apricot says

Ripple Blanket

2010-02-08T11:20:00.001Z

I am in the middle of this embroidery now, but keep on doing the same thing is sometimes boring. At the same time, I have a pile of old wool on the living room floor, and I feel that my husband want to have a word on it soon, I was wondering what I should do about that pile.

Then I found the use of these yarns on ArtMind. The ripple blanket. And as she says, there is the tutorial on Attic24.

Following Lucy's instruction, I started working on this blanket. The pattern is simple, so once you remember it, you can keep on crocheting on and on. I did it so intensively that now my nail on the index finger have a little crack and my thumb hurts :p.

I wanted to make this blanket look like the one Caths Kidston might make, shabby chic-ish, but I had to use up my old yarns, I don't know it looks like it. if you look at this closer, you might find that some yarn's shades are different. Also I had to omit one purple line. It's just because when I had to add new yarn, the manufacturer changed the shade or discontinued some colour this year and I could not find the exactly the same colour. This might be a kind of fun to make something from the left over yarn, I mostly used for making Amigurumi, before.

I really enjoyed making this blanket, was amazed that we can make the nice pattern with the very basic stitches. Now I reduced the volume of the pile of yarn. Unfortunately not used up :). Have started thinking what I should do about those...

Japanese sweets

2010-02-07T20:05:00.001Z

Sometimes I feel sorry for my daughter because she always has two school's homework. The one is for her local English school's, the other is for the Japanese Saturday school's. It seems that English school's homework is much easier for her because she understands English better or it's because there is a gap on her confidence for English and Japanese. She is more conscious about Japanese language as she thinks she does not know the language enough to command freely.

One of her Japanese homework is "Read Japanese books aloud."

Our current choice is 和菓子のほん The Book of Wagashi, Japanese Sweets.

Amazon.co.jp：
和菓子のほん
(たくさんのふしぎ傑作集):
中山圭子, 阿部真由美

I have been here in England for about 8 years now. I like many things about this country but I also miss something about Japan, too. One of the things is to feel the change of seasons by seasonal food/sweets. I mean Japanese culture loves to admire the season on many things, such as the pattern on the kimono, or even haiku poem has to have seasonal word in it. Not only England but in most of the developed countries, it's getting difficult to get seasonal food because our life is now very convenient, if you go to the supermarket, you can find tomato, which is summer vegetable, all year round. Japan might be the same. But I want my daughter to understand this Japanese sentiment on the season through traditional Japanese sweets book.

This book is made in the cooperation with the one of the oldest Japanese sweets shop, Toraya. Those traditional shops tries to capture the beauty of the season and nature and design their sweets.

This is their "Sweets Picture Book" written on 17th century, when Japanese sweets became as they are now. Even now, they sell seasonal designed sweets. Here are some spring sweets;

This represent plum flower that blooms at the beginning of the spring.

This sweets represent a bud under the snow.

This colours represents those of colours of Hina doll's kimono. We have the Dolls festival on March 3rd, wishing girls' happiness. This festival is for the girls. We display Hina dolls that wears a ceremonial robe of a Japanese court lady, which layers many kimono with different colours. Even the combination of those colours were difined by the season.

This sweets is stands for plum flower under the thin layer of snow.

(via this site)

This is actually the summer jelly, which amazed my daughter most. As you can see, this is a goldfish in the water. Maybe I cannot eat this, because it's too cute and beautiful.

My husband often go to Japan on business so next time I would ask him to bring back some? Hoping not squashed in his travel luggage :).

A story in the shoe box

2010-02-07T18:53:00.001Z

My crochet haven't progressed as I thought. Actually, it's almost done, but could not finish this weekend. The reason is this.

This is my daughter's "English" homework. Yes, "English" homework. Her task is that make imaginary world in a shoe box and write the story about it. The homework is this former bits :).

She says that she wants to make the scene on the moon in the shoe box. As Japanese people believe that there are bunnies on the moon and they make mochi, which is the rice cake made with a steamed sticky rice, she wants to make the moon with the bunnies on it.

It might be much easier if I let her make a kind of 2D world. But I made things a little complex ;).

We made the moon with papier mache, on the lit of rubbish bin ;), paint it, and cut it to fit into the small shoe box. Not only glued star shaped table confetti but hung them using nylon thread.

She drew bunnies. My favourite is this one;

Homework's done. She will bring this to the school tomorrow. Now I can start working on my "task" again, at last...

Cute girls love to crochet

2010-02-04T13:20:00.000Z

Hello :)

How are you?

I'm fine. But my old bad habit came back again and I started another project.

Actually, it's almost done.

I have thought about it for a long time, and as it took so long that I could not find the colour I wanted. Some are already discontinued. :(

The hint is...

This is what I found on tumblr today. This is my tumblr site. I am not a cute girl but love to crochet!

WIP old clothes remake quilt 3

2010-01-29T10:01:00.000Z

3...I don't know how long it's going to take to finish.

I finished one pink flower block, which means I think I have decided how I would stitch these flower pattern. This is how it went yesterday.

As I have to leave some space for quilting, I have just stitch along the line of the pattern. I have several pink blocks left and blue and orange/green blocks to stitch. As to other colour ways, I might use a little brighter colour than original print. I'm still thinking about it but the brighter colour gives this fabric more vibrant effect...?

WIP old clothes remake quilt 2

2010-01-28T09:39:00.000Z

Good morning!

Here is my current project's progress.

I have just started embroider these flower pattern. I just choose the colour which is closer to the original print. I still looking for the stitch that make the centre part of flower look nice. Using only satin stitch might be boring, right? ;)

And, felt animal ... nothing has changed...

Well, well, before I start this, I have to do house chores, anyway.

Books wish list

2010-01-27T09:55:00.000Z

Yesterday, when I went to the high street to buy Little Miss Chatty's school tights, I popped in to the book shop. I found two book for her, which sounds interesting by shop's review in 3 for 2. We had better be good mathematician, when you find anything "3 for 2" as sometimes we end up buying a thing we actually don't need at all. But even if you bring two books labeled "3 for 2" to cashier, shop assistant would say "These are 3 for 2, you had better to find another book, as one of the book would be free anyway." This is true, too. Thinking which way of shopping is better for me, I walked around the shop and found this book.

This is Ways of Seeing by John Berger.

This cover is now revised as this;

Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics):

Amazon.co.uk: John Berger: Books

As I was always interested in this book, and I liked new cover, I added this book as a part of 3 for 2 shopping. Yes, this book also a part of shop's 3 for 2 deal.

I have just started reading, but these are my wish list in the future...

Looking into Amazon, their cover image are mostly old one. I don't know they have the books with the new cover. I hope they will revise those before I finish reading the first one.

Penguin on Design

The list of things I have to do today

2010-01-26T08:56:00.000Z

get the chicken from the freezer -> done
decide/find the colour of cotton floss for this quilt, and if there in no suitable colour, buy them.
go to bank
go to M&S to get Little Miss Chatty's school tights. I had read the review that this year's M&S school tights/socks is not good quality but I didn't expected that it had a rip just after a few months. They used to more durable. At least they could last one winter uniform season.
Prepare supper. (Chicken stew)
Pick up Little Miss.
Take her to the violin lesson. This is important, as the date and time is changed. Do not forget!
Yoga
Quilt, if I have a time.
Sleep

WIP old clothes remake quilt

2010-01-25T13:52:00.000Z

Well, I should write about WIP on this. I had started it, but still just keep on prickling the wool...that's it :p.
It will take more time than I expected. As using very sharp needle with a tiny thorns, I need concentration, and I have to find the time when my Little Miss Chatty is not around. So is this the project I can do on week days?

Anyway, as the title of this entry mentions, I started to working on small quilting project.

This already patch worked fabric used to be Little Miss Chatty's gather skirt, when she was 2 or 3 years old. I don't know why but as this is one of my favourite clothes for her, I have been keeping this for a long time, wondering if I can remake this into something.

The problem is, as this is washed so many times, the fabric got weaker than how it used to be. So making quilt might be the answer, I thought. To brighten up the faded colour, I am now adding embroidery on its flower patterns.

I believe it will take a time to finish this project, too. I will try to finish a bit by bit...

ArtRage challenge Part 2

2010-01-22T15:33:00.000Z

As I had MacBook Battery issue fixed, I started to draw some picture on ArtRage. This is one of the results. I'm still trying to figure out how I can play with different kinds of brushes, such as water color brush, as this picture. I like a kind of vague effect, which makes picture look very soft.

Morning chores done

2010-01-20T10:47:00.000Z

No snow (so far), but miserable rain. Which is the better???
Took my little girl to the school -> done
Washing machine on -> done
Cook bento for my husband -> done
Cool tonight dinner (dry curry with a tons of vegetables) -> done
Put everything it needs into the case of bread maker and switched on -> done

Having a tea, wondering what I am going to to today...

Something new for the new year

2010-01-18T13:28:00.001Z

I want to keep on playing with my new ArtRage3, however my little Mac Book's battery is already out. Yes. Not only running out, but just "out". I already placed an order to Apple Store on the last Thursday, and still waiting for its delivery.

Come on, Royal Mail. Chop, chop!

During this, I lost one drawing *sob*. Yeah, yeah, it was my fault. I should have saved it. Very basic point.

While I'm waiting, I would like to distract my mind from the loss.

Here is some felting kit I bought in Japan, when I was there this New Year's holiday. I have ever done *wet* felting, which use soapy water to felt the wool fiber. This is *dry* felting, using felting needle to get each fiber of wool tangled by pricking them. The instruction on the kit says that small prickles on the needle help tangling the fibers one another.

This is my first attempt.

Wish me luck.

By the way, this is my local weather forecast.

Wednesday, "Heavy Snow".

D'oh.... :(

Art Rage 3

2010-01-14T12:26:00.001Z

At last, I got ArtRage 3 for my scribbling. This is my first attempt.

Chidori pattern furoshiki

2010-01-12T13:03:00.000Z

When I looked into my messy book shelf, I found this small Furoshiki, wrapping cloth, which I suppose I bought in Japan. To my delight, it's with my favourite pattern.

My favourite Japanese pattern, called Chidori ちどり.

from Wikipedia

This is a real bird.

I'm looking forward to wrapping my bento box with this. These pretty bird will make my lunch time cheerful.

School is on again

2010-01-11T18:25:00.005Z

We came back from Japan on 5th January. After we arrived at Heathrow, it had started snowing. Since then, LMC's school has been out for three days, and Saturday and Sunday. We had enough time to get over the jet-lag.

There was Japanese Saturday School was on, though.

And finally, her school opened again today. Probably because of England's exams, but it was good for her to meet her friends again.

A few days ago, she said to me that she forgot English. But as soon as she met her friends on the way to the school, I could hear them chatting away on snow, the trip to Japan, etc.

Good start.

Kanten with Brown Sugar Syrop and Kinako

2009-07-07T13:12:00.003+01:00

Kanten with Brown Sugar Syrop
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

Last week was very hot over here. It sounds funny I say "Hot" in this country as I came from hotter place, but it was hot. It is said that we have very hot summer in England so even something sweet need to be more suitable for this weather.

This is Kanten with Brown Sugar Syrup and Kinako. Kanten is originally made from seaweed. We often eat them in the form of jelly like this especially in summer. It has full of fibre, makes us feel full when you eat it, but it is said to be no calories. If you are careful enough how much syrup you will pour on Kanten, it can be no guilty sweets.

Kinako is made from soy beans. A few people made Kinako from Soy beans by themselves. It is very popular ingredients so you can find it in supermarket in Japan. We use Kinako not only on our traditional sweets also on muffins and biscuits. I love its nutty taste. My daughter loves Kinako Milk, literally mixture of Kinako and milk.

Kanten can be Agar, which I suppose is easy to find outside Japan. Agar is also made from seaweed, some says finished jelly is a little softer than Kanten, though.

Here is how to make Brown Sugar Syrup (Kuromitsu);
Originally came from 手作り黒みつ！ by kanaism [クックパッド] 簡単おいしいみんなのレシピが50万品.

Ingredients;

Bworn Sugar 80g

White Sugar 40g

Water 100cc

Put all ingreadients into small source pan and simmer.

When brown scum appear, scoop it up. If you leave it, it will be hard lump when you store in the fridge.

When all sugar is melt, it's done!

This is another recipe for Kuromitsu;
Taste of Zen / Kuromitsu.

Cream Caramel

2009-06-24T14:19:00.002+01:00

Cream Caramel
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

As she had a violin lesson in the morning before school starts, I dropped her at school earlier than usual. But around the time when the school starts, my phone rung and the receptionist said she is sick so that come to school and pick her up.

I did. I found she was pale and it was crystal clear that she had struck by tummy bug.

I don't know what it was but she told me that almost half of her classmate complained they didn't feel well on Monday, and four of them were ascent from school yesterday.

Anyway, she looked sick for a few hours but started saying "I'm thirsty." , which became "I'm hungry." before lunch time, so it seems she is OK now. She had rice porridge for her lunch.

And this is what she looks after :).

I made 6 Cream Caramel the day before yesterday and this photo was taken Yesterday, I only have got one left.

Who will eat the last one???

Paintbrush Master

2009-06-23T11:57:00.004+01:00

I am now playing with the paint software, Paintbrush. I have been Mac user for these few years but when I first started using this, I missed MS Paint very much, as there is no pre installed paint soft for Mac. Paintbrush is freeware and have almost the same function as Paint but it can use Bézier Curve, as well.

Because I am not a trained designer or painter myself, it took a long time to figure out what kind of style might suit to this software.

I think I have started to find something. But I found someone who is very good at using new software.

After I showed her some of my drawings, Little Miss Chatty drew this. Sitting down beside her, it was interesting to watch which kind of function she would use or how she drew. Does children have a kind of instinct for buttons or icons that might do fun trick to their pictures? I will let her more go, if we have a time to learn more from her.

Surprise at Clandon Park

2009-06-22T13:08:00.008+01:00

As it was Fathers Day, and the weather was nice, we went to Clandon Park to spend tranquil Sunday afternoon, and have a cup of tea. But what we found was this.

Hangi at Clandon Park
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

The estate of Clandon Park was built by 2nd Lord Onslow and 4th Earl of Onslow was the Governor of New Zealand. He brought back the meeting house of Maori and rebuilt it on his garden. Yesterday, singers and dancers of Te Kohanga Reo O Ranana, who teaches their traditional songs, dance and tradition at London came to the Park and were having Hangi (Earth Oven) gathering. Hangi is;

an ancient New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using super heated rocks buried in the ground in a pit oven

Unfortunately, "Hangi" part of even needs a ticket so that I couldn't see those food, but we enjoyed their songs and dance. It was really nice to listen to their lively songs under the summery sky.

Haka
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

And also we could watch that famous Haka. Little Miss Chatty enjoyed happy sound of songs sung mostly by female singers, but it seemed that those fierce Maori warriors' performance was a bit too scary to her ;).

Tea
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

And we had delicious scones at the tearoom.

Dutch Garden at Clandon Park
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

We walked around the park and LMC had a greeting from a dragon fry on her hat at Dutch Garden.

Lotus flower at Dutch Garden
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

Dutch Garden
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

Fathers Day Key Ring

2009-06-20T19:33:00.002+01:00

Fathers Day Key Ring
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

I didn't what to do on Fathers day. But when I was looking for ink-jet printer iron on papers in High Street, I found ink-jet shrink plastics. They reminded me that I bought normal one before, so I asked Little Miss Chatty to draw something for her Daddy.

As this was the first time to use shrink plastic myself, I couldn't imagine how it's going to look like. It seems that coloured pencils for kids' drawing are not suitable, and LMC said that the colour didn't come out very well. So we used artistic coloured pencils. Baked on 175ºC oven(Gas mark 3). Wait until it became flat, take it out and hold it flat with something. I used the flat bottom of baking mould.

It became a bit wonky but her drawings turned out to be bright deep colours.

Do I need varnish to keep the colour? Anyway it's going to be this year's Fathers day present.

Japanese curry

2009-06-18T12:07:00.004+01:00

As soon as I drop off Little Miss Chatty at school, I have to think about what we are going to have for supper. If I haven’t got all ingredients for the menu, I have to go shopping, etc. Also I cannot cook supper during LMC’s homework time. Sometimes she comes back home later than usual because of after school activities, etc.

Tonight, I would like to cook curry. Japanese style curry. Curry is our national meal, as same as in UK. But English first introduced it, not Indian, so it was said to be English (British?) dish. Then Japanese cooks arranged it into something that suits to Japanese taste.

On India’s honour, I have to say Indians also contributed to Japanese curry culture. During Indian Independence movement, Rash Behari Bose, who was said too be the leader of Delhi conspiracy case, fled to Japan. Japan and Britain at that time had the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty, so Japanese government was furious that Rash Behari Bose was in Japan, but there were some sympathizers, and one of them was Aizo Soma, the founder of Nakamura-ya, the restaurant that is famous for its curry rice. Bose hid himself at Nakamura-ya’s premises and even got married with his daughter. When Nakamura-ya opened its tearoom, Bose helped to introduce Indian style curry. We can eat that curry even now at Nakamura-ya restaurant. And the way how to cook this version had huge influence on development of Japanese style curry, as well.

That is the brief history of Curry in Japan.

If I was in Japan, I can use easy the curry roux shapes like a bar of chocolate. But they are expensive in Japanese super market thanks to weak starling pound and actually, I can make it with ingredients I can find in my kitchen. So I cooked this from scratch. It doesn’t taste fancy as the one cooked with commercial curry roux bar, but it’s nice with less fat, I think.

Here is the translation of the recipe I used;

Ingredients
½ Onion thinly sliced
Diced meat that you like (Pork, Beef, and Chicken are popular choice in Japan) 300ｇ
1 Carrot chopped into small chunks
2 to 3 Potatoes chopped into small chunks
1 tsp of chopped Garlic and gingers each
1 tbls vegetable oil

■Curry roux
30ｇButter
50ｇ Plain flour
1 tbls Curry powder
800cc Soup stock (You can make it with soup powder)
2 tbls Tomato ketchup
2 tbls Worcestershire source (Japanese one is a bit different but British one will do, too.)
1 Apple grated
½ tbls Soy source
1 tsp Salt
1 Bay leaf
Garam Masala

How to cook the roux

Put butter and plain flour into a small pan; cook them over the low flame until it become brown, currish colour about 15 minutes, not to burn it. The colour of this mixture will determine the colour of finished curry.

When the roux become curry colour, turn off the flame and mix curry powder, leave it cool.

That’s it for the roux. You can experiment with curry powder but you can use normal curry powders you can find in the supermarket. If you luckily have Curry Roux Bar, just skip this part, and start from the next step. When meat and vegetable were well cooked, just add the roux bar into the pan.

Fry chopped garlic and ginger, together with onion again with low flame until they become light brown colour.

Add diced meat and carrot. When the mead it lightly cooked, add soup stock, bay leaf and simmer.

Pour some soup from the pan we cook vegetables and meat into the small pan of the curry roux; dissolve the roux in the soup. When thoroughly dissolved, you can add this into vegetable/meat pan and mix it.

Add ketchup, Worcestershire source, soy source, salt, Garam masala and grated apple.

After simmer it for 10 minutes, add potatoes and simmer 20 minutes more. When potatoes are cooked well, finish cooking.

Blythe Flower Cardie

2009-06-13T16:01:00.001+01:00

Blythe Flower Cardie
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

This is the one that spins my head turn around yesterday. I made/download Actual Size Graph Paper, and thought how to put flower motif on the bottom of cardie, which I somehow figured out from the original jumper pattern.

I placed an order for 6mm buttons at eBay.

So practically it's still in progress but almost finished.

I don't know this red suits her, as this is cute red as Hello Kitty's, isn't it?

Anyway, I am really satisfied with the outcome.

WIP at Japanese Saturday school

2009-06-13T15:48:00.001+01:00

WIP at Japanese Saturday school
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

Busy or something wrong with my brain?

2009-06-12T14:33:00.001+01:00

Bit busy for these few days. I don't know why but I at least feel busy. Probably I’m not that busy but with full of knitting and sewing idea in my head but I don’t have a time to realize/test these, only my brain is spring around and around, which makes me feel I’m busy. It’s no good, NO GOOD AT ALL.

Anyway, I finished morning chore and very light lunch, I am about to start some colouring in order to realize one of my idea that obsessed me since I woke up this morning.

Unfortunately it will be the school pick up time soon, though.

Sage Colour Jumper

2009-06-10T09:46:00.002+01:00

Sage Colour Jumper
Originally uploaded by apricot_says

I have got blood shot eyes this morning, as I was working on this tiny jumper, knit, frog, knit, frog continuously. This is from;

Basic Top Down Raglan Sweater : no circular knitting required, minimum sewing

Oh, I didn't realise that it doesn't need circular knitting, but I did it ;p.

It was interesting project for me not only this is my first attempt of knitting anything this tiny, but also this is my first raglan top down jumper that I have been thinking of trying so a while. So starting from small garment was a good thing and probably I would like to knit for human beings for the next winter?

I'm also amazed how Blythe look nice with very simple jumper like this. I love it.