Denim is beautiful

I often use denim to make handbags and have recently come across with this lovely denim. It has greyish navy colour with very stiff texture. It turned into two bags so far.

This is one of my friends shoulder bag with beautiful blue Japanese silk.

And this is mine. It has my mother's woollen Obi attached at the front. I quite liked the colour combination of greyish tone of denim and a red feature panel. This time, I changed the deign slightly and attached a zip so nothing will fall out! The arrow pattern or " Yagasuri" on the red Obi is a traditional Japanese design. Both bags are lined with linen inside.

Great-aunt's obi

When my mother gave me her auntie's Obi, a sash for Japanese kimono, I really didn't think it has the traditional Japanese design that most Western people would recognise, but I really liked it. I was hoping that I can make it into a bag one day. So here it is. It was originally going to be a much bigger and longer bag, but during the "manufacturing process", it has changed its design to this. And I love it now! I am glad this Obi has its second life as a bag in Australia!

A Feathery Friend

Isn't he beautiful? My children found a baby Tawny Frogmouth on the way home last Friday. He was on a tree in our street. It was a warm day and we thought he was thirsty. So we took water for him, but of course, he wouldn't drink it from us. We just watched him and felt so blessed to be able to see him so close. Soon we found out that his mother was watching us from high up in a nearby tree. We were lucky that the mother didn't try to scare us. I think it was too hot for her to fly or she thought we looked harmless! We didn't see him and his mother next day. Maybe they found a good shelter...

Some lucky person

Someone will win this linen apron at my kids' school's Spring Fair this Saturday. I am going to donate this pure linen apron with a cotton kimono fabric pocket as a raffle prize. After having made this one, I am making one for myself as I don't have a linen apron! I am so tired today after working at the school all day for the Fair, but it's all good fun.

Gingerbread Man

It is nearly the end of the school holidays and we decided to have a home day today to give the kids the rest that school holidays are meant for. I took the cook book out and asked the kids to pick whatever they wanted to bake today. To my surprise, they chose Gingerbread Man. I didn't have some of the ingredients so I had to search the internet for other recipes and I still didn't have some ingredients so I had to modify the recipe a bit. It is so delicious that I have to share the recipe.

Gingerbread Man

100g butter
8 tbsp honey
100g brown sugar
350g self-raising flour
3 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven for 190C.
Melt butter, honey and sugar together in a saucepan and cool slightly.
Sift flour and ground ginger into the sugar mixture and mix well.
Roll out the dough and cut out with cookie cutter. Place them onto lined baking tray.
Bake for 15 to 20 mins or until golden brown.

We used black and white sesame for its eyes and buttons instead of currants...but I think their nutty taste is better.

Plums

I love plum flowers. In fact, my logo is inspired by plum flowers. I finally finished this bag after it was cut into a shape of a bag long time ago...

My first introduction to leather!

This is my latest shoulder bag that I made for my friend. It is made with corduroy, woollen kimono fabric and a piece of suede at the bottom. Sewing this with my poor Janome proves to me how leather is thick and tough and strong. For a long time, I kind of avoided using leather for handbags for the sake of vegetarian people. However, I just wanted to see if my sewing machine could cope with leather. It did. Hooray!

My favourite incense

I know you can't smell this lovely incense, but I wanted to share this with you. This is my favourite one at the moment. It is called "Goddess" by Moondance. I usually love Japanese incense, but I discovered this brand at my local health food shop recently and I am hooked! I intend to try all the fragrances eventually but I like this one most so far. It has subtle sweetness and the fragrance stays in the house all day long. I tend to light the incense when I make my coffee. As my espresso maker hisses on the stove, I light the incense and just look at the beautiful twirls. Serene....

Tin Tin Costume

My children's school hosts a book character dress-up day once a year and it's that time again this year. My son knew what he wanted to be straight away so I thought I would have enough time to search op-shops...but couldn't find the right coloured top and pants, so I decided to make them for him. He is a big fan of Tin Tin and he showed me in his Tin Tin book to tell me what type of clothes Tin Tin wears. He already had a white shirt so I got the fabrics to make a turquoise blue top and a pair of brown trousers as shown in the photo above. In Prep year, he didn't want to become anything as he was too shy to do dress-ups, but now he is 9 years old, and so grown up, he is willing to dress up as his favourite book character. It is so nice to see this transition in him. By the way, my daughter didn't know what she wanted to become until the day before but we found a nice dress to make her look like Laura from "The Little House on the Prairie"...

Mounted fabric

I really love old fabrics. I love the stories behind them. I am not an artist so I cannot paint a picture but I mounted a beautiful old fabric on to a frame, and, voila, it has become an instant artwork. These frames are on my bedroom wall. I fell in love with these delicate Shibori(tie-dye) silk kimono fabrics as soon as I saw them. They were very old and some of them still had stitches from its original garment or some had small stains. I feel I own a piece of history...

New Addition to our Family

This is nothing to do with my creativity, but I just wanted to show off the latest addition to our family - Medaka (or Ricefish)! We have a small fish tank with gold fish which we adopted from our old Japanese friend who used to live in Melbourne but returned home 4 years ago. Initially 3 fish, but now reduced to 1 after the untimely death of 2 of them, the gold fish has been enjoying the freedom of the fish tank all to himself until last Thursday. We added 4 Medaka to our fish tank. The gold fish we affectionately named, Rock 'n' Roll, has been dominating the tank and pushing the Medaka to the side, but gradually Medaka seem to find their presence in this small water world. Another reason that I wanted to have Medaka is that there is a famous Japanese nursery rhyme called "Medaka no gakko (School of Ricefish)". Now everytime I look into the fish tank, and see these little fish swim, I think of this beautiful children's song and think of old time Japan. Kids are so happy to have new pets.

A Linen Shoulder Bag

I have just made this linen shoulder bag for my friend. We selected the fabrics together, and I think it turned out really beautiful. 2 tones of brown linen and dark red Kimono fabric at the front really blend well. Basically, it is a long bag that flops down naturally at the straps to close like a lid. Black linen lining is used and the magnet button is attached, too. It is such a simple concept, so I think the beauty of fabrics stand out. I like it very much!

A Red Bag

Here is one of my most recent handbags. I used woollen kimono fabric and black linen lining. It has a small pocket inside for your keys or mobile phone. The fabric was kindly donated by my mother-in-law who found it in a shop in Ocean Grove, Victoria. She remembered that I really like red fabrics, so she chose this one for me. It is gorgeous! So thank you!

This hand-turned wooden bead is made from Australian hardwood, which I polished with beeswax to give it a nice finish. With all these unique features, perhaps I should give the bag a name...

Latest creations

Other than handbags, I have a passion for making soap. My friends, A & N and I have been making handmade soap for a quite a while now. This is our latest batch of soap and one of my favouriteｓ, Charcoal Soap. Charcoal has great health benefits and it is said that charcoal helps draw dirt from pores of the skin. Our soap uses bamboo charcoal.

This is my first and the last (!) knitting project for this winter. It is made with beautiful soft mohair from New Zealand. I just love this smoky sapphire blue colour. My mother is a wonderful knitter so I wish I could say that I inherited her knitting skill... I am just so happy that I finished this before the end of winter.

New bags on the way

I have recently purchased beautiful Japanese kimono fabrics to make into handbags. The photo shows just a few. They are not silk but made out of wool and it means they are heavier materials. I often mix kimono fabrics with denim or linen, but they are just so gorgeous I will have to make a bag out of one piece of fabric. Often finding nice red fabrics is hard, so I am so happy that I found them! To me, it is almost they found me to be made into beautiful bags.

My first adventure

I have finally decided to show my products online. It took me many months to decide, but I realised this would be the easiest way to show friends and family what I have been doing for the last few years, apart from raising children!

I have loved being creative for a long time, but incorporating old Japanese kimono fabrics into everyday, functional things like handbags and aprons helps me keep a nostalgic connection with Japan, my home country. I started out making handbags for myself at home, never with any intention of selling them, and to my surprise, orders suddenly started to flow in.

Every bag I make is a one-off - I handpick the material for each one. This is a part of the process that I love - rescuing musty old kimonos from my mother's wardrobes, or rummaging through boxes of materials at antique shops. With each piece of fabric, I often wonder who wore it many years ago in Japan and what stories she could tell.