Oops I Did it Again: Handsewn Book

Handmade books have crept into my heart lately so I made one for my mom's birthday gift.

The cover is hand marbled paper that I purchased.  Someday I would love to try to make some myself.  I think all I need a this point is two seconds to rub together.  Interesting how difficult that is to find sometimes.

I hope she gets some use out of it.  I did some calligraphy for her on the inside cover to personalize it and attached some Japanese index label stickers by Midori to the back inside cover using a couple pieces of washi tape.  The sticker tabs can be use to divide up sections of the book for different topics.

When I was in Kinokuniya recently I picked up a book that of course is in Japanese so I cannot even read you the title.  it is an adorable 'stick figure' -ish style that looks super Japanese.  It's pretty cute.  I'm not quite able to draw everything  but some things are so simple that even a kid could replicate them.  Picture of the book cover here.

On other fronts, we are starting to attend Christmas Tree lighting ceremonies, holiday school band concerts, and think about where our own decorations are hiding in storage.

And the other night I unfortunately watched the first disk of Game of Thrones.  Oh my goodness, too intense for me...off to remove the rest of the disks from my queue, pronto!  Who has a stomach to watch such things!?  Wowza, not me.  Do you guys watch this?

Suzuko Koseki Quilts

Suzuko Koseki publishes quilting books in Japanese, and also designs fabric.

She has a background in fashion, and was a student of my favorite Chuck Nohara. You can get a bit more bio info on Suzuko here, as well as see another one of the books she has published.

The lovely and talented Mrs Schmenkman posted about the above book by Suzuko Koseki and I ran off to Yes Asia to pick up my own copy. ISBN 4140311495.

This is the first time I have used Yes Asia, but it worked out very very nicely, and I would certainly order from them again.

The book has mostly pieced flower designs for small quilts and bags and things. Very very pretty. I really want to make some of these blocks.

Japanese Quilting in Southern California

Last weekend we drove down to LA for the wedding of an old and dear friend.

Correction, I should say that my husband drove us down and back. The truth is that I usually help out with the 7 hr drive, but this time he did the entire thing by himself. Gee, thanks honey!

Anyhow, on the way there, I read this totally cute new Japanese quilting book that I got. It included a little project with yo-yo's, and a bit of sashiko too. It was a little placemat thingy.

I decided to make a mini version of it, probably to make into a pin cushion or something small like that.

This book has some cathedral windows quilts in it too, that are using linen for the background fabrics. Really pretty.

On the way to the wedding, we stopped at BookOff, a used Japanese book shop, and looked for used quilting books. I found a few. Nothing super special, but prices were right, so I adopted a couple of thick books with block patterns. Worth it to stop in if you're in that neck of the woods.

Another taupe book! (as if I need one)

I could not resist this book about making taupe bags. This one, on the cover, looks amazingly adorable.

I picked up some handles that I think are more or less the same as the ones shown here, so I think that I can actually make something similar (given enough spare time to work on it!)

Have you heard of Moo?

Ok, please check this out, and let me know if you've used them before. They print the coolest ever business cards, notecards and stickers.

I just ordered a bunch of mini business cards & cannot wait to get them.

Also, they ship globally (not an easy thing to figure out how to do), so if you're reading this blog entry, and you are not E.T., their services are available to you! Is that awesome or what?