Purple Kappa

Kitty Pouch

Runo is a Japanese dollmaker who is incredibly generous with sharing her patterns on her website. She also has a blog called Nuno Life where she shares projects, although she doesn't update very often. This is her Japanese blog, where she is more prolific.

Ivy spotted this cat bag on her English language blog and decided we needed to make one each for her and Miranda. I had some scraps that seemed to be a wool blend in a grayish-black color. We used some floral remnants for the lining. The zippers I had might have been a little too long, because when we tried it with straps the bag hung funny so we decided to just make them little pouches. It's a simple pattern with charming details, such as the tail wrapping around and the haunch is a little pocket.

Ours turned out a little grumpy looking. The eye placement is a bit tricky.

Moderate success with putting in a zipper. I need a proper zipper foot for my machine.

Happy Birthday from Amazon Japan

My birthday was last friday and as a gift to myself I finally made my first order from Amazon Japan. I'd been intimidated by the ordering process for a while, and a bit aghast at the shipping costs. Whenever I wanted new craft books, I'd order from Yesasia or for magazines I had several Etsy sellers to choose from.

But Yesasia seems to be more and more expensive. Most books are around 5.00 more than they would be on Amazon Japan. And their selection isn't nearly as good. I'd seen advice on other blogs to put together a large order--shipping to the US is a flat 27.00 with a 3.00 handling fee for each item. So the more you order, the better everything evens out.

I managed to put together an order totalling nearly 100.00 and even while telling myself that averaged to 20.00 per item, I still was gasping over the 50.00 shipping. Even though it was pretty amazing that yesterday the package was in Tokyo and today it was on my front porch, I don't think I'll be ordering from them again any time soon.

Moving clockwise from the right:

• The newest issue of Cotton Time, with a craft calendar for the year.
• a little magazine called Kuri Kuri that I've bought past issues of--it doesn't have nearly as many diagrammed projects as Cotton Time, but it's still lovely to look at.
• Two books about a little Kappa named Coo. The first is Coo the Kappa and Summer Vacation, and the second I think is Coo the Kappa King. They were the basis of a wonderful movie called Summer Days with Coo, about a boy who rescues a kappa, and the effects it has on his suburban family. I thought it would be fun to try and translate the original books but oh, what a task I've taken on. They are for an older child than I realized, lots of tiny kanji. It looks as though there is more to the story than the movie depicted so it should be fun finding out what else happened to him. But geez, it's going to take me forever!

• The last book is Laci and the Lion, which was originally published in Hungarian in 1961 and is apparently very popular in Japan. I first heard of the book after spotting this adorable fabric at This and That From Japan. This one should be a little easier to translate!

  So, I don't know. I feel a little frivolous having made the order but it's here and all I can do is enjoy it so I think I'll spend some quiet time reading my new magazines. More images from the Cotton Time and Kuri Kuri will follow.

Snow Dogs

Miranda and I have started volunteering Thursday mornings as well at the Cleveland APL (we've already been doing Monday mornings). I really love doing this, it was supposed to be something for Miranda to be around dogs and I think I might be having more fun than she is. I'm really proud at what a great job she's been doing getting up early in the morning and venturing out into the cold, snowy weather--although often we see kids walking to school as we are heading out and realize this is how most of the world conducts their daily lives while we have the luxury of lying in our warm beds, haha.

Isaac

Lucky