as i was browsing through the archives of one of my new favourite blogs six and a half stitches i came across a link for praha, a japanese company who make hand-made felt products. lovely designed flower corsages, hair pins, bookmarks, bags, purses and they even make a cute little mini bowling set. fuck it dude, let's go bowling...
a while ago i did a post about zakka and since then i've been seeing zakka everywhere i look. on monday i ordered some japanese fabrics from superbuzzy and i saw that they sell supercute shinzi katoh bags. i found the illustrations so charming i went looking for more and found the shinzi katoh website. it starts with: "in this site, we have the most famous zakka designer shinzi katoh's wonderful world." and a wonderful world it is! you can find all kinds of items like bags (also featured on do something pretty this week), water bottles, softies, t-shirts, fabric and buttons. i fell in love with the buttons, but i found out since that they are sold in sets of 2 single buttons, not a whole bottle. i'll wait till i really need them before i buy any, it's a pitty to just have them laying around... look like the cute softies are kits you have to sew yourself, but i'm not a 100% sure.
ok, i'm not sure what it means, but it's the title of my new japanese craft book. it's an aranzi aronzo softies book with patterns for the aranzi aronzo figures and i can tell you it's mighty cute! of course there's not a word of english in it, but that can't spoil the fun... i bought it through the marketplace of amazon.co.jp, which has lower shipping charges than the books that you buy from amazon directly (¥1200 for the marketplace versus ¥3400 + ¥300 handling fee for amazon.co.jp). ok, to much talk about money, but this way the book only cost me ¥2000 (€12, £8, $16,50). Good score!
in my quest for all things cute and craftable i keep coming back to japanese craft books. this time i found aranzi aronzo, a company that make products featuring cartoon characters. i just ordered a book with patterns to make their toys out of jersey fabric, but they also have some other craft materials like patches and printed fabric. cute overload!
one of my favourite stores for fabrics has to be reprodepot. it was started out of a love for vintage fabrics, but they sell much more than that alone. they've got a very nice selection of japanese and marimekko fabrics, but also some lovely amy butler patterns (shown in an earlier post). plus on top of that their shipping charges are very reasonable. above are the japanese fabrics i just purchased. i'm not sure what i'm going to do with them, but i'm sure i'll think of something since i'll be beginning my sewing course this thursday!
while we are on japanese crafts i would like to introduce you to furoshiki. it is basically a way to wrap gifts in fabric, instead of wrapping paper. on the craft magazine blog there's a little article about how the japanese government (links to a pdf of the folding techniques) are trying to promote this old craft, to cut down on the waste of paper. smart, no? if i get a present wrapped in fabric i would certainly keep the piece to re-use, but with paper it would go into the paper recycling bin. you could use scraps of fabric or even make a little patchwork of different pieces of textile.
before i started this blog i had never heard of zakka, but i have been stumbling upon the word ever since. to try and learn all kind of new craft techniques and find patterns to work from i have been looking at what kind of books are out there. i found the japanese craft books to be what i was looking for, they have a certain style that really appeals to me and the fact that they are in a language that i don't understand makes it even better! i must be a sucker for punishment... anyway,i kept seeing all kind of different books and patterns for handmade zakka. i've been reading up a bit on this and from what i understand zakka is a word to describe a japanese product with added (design) value. it applies mostly to fashion and accessories, but also to toys and housewares. if i'm not mistaken it just means extra attention is given to the way it looks and feels, kind of what we call 'design'. zakka bag = design bag. of course all with a very stylish and tasteful japanese twist! ps. this is my first post in english, looks like a lot of my visitors are from the uk and the us. so welcome!
ok, ik heb er weer een nieuwe obsessie bij: japanse vilt boeken. zoals met alles hebben de japanners een ongelofelijk gevoel voor stijl en design, dus ook als het over handwerken gaat. nu hoor ik je al denken: wordt er nog 'ns iets gedaan hier? ja hoor, ik ga van de week beginnen met de borduurwerkjes van subversivecrossstitch! ik zal proberen mijn voortgang in beeld te brengen (niet vergeten: camera opladen!). iemand anders met iets leuks bezig?
