Wednesday 30 November 2011

Japanese Things

It was the second strike over pensions for public sector workers today. I should really have gone into town and rallied, but I was too tired really, so had a quiet day at home. I had to do some work, which is not really in the spirit of the stirke, but it is in the spirit of having little other time to do it. After that I went to the shops for tissue paper, string and felt. All sorts of crafting is going on at the moment-crochet wash cloths with ribbon hangers to be wrapped around lovely French soaps, another attempt at double crochet-more successful, and one at a Granny square (big failure!), and a little crochet dress of my own pattern, shakey eggs -egg shells, filled with rice, covered in tissue paper and varnished, and soon to be made felt pictures/needle books inspired by the Japanese craft book below. Some are for presents and some are not.
I took a few photos around the house in the sunny morning-a treat to be here in the sunny morning as normally at this time of year I am not here in daylight, apart from at the weekend.
I like the picture below so that is the one I am sharing. A little old Kokeshi doll from Rye and his surroundings.

This is the craft book. It is so sweet and whimsical. There is a girl dressed up as Red Riding Hood in some of the pictures-sometimes she is normal sized but accompanied by giant felted animals, sometimes small-sitting amongst a miniature scene.



There is so much in it, and the fact that I can't read it is ok, as the pictures are inspiration enough. Fairy tales seem to be the main theme and there are lots of animal inspired objects. I love these silhouette fairy tale pictures and am attempting one of those. Hence the felt.


I have cut out the shape and think I will glue it rather than sew it as I don't want the stitiches to show on the back.

9 comments:

jabblog said...

Japanese art is so beautiful, neat and precise and perfect. For silhouettes I love Jan Pienkowski's books.

Sarah said...

Yes me too-I have a lovely Christmas book by him-just beautiful!

Linda Sue said...

I don't think you ever sleep...when you are not working you are making and you do come up with the best ideas! My hands are demolished from so much felting lately- Wish I could use my feet.

Irene said...

Hi Sarah, Your blog is so inviting and fun. I love the eclectic nature~~always so unique to look forward to. But I want to know how you have time to keep up so many? I barely am on top of posting to one. Thank for your stopping by and visiting my blog. Have a wonderful day.

Rattling On said...

Great book, it doesn't matter what the words say. The Japanese make such interesting things.
Russian matrioshka dolls originate in Japan. They were made from papier mache at first, the Russians came up with the wood bit I think. Your Kokeshi man is beautiful.

Lynne said...

Looks an interesting book. I like the sound of the shaky eggs. But how do you get the rice into the eggshells? Or am I being a bit dumb?

Sarah said...

Good question! I have used eggs I have eaten-so I cracked them as carefully as possible, washed and dried them near the fire then put the rice in and carfully stuck them with glue and tissue paper.

Carole Reid said...

Art books are like music....you don't need to be able to read the words it's the feeling you get from the images!

Jenny Woolf said...

What an interesting and pretty book. Japanese things are so quaint and unusual, somehow so different from what we have here.