japanese craft

I came across Crafting Japanese a long time ago through a podcast. Sister Diane from Craftypod (episode 20) interviewed the sites creator.  The website has lots of Japanese  books about lots of different crafts like soft toys, embroidery, clothes, bags, knitting etc .  The thing I love about this site is that also associated with each book are pictures and links to projects that people have made from them.  This is a fantastic idea and you really get to see if the patterns are workable.

I think the main appeal to these books is that they are in another language and deciphering the patterns is half the fun.  Stitch cast episode 6 (another podcast) also talked about Japanese craft and went into a little more detail about how to order the books. 

I was initially interested in the plushie and soft toy books but then I found tiny embroidery tiny garden.  I absolutely adore this idea of machine embroidered gardens but had no idea what I would use them for.  Then recently I came across motherhues.  She makes and sells playmats and little felt toys that are waldorf inspired.

 Unfortunately my daughter is still in the “eating toys” phase and I would not be able to give her something like this yet.  But this is definitely something that interests me and  can see myself making these later on. I will have to make sure that the next sewing machine I get is embroidery capable so I can make my little gardens.