daughter's cake

How was your Christmas? Hope you all had a great time with your family and friends!

Mine was super great. Look at this photo!! My daughter is 7 yrs old and she did everything by herself along with her favorite cooking book to bake and decorate this cake!!! I was working all day on 25th (augh!), and my hubby and my daughter were preparing the special dinner at home. While he was cooking, she was doing her own task. She weighted the ingredients, whipped the cream, cutted the strawberries and etc. The cake looked perfect and tasted just so wonderful. I'm the happiest mom in the whole planet, right?

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all a happy holidays with your family and friends! Enjoy!

love and peace,

Kumi

weekends

Here it's already Monday morning, no, almost noon!
Over the weekends, I enjoyed knitting and crochetting.
I'm now knitting my first sweater with Rowan's alpaca yarn.











And I made another pair of comfy room shoes! This time it's for my daughter as a Christmas gift!

now into knitting

I just bought this book from Amazon.
Breeze by Kim Hargreaves
I like to knit something nice to wear from this book! I'll just enjoy reading it for the time being as I'm still working on something else right now.

Tunisian Crochet

I made a pair of wrist warmer with Tunisian Crochet. I used Clover's double-hook Tunisian
crochet. This is a big BUY. I really like it as you can go both way! Now I'm making another pair now.

a crochet dress

I just uploaded my crochet dress on raverly. I made this dress in June and wear it almost every single week. Yap, it's definitely one of my fave!
The pattern is my original, but nothing special. You make a granny square and keep crocheting one by one until it's about the size of the yoke of the dress!

visitng Asakusa

I had a big show/exhibition over the last weekends in Asakusa, Tokyo. I opened workshop and sold handmade stuffs for two days. It was such a big success and great fun. Asakusa is one of the best and popular sightseeing spot in Tokyo.
There're many old and traditional Japanese restaurants in this area. We went out this traditional Japanese noodle called "soba" restaurant for dinner. It was my sister's recommendation. To be honest, I didn't like "soba" at all. I hesitated to go, but she insisted me to pay a visit. And guess what! It wa soooooo yummy and I have to say this is one of the best I'd ever visited!!! The name of this restaurant is "Owari-ya". My daughter loved it, too.
The Tokyo Tower was lighted in blue on last Sunday evening. I took this shot from my sister's flat.
And here's our breakfast my sis made for us!! Phew, I'd never cooked any traditional breakfast before. I thought she doesn't cook but looks like I was totally wrong!! It was so yum! Hehehe, we spent two nights at her flat and she must be happy now that we're gone!

knitting/crocheting

These days, I've been enjoying knitting/crocheting.
This is my crochet room shoes. It's so easy to make as you just keep crocheting in circle to fit your foot.
I started to knit from this summer, and this is my very first knitting project. It was easy and fun. I'll soon make second one!! I'm so much into it now.
Work keeps me busy past weeks and I can only knit during my spare time at work. Hope things get settle down very soon!

dining-out in Asahikawa

Asahikawa is situated in the middle of Hokkaido.
The town is famous for Asahikawa Ra-men (soup noodle). This place is one of the most famous one, called "San Toh Ka". I've seen a branch at Clarke Quay in Singapore as well.
These are their speciality.
I fell in love with this white soup noodle. It was just sooooooooooooo good!!

Trip to Hokkaido - Haneda Airport

Hi there. We visited Hokkaido (Japan's North Island) for the weekends. Right after school, we headed to Haneda Airport. A lot of people prefer Haneda to Narita as it's much closer to Tokyo Central area. It doesn't take much time to go to Haneda if you live in Yokohama/Shonan area. But you don't wannta take trains during the heavy rush-hour, though.

This is my favorite bakery, Paul. Not only in Paris, they also have shops at Tokyo station, Shinagawa station and at Haneda airport!!


There're a lot of shop at Haneda, mostly gourmet shops. You don't need to shop around before departing from Tokyo. Simply go to Haneda to buy famouse Tokyo sweets!!

missing teeth!

Yesterday, my daughter pulled out her wobbly upper teeth. Hehehe, now she looks sooooo funny!

WIP: cross-stitch Day 8

Yesterday, we were hit by a big typhoon here in Japan. Kis stayed at home and I closed my zakka botique, too. In Shonan region, we had very strong wind in the morning, but not really badly. Sky got cleared out by noon. In other region, they had more serious damage. Oh, no....

My work is almost done as you can see. I'm getting kinda bored. Aha!

WIP: cross-stitch Day 7

I keep posting the same project. Getting bored, eh?
Stick with me until I finish this! It won't be long, I promise!!

WIP: cross-stitch Day 6

So far so good, eh?

WIP: cross-stitch Day 5

A bit more has been added. Way to go, ah?

WIP: cross-stitch Day 4

Now you can guess what I'm working on!

WIP: cross-stitch Day 3

my one-week-project

It took me a week to finish this project. The front has crossstitched floral border, and the back has my initial "K". So happy that I'd completed! Hooray!

autumn is here

How're you doing? Here in Japan, autumn season has started. Hope you're doing great out there! Pls give me your hello after reading this blog! Thanks!

my daughter's craft project

While my daughter was attending summer camp, she enjoyed various craft works. This hemp accessory was one of them. She made three bracelets and this pretty pink with Jade stone was for me!! A perfect gift from my little one!

hooray!

From this coming Saturday, we'll have five-day-holiday here in Japan! Hooray! No school and no work!

We're visiting my mom's house. My daughter will challenge fishing for the first time. Will be back next Thursday! Ciao ciao.
:D

just finished!

I just finished my new crochet project. I really like this kind of design. I'll place it in my favorite glass shelves!

new stamp set

We'd uploaded some stamp supplies at our webshop, Atelier JADE. Some lovely stmaps and cute ink pads! Pls enjoy your shopping with us!

Atelier JADE

Geneve

I've been to Switzerland several times during I was working in Romania and France. But that was only Zurich where I had busienss to do. I didn't know any Swtizerland outside of Zurich.
This summer I traveled together with my mom, my sis and my daughter for two weeks.

Hehehe, don't ask about my hubby!! If you're working for a Japanese company, you cannot take a holidays
longer than ten days!! If you do that, your desk will be gone! My hubby told me that when we got married. Ha! I'm so lucky that I've never worked for any Japanese firms before! Enough for that, eh?
The scenery around Lake Geneve is so beautiful and peaceful. We stayed at Montreux for 3 days. We wer so lucky to enjoy sunny days while in this region. After Lake Geneve, we moved to the Swiss Alpes region.

projects done this week

A birthday gift for my sister. I made a crochet motief and sew on a linen cloth.
Lovely but simple, eh?

A half dozen coasters of Swedish weaving for my own zakka boutique.

A hawaiian white bag for my customer.

A tablecloth with cotton-linen textile for my customer.

Back from holidays

Hello!
We're back from our two-week-holiday in Switerland! It was such a great time. Now back to work...

new project (crochet)

It's another wetty cloudy day here in Japan.

I'd started a new crochet project from last week. Here it is. Can you guess what's gonna be???? The answer will be shown next week (or maybe in 2 wks! Hehehe!!)

Tanabata Day!

It's July 7th and it's called Tanabata Day today. Hope we can see the clear sky this evening to enjoy the milky way up in the sky!

hydrangeas from backyard

I love hydrangea.
It's said that hydrangea is originally from Japan. We call them "ajisai" in Japanese. Lovery sounds, doesn't it?

facebook

After so many years, I finally started facebook. Ha! If you're around, look for me and say "hi". Looking forward to seeing you there!

Good morning!

Hope you have a good start of a brand new day!

xoxo
Kumi

Origami

Do you know Origami? It's a Japanese paper craft. Japanese learn how to enjoy one piece of paper in childhood time.

The first photo is made by a young Japanese girl at my shop. She's now into Origami so much and made this panda bear for my daughter. So adorable!!

The second photos is turtle family made with just one piece of origami paper.

This is made by another customer at my shop. She's a Origami professor. Amazing, isn't it?

And these cute tulips are made by my six-year-old daughter. Sweet, eh?