My shop is now full of matryoshkas! Nanna is waiting for someone to fall for her...
Her backside is decorated with two hand appliquéd hearts.
After getting the lovely package from Jan in Japan I am more excited than ever about Japanese sewing, quilting, crafts, fabrics, etc. Jan sent me two new Japanese craft magazines and I will be sharing them with you as soon as I have a chance to take some photos of them. I have already photographed this book, a recent ebay purchase.
The entire book is beautifully photographed and Meg kindly included a pretty silk strap for my camera with the book!
Aren't these beautiful with the blues paired with the brown?
I would really love to make some of these flowers...
The bag on the far right in pink in red I think is so stunning. I really love this simple design which shows off the fabric so beautifully.
I am so impressed with the range of this book, from very bright and bold, to this page that is delightful with the airy, see-through fabrics.
Finally some darks to really round things out. I am thinking about making table runners or potholders with some fabrics like these as Christmas gifts. (My brother figured out his birthday gift this year from reading my blog. Rats! I didn't think he really noticed the crafty items, just his little niece and nephew!) So I will have to be more careful!
The book gave me the incentive to finish the vintage kimono silk appliqué drawstring bag I had started this past winter.
These dragonfly fat quarters are a recent Japanese fabric purchase and I am eager to put them to good use!
I hope that you enjoy Japanese inspiration as much as I do because I will be showing more again soon! If you wish to purchase on amazon in Japan here is the link. I haven't done so yet but am thinking about it. The initial postage cost is quite a bit but then you just pay a small additional fee per book so the more you order the more you save, right?!
To explore the books and magazines on Amazon Japan without knowing the language isn't too difficult. Here is a good item to start with. To see other books like it you can scroll down the page and you get a whole list of books which by clicking on them can take you to yet another list. I can highly recommend Crafting Japanese as a resource to explore Japanese crafting books and magazines. At the top of each post is the ISBN number which you can use to search on Amazon if you should want to order it.
Finally here is the Flickr Crafting Japanese site where you can browse through thousands of images from Japanese crafting books as well as hand made items.
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