresh air.

After finding this image,  I’m thinking the doily found a new home. Doily, your purpose in life is clear. You are welcome to stay, as I bind you in chain stitch to my couch.

Image from Apartment Therapy

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Snack Crack

I’m in love with Pretz — crispy little breadsticks covered in salt and umami.  In Nagoya we did a riverside taste test: clockwise from the top left, we tried salad サラダ, gyoza 餃子, black pepper chicken wings 手羽先, and citrus すだち. The black pepper wings were the obvious winner.

A quick Google search of Pretz cemented my love — check out the YouTube cache here. Warning, it may cause seizures. Please take note that Pretz is pronounced like the classy Pennsylvania gas establishment Sheetz (Ah Sheetz! I dropped my Pretz!), not like the Pennsylvania snack food, the pretzel. The recommended method for eating Pretz is to snap them in half. I prefer to inhale them, teeth continuously chomping like the wood chipper in Fargo. “Where is Pancakes House?” Who cares, I have Pretz.

Snack food companies in Japan are good at throwing new, crazy flavors at you so you’ll continue to buy their products, as if the addict needs another excuse. A recent find, just butter ジャガバタ:

And there are many, many more. Sorry crafts, it looks like I have a new hobby.

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A Weekend in Pictures

Hello! I’m back, at least physically if not-quite mentally. We spent the weekend with friends in Aichi prefecture, and it was fantastic.  Here’s a look at our weekend and some of the reasons I love summer in Japan.

We started the weekend with a proper lunch, prepared in Nagoya’s hitsumabushi 櫃まぶし style.

The evening found us in yukata 浴衣 at the Nagoya Castle summer night festival.

Mmm, cream puff.

Sunday meant a trip to Gifu for a river swim.

Then a post-swim hike.

Back in Kisogawa, as we waited for the hanabi 花火, the sunset almost outdid the fireworks show.

After some of the best fireworks I`ve seen (according to our friend, the display was 1/6th as big as others), it was off to an onsen. It rained a bit as we sat in an outdoor pool, cooling our faces. That night, curled up on the tatami mat, I never slept so well.

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Soba School

While in Nagano Prefecture a few weeks ago, we learned how to make soba noodles from scratch. I’m not going to provide commentary, so you’ll have the same semi-clueless, watch-and-mimic experience as me:

Got it? Now time to eat!  They cooked up our noodles while we headed downstairs to the restaurant.

A satisfying feast.

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Summer stabbin’, had me a blast ♫

Summer stabbin’, happened so fast. ♫

Met a crafter, crazy for me. Met a tea towel, cute as can be. ♫

Ahem. OK, enough of that. Want to know something sad? I actually Googled the lyrics to Summer Nights to make sure I had them right. Of course I had them right. (Head shake.) Silly Angie.

But back to crafting (Dan, I’m back!). I bought this pre-printed cloth from Hobbyra Hobbyre in April. I love the pattern of the dancing fūrin 風鈴, a glass wind chime which catches the wind and creates a quiet tinkling sound. These pop up around Japan during the summer. The delicate sound is meant to remind us of a breeze, to help us feel cool.

I’ve had the windows open a lot this past week, and I can hear a fūrin from somewhere nearby. The clinking sounds, and my blue fingers stained from the indigo-dyed sashiko yarn, remind me of eating blueberries and sitting on my grandmother’s balcony during the summer. She let us make the best forts on that balcony.

This design is different from what I usually do, which is the more traditional white-on-blue. I enjoyed trying something new, even if I learned a few things the hard way.

First, curvy lines are trickier than straight ones. Second, changing colors all the time is tedious. Or maybe I’m lazy. Third, dark thread on a light background fabric means you have to be careful and keep a tidy back, or your fly-away ends will show through and make your finished towel look terrible.  I had to go back with a needle and thread and tack down all my loose ends, which was a bummer because I thought I was done, and then I wasn’t.

Hopefully these summer dreams won’t be ripped at the seams. Whoa-oh-oh. ♫

Anyone else have a summer project?

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Have a look at some meat.

I just learned the word for a restaurant under the train tracks is ガード下 (gadoshita).

I love the ambiance of these places. The rattle of the train overhead has the added benefit of masking the (more than) occasional earthquake.

Gadoshita are also known for having cheap food, usually grilled meats. We ordered chicken skewers, fried tofu, kimchi, and ホルモン煮込み horumon nikomi — stewed innards.

Learning new vocabulary isn’t always fun and games. From the translated menu:

I realize this outs me as a person who takes photos of the word “vagina.” I consider myself an adventurous eater, but I draw the line at womb. Though, meat of the head? Yum! Make mine a double.

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Action Craft News Flash!

A long-awaited update — I’m delighted to finally announce that the Action Craft blankets found a home!

Last month I sent four huge boxes off to Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture. (If you Google Kesennuma, you’ll find many videos and photos of the port town, which was completely swept away.)

The Action Craft blankets were sent to the organization Network Orange, a nonprofit focused on helping children with disabilities in Kesennuma. Since the tsunami they have extended their efforts to include helping others in the community rebuild their lives, and they were excited to receive our donation. I was a bit worried my terrible kanji-writing skills had sent our boxes off into oblivion, but this week I received word that they arrived safely. The folks at Network Orange said they’d try to send photos, but I’ll cut them some slack, since, you know, they’re helping people survive and stuff.

Congrats to everyone who participated. A job well done.

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Balloon Animals for Grown Ups

I just bought this app and though it’s a bit clunky, I’m having some fun playing around.

Friends, I apologize in advance for any late-night balloon animal messages … I’m searching for a word with both Q and T … ooh, I think I got it …

I’m terrible at Scrabble, so please be impressed. (In case you’re curious, that’s a qtaro (?!), unicorn, apple, roadrunner, tree, and zebra.)

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Sweet Dreams

I’ve been digging into the depths of my camera’s memory card and was reminded about the Dream Pillow project I participated in a few months back.

A group of high school students established the project with a goal to collect 5,000 pillows for tsunami refugees. They asked for handmade pillow cases to fill with cotton donated from a futon shop. I sent them a simple wiener dog with flowers motif, which reminds me a bit of Rusty. (I’ve watched that clip 1,000 times, no joke. In my defense, I had a dachshund as a kid.)

I sent my pillowcase off hoping the address written in chicken-scratch kanji was eligible enough for delivery, then promptly forgot about it. About a month later, I received a stack of postcards in the mail.

All handwritten and thoughtfully decorated, thanking me for my donation. Talk about sweet dreams!

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The Pudding Man from Osaka

Dan went to Osaka this week and returned with a gift:

A box of puddings. I love everything about this — the package design, the cheery little mascots, the fact that it’s pudding and full of eggs and doesn’t have to be refrigerated.

I opened the box, and the puddings were wearing hats. The instructions are fully illustrated, so I know not to put on the caramel sauce and caramel crunch in the wrong order (gasp!).

This is exactly what Dan looks like dressed up as a pudding.

Since I opened the box, I’ve been a steady stream of chuckles. This pretty little puddin’ face has been taped to my computer screen. I like his peeping.

Coincidence that Dan found a pudding doppelganger while in Osaka?

Dan, the Pudding Man.  Has a nice ring to it.