Happy Mother's Day!

I got a great gift from my seven-year-old daughter right before breakfast. Yes, it's Mother's Day today! Hooray!

She made the beautiful origami card at her "gaku-doh". I didn't know anything about it until now. She also picked up some fresh roses from our garden. So sweet! I'm so honored to be a mom!

masking tape

I got lots of requests, so here they are!
Now they're in store.
Enjoy!!



Atelier Jade

crochet fever

I'm so much into crochet once again. Hehehe, I know that I was crazy in handweaving a couple months ago. Now back to basic, and it's crochet time!!

sakura in Japan

A new school year has started here in Japan after two-weeks of spring break. Jade is now 2nd grade and it's her first day of the new year.

Each school welcomes 1st grade kids with an official school event called "Nyu gaku shiki", meaning "enrollment ceremony". Bigger kids welcome 1st grade hand in hand. Jade goes to a private school and all kids must attend this ceremony. Almost all parent(s) and some grandparents also join the event to celebrate. For this special occasion, we need to have "sakura" tree in photo shooting time!!

People say eary April is the best time to visit Japan. I guess one reason is sakura trees. You see they're fully blooming all over the places everywhere in whole country. It's so beautiful!!

Happy Easter!

In Japan, we don't have Easter. So there's no fun for kids to enjoy. Too bad.

Hope you're having a beautiful and peaceful Easter weekends!!

cool stamps

I went to the biggest post office in Tokyo (near Tokyo Station) the other day and I bought these stamps. The Japan Post issue various kinds of stamps and it took me long time to decide which ones to buy.












Look at these! One is the cute Hello Kitty, and the other is manga "Kitaro". These are real postal stamps, not toys. So cool!!

White Day

It's "Whiter Day" today in Japan. I didn't know about this day until I came Japan to live. Girls give chocolates on Feb. 14 as Valentin's day and boys give them back some sweets on Mar.13 as White day! What a sweet idea, isn't it?

I helped out my daughter to make some chocolates yummies last month. She handed to two boys at school and one for her daddy. And she got her small gift from one boy. Hehehe.

And my husband made his very first jelly this morning to treat our daughter. It was soooooo yum, full of his love to little one.

Have a sweet day to you, too!!

handweaving

As I mentioned on my blog the other day, I started handweaving at home. So far, I use a table loom, not the big one. I'm hoping I'll get the wide and big loom one day. The table loom I bought is called "Sakiori" from Clover. It's quite easy to handle and practical. I guess there's no English instruction, they only offer in Japanese. That's such a pity!!

Here're some scarves I handwoven last week. The yarns are from Habu (avril in Japan). After washing, it becomes so soft. I'm so much into handweaving at the moment!

Happy Valentine!

my second knitted project

During the holidays, I was knitting this hat for my 7-year-old daughter. She requested to have the ear covers. We bought the yarn in San Francisco when we visited there 4 yrs ago. She chose the one but she doesn't remember it. She was just 3 yrs old back then. I knitted, frogged and knitted again and again to fit her head. Gee, it took me three days. But I'm happy how it turned out! So is my daughter and wear is every single day!

Habu's Happy Box

You know the famous Japanese handwoven yarn shop called habu? Here in Japan, it's knows as "avril" and they have shops in Kyoto (HQ), Osaka and Tokyo.

I've started hand weaving and now takes Swedish Weaving class once a month. My teacher spent some years in Sweden to learn weaving, and now she has her own studio in Tokyo. I'd bought a rigid table loom. As you can see, I'm so much into it!

Every year, avirl (or habu) offers generous Happy Box to celebrate the first sale of the new year. And here it is! I bought one for myself. Look how much I got!!!! The box was huge and it was hard to hold to take it to my atelier room. I'm so excited to imagine what I'd knit/weave out of these wonderful yarns!

These books are about handweaving at home written by avril CEO. It tells me a lot! They're my bibles.

New Year has come

Hope you all had a great New Year Day. Yes, new year of 2010 has come. How're you doing so far?

This year is Tiger Year in Zoological Year here in Japan.

Happy Tiger Year to you!

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!