Making Time

Oh my goodness. I love love love stop-action animation. And this little fella is adorable. Komaneko!

What a cute cat! and so creative and talented. The clips I watched show him working on his sewing machine, making an airplane out of a baguette and spoons for propellers, and hunting down a scary monster in the forest. You can sneek-peek behind the scenes and see the folks who made it. You tube has a clip from TV showing behind the scenes shots! It amazes me.

Komaneko’s DVD is available in July. You can watch clips - but I can’t link to them directly. On this page you can watch some clips of the Komaneko animations. Not sure on the regions and viewability. But, Amazon is selling the little Komaneko soft toys on their site.

My uncle hinted I should make some finger puppets. On his last trip, he went to Ecuador and saw many little kids selling finger puppets in the streets. He bought some, but they seem to have been lost in his recent move. He is now in a nursing home battling cancer. So I am looking into making some finger puppets to cheer him up. I wanted to see what those puppets looked like…

I found some companies online who sell the peruvian finger puppets. I was surprised there are so many fair-trade companies set up. With prices like 30 USD for a set of 10 finger pupppets and an embroidered bag… it would be better to buy a set of finger puppets than make them.

I noticed unusual creatures, like bluejays, peacocks, stingrays and starfish… It’s a nice change from the common humanoid-shaped stuffed animal toys like bears and rabbits. Kids could learn a little zoology while playing.

from A Greater Gift, fair trade toys- The set of 10 with embroidered bag is 30 USD.

Also see: Fair Go Trading, fair trade finger puppets and toys and Fair World Gallery

How about a puppet theatre that transforms a doorway into a stage? how cool! See other puppet theatres at Fair Go Trading

Here’s a handy little list… Craftophile’s romaji for searching Japanese crafts. This is useful if your computer can’t read Japanese characters. The author has chosen some words that are Japanese, but written in roman letters and also words that started out in English, were translated to Japanese and re-written in roman letters. (Romanized borrowed words). On a Japanese site, if you searched for “mascot” you will get a very different result than masukotto. This is helpful if you can’t copy and paste certain kana/kanji words.

Of course if your computer can read あみぐるみ you’ll get even more mileage than “amigurumi”. Google dug up 351,000 for amigurumi and 531,000 for あみぐるみ.

Another great resource is Make Write’s downloadable document for help on searching for Japanese craft terms.

Keeping a craft blog is not easy. I just published a post over at Whipup.net that I had been composing for a little while for tips on starting a craft blog. One of the comments so far mentions how you should talk about yourself and your life on your blog… and I think this is an interesting point… I think there is a certain amount of utopian-vision in a craft blog, and an idealized domestic fantasy. Is it all bad?

In a ‘bad mood’ moment, Scratch Craft boldly said she was jealous of the ‘big craft blogs’.

“I have just decided that I hate, no loathe, crafty girly blogs. I’m starting to question what was it about those blogs that made me want to start my own. I get so jealous of the big craft blog girls, they make amazing things and maintain the site. And of course you read their profile and it’s some stay at home mom, which just makes me wonder where do they get the time?”

I know what she means about the SAH (stay at home) craft blogs. I’ve lived in a house with four children, and I know what turmoil that is, so you have to wonder how they can do it all? I suppose in other ways I’m jealous too. I would love to be raising a family, and decorating a house and generally nesting… but that is not the direction I pointed myself in so many years ago.

I work full-time, study japanese, live in Japan (so try to do required touristing), live with my boyfriend, try and cook and bake at home, make the place homey, socialize as often as i can, and try to veg as much as I can, and I write on a couple blogs…. so it’s hard to balance it all. I crochet in all the little cracks and spaces in between but I’m not as prolific as I would like to be.

And on top of that posting online takes alot of time. Before I make a post on a topic, I look online to see what others might have said, so I can link to them. All this ‘research’ takes alot of time.

And on top of that, I’ve probably been too impersonal and dry, and created some utopian vision of creativity and making things. It’s all too much to bear.

Through Michelle of Green Kitchen I saw this article Touch the Spindle wrote about the way craft blogs show a kind of smoothed over image of life.

“I notice, as I read through several (million) blogs out there, a dearth of, well… reality. Is it the nature of craft bloggers (especially the “popular” ones, you know who they are) to just kind of skip over the sticky bits of life? I wonder about what is really going on sometimes…maybe we blog to create a world we most desire, or as an escape, or (in my case) as a way to re - invent ourselves as we would prefer others to see us. Is everyone really so skinny, happy, satisfied, creative and fulfilled? In any case, there’s a lot missing about messy relationships, addictions, resentments and other darkness. I think the silence is deafening.”

I thought that was very true. The craft world is more product-focused. I guess for me, I see this blog as a showcase and focus for my crafting specifically, so I don’t have alot of other personal info on it as well. I can see now that I don’t want to be projecting any image of a perfect life in anyway.

But I don’t know if I feel that comfortable sharing personal intricacies. I don’t want to share trials and tribulations of my family and friends (since it’s not my business to share). I am a person here though, and I do try and share my process here… I just don’t know what the boundaries should be.

If anyone has read my blog and thought I was projecting some kind of domestic fantasy, I promise I didn’t mean to.

A couple of years ago, I made a post on my old blog about sharing old vintage patterns, and some copyright intricacies that I discovered. I was wanting to share patterns from a cool crochet book of vintage patterns edited by Jane Waller. I had learned that since the famous Disney ruling, copyright has more strict and essentially, some feel it is making works hard to find, share, and enjoy.

and this insight came from ookpik:

“see how useless this extended copyright term is to anyone except giant disney types? most of the pirated stuff on these boards has not been in print (i.e., profitable) for decades, and copyright protection does nothing except relegate it to obscurity.”

The book I was enquiring about was: Jane Waller, (ed), A Stitch in Time, knitting and crochet patterns of the 20s, 30s & 40s, G. Duckworth, London, 1972
Examples from the book online, but without patterns. The photo is NOT from her book, I just want to add a pic, it’s from Designing Britain website

Apparently, a fan found my mention of her on my old site, and wrote in to tell me that Jane is still writing books, and has a new vintage crochet book coming out in the autumn!

“Hi, I found your web site while doing a Google search for Jane Waller and I note that you posted back in 2004 about sharing some old patterns from one of her books. I expect you sorted out the copyright legalities by now but did you know that Jane is still around and publishing? She has a new pattern book due out this autumn: The 1940s Knitting Pattern Bookand a whole personal website.
http://www.janewaller.org.uk/
I own a few of her books and am a great fan as I enjoy the old patterns.”

This is great to know. Of course I could not knit my way out of a slipknot, but I think others might enjoy this news. Thank you, Judith!

I saw an exhibition recently of Russian dolls, and they had ‘blank’ russian dolls for sale, to paint your own. I’ve got the pang of ‘why didn’t i buy that?’ They also showed lovely notepaper with Russian dolls on them, and these little wobbly Unazukin. Russian dolls and their look is very popular in Japan.
Anywho these are just some random notes… I love these little dolls, the Unazukin. I always thought they looked like Russian dolls. Here is a limited edition one styled after the ‘daruma’ doll. It’s interesting that this motif/style is making a full circle, and back to this point. Interesting little artifact, and digging a bit deeper I learned alot!

The Daruma Doll

“Daruma dolls (Daruma is short for Bodai Daruma, the Japanese rendering of the name) are red roly-poly papier-mache depictions of Bodhidharma. Like the Bodhidharma they have no arms or legs and sit in a meditative pose with large, staring eyes and no eyelids. When knocked on its side, the doll pops back to the upright position (hence “tumbler” doll, or “okiagari koboshi”) so it has become a symbol of optimism, good fortune and strong determination…” From Dolls of Japan More about Daruma - Father of Zen Buddhism

According to the legend, why does Daruma have no legs or arms?

Daruma has no legs or arms according to legend because while he was deep in meditation for such a long time both his legs and arms atrophied and withered away. read more about Daruma dolls.

The Russian Dolls

It turns out that Russian dolls are based on a Japanese doll which had no arms and no legs and was a container for other dolls. Who knew? And that Japanese doll might possibly be based on the Daruma dolls which are used for wish-making in Japan.

“The widely-held view that Matryoshka dolls are an ancient native Russian toy is sadly just a myth. The first Russian Matryoshka was carved out and painted in a Moscow toy workshop only in the 1890s, based on a model brought in from Japan“. Read more here.

Other dolls!

These little guys are in a shrine in Oita, but I have no clue what they are about. I’ve seen people go up to them and rub their little heads.

These are some lovely crocheted interpretations of the Russian dolls and Unazukins. Little crocheted Unazukin by Oh Sew Pretty, for sale on Etsy:

pretty russian doll crocheted by nguyen le:

also a pretty pillow on Etsy of a Russian doll by megillustrations

Blacktrycroshkas by Mrs. Pilkington!

Lovely Blacktrycroshkas A nesting felt Russian doll! I saw these a couple of weeks ago, and you know how it is, you forget where you left the note. Thank you for writing me, Mrs. Pilkington!

Mrs. Pilkington Knits posted photos from craft patterns about making these dolls

i woke up this morning to one of the strongest earthquakes i’ve ever felt. normally, they start, and i’m surprised but strangely bemused and bedazzled by the weird rocking motions… but it went on for so long this morning that i actually felt a cold basic fear i have never felt.

then i went back to bed and had some strange dreams which i kept waking out of. one was about a doll i made that came to life. since i had not finished sewing eyelashes on, i watched as she transformed into a little girl, with no eyelashes on one eye. i was really freaked out by her, but i could see she was not malicious, and was completely innocent- she had no idea that she was freaky. i asked her to stay there in the room, making ’stay’ motions, because i needed to figure out what to do with her. like a little pinocchio. oh dear, if all your dolls came to life!
and on that note, a diversion: some pretty artwork by tamao, a japanese artist. i came across this in kurikuri くりくり vol 6! those little magazines are cheapish, they have wardrobe refashion how-tos, little finger toy how-tos, and pics of artist’s work. it’s a cool publication. and yes i want them all.

tamao world!

my notes on her work shown in kurikuri (くりくり）: very colorful work, lots of odd shapes, bright yarns, kinda wonky stitching… charming and imperfect. black drawings from the notebook of a 1970’s highschool student; colored stitching, pompoms and crocheted yoyos.
see her blog and her website:

the first craftblog i ever saw was in 2002, it was mena trott’s http://sewwrong.com. i went searching for it today, and it seems it’s down. mena trott developed movabletype with her husband- and i learned about the sewwrong group blog through that (since i was using that software at the time). and from that site, i saw notmartha, and getcrafty- which i visited religiously. there didn’t seem to be alot of craft blogs… like nowadays when there really is a critical mass… and i always seems to be finding new blogs that have been around for a year or more.
but it seems like sewwrong is not hosted anymore. if you’re pining for the past, you can be glad that we have the wayback machine! so you can check out getcrafty and sewwrong.
it’s still a great resource filled with loads of good links and info.

Needlebook Swap

Originally uploaded by feather.

Note to self: Post images of swaps as soon as you receive them!! (Of course my partner blogged about the swap as soon as she got it!)

I was so pleased when Claire from one of my ‘favorite’ blogs (Needlebook) wrote and asked me for a swap. I had pretty much trawled her entire site’s archives, and I had seen things like her cool gnome needlebook (Not to mention a certain lovely doll named Hattie.)

She asked me what I wanted on the needlebook… and I couldn’t think at first, then realized I really wanted a house. I’m getting hit by homesickness like I’ve never had before. But the sad thing is, and most confusing is that I don’t know exactly where home *is*.

Part of me wonders if I will know what it does feel like when I finally get there… I know I should be making ‘home’ where ever I am… but I don’t know…

Needless to say, the image of a cute little house is quite evocative for me, and I thank Claire very very much for this!

And they are both very handy. I’m taking pins in and out of the cushion all the time (when I get the chance to sew). Also, it’s better than the one I made since it is stuffed more full. I under-stuffed my cushion and the pins keep going in too far. You can buy these lovely pin cushions in her shop. clairelmilne.etsy.com

Needlebook has already made something from one of the fabrics I sent her. Isn’t it lovely?

ok, so this was actually last week in japan. but i’m trying to catch up with a back-log of posts! i have been busily catching up with japanese homework, working, preparing materials for class in two week’s time, since until then- i’m going to kyoto, osaka and nara.

of course the main purpose of the trip is to see important historical sites, and oogle at gigantic buddhas… but secretly, i can’t wait to get some fabric-shopping in. i’m sure the selection and price will be better than out in the ‘countryside’ of oita!

lookie at this little chirimen boy i saw for children’s day.