Back to work?

Recent years, I spend Christmas holidays at my boyfriend's home, there is in Vancouver Island.

This year I helped a table setting for their Christmas party.

It was a great party.

We had oysters and martinis for the starter.

My boyfriend's parents got fresh oysters and their friend made good martinis.

Of course dinner was great too. It was a fun party.

Well the christmas holiday was over, should I get back for work?

Actually today is my friend's wedding, still party is going on.

My recomend

http://www.salttastingroom.com/index.htm

we went to some bars last night to celebrate my boyfriend's brother's birthday.

"Salt" is a wine bar - there is a kind of strange location.

The bar is in the middle of an ally way.

They have lot of wine selection and good cheese.

After the "salt" we went to six acres.

http://www.sixacres.ca/

Six acres is a casual, lovely bar.

Nice and cozy. I love the bar too.

By the way..I am little bit busy for the last minutes of the Christmas shopping.

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gocksfrocks made a link for her blog.

http://gocksfrocks.blogspot.com/thank you for the link!

Amazing taste - Indian restaurant

12th December is my birthday.
But me and my boyfriend are both busy for the day, so yesterday he took me to a Indian restaurant.
We love the beautiful restaurant called Vij's.
Their foods taste amazing!
http://www.vijs.ca/index_in.htm
After that we cameback home and watched movie with drinking beer.
Thank for my boyfriend - it was a wonderful birthday!

Rainbow town

Rainbow is a magic.

I walked under two rainbows today.

Roads are reflecting the lights, the color of town was like rainbow color.

At a bus stop, I talked with a cute lady.

She looked like about 6o years old, at first she said to me " Make your wish!(to the rainbow)" and started to talk about a story of her childhood, she run to try to get the rainbow but she couldn't touch it..

We watched rainbow and share the story while bus was coming.

Thank you for sharing the story..

no title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHUfy_YBps

no title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJJgM23gLh8

I love lothantique

Lothantique is a bath and beauty products company.

My boyfriend loves perfume and soaps, candles whose are all about "smell" products.He often go there so that I knew there.

Soap is an important ingredients for starter of a day.

Good smell soap relieves or refresh my mind.

Got back home

I was looking at my pictures of the hats I made three years ago.

I am making same style of the hats but it was little bit different from currently I am making.

Colors, shapes..

The hats remind me I was just moved to Vancouver and walking around to show my products for stores in town by myself.

I thought then I made a lot of effort more than now.

Still I am making effort for everything I do, but at the time just I came here was very different.

I didn't know about anyone besides my boyfriend and his family, how is the town, how are the stores around here..I have to cultivate everything. It was hard but same time very exciting moment.

Recentry I am thinking about what is the certain "my style"

I already discovered it but still I am feeling not enough to find certain style.

A story of " Memory Lane"

Memory Lane-

Its a street name in Sidney Vancouver island, also my signature hats name.

When I just came to Canada which was 2004,
I started to make the style with materials currently I am using.

First I made the style with different materials in 1998.

It was when I joined a craft event made by my friends, I tryed to make a style no one made.

Mostly people remind for "crochet hats", are beenies or tams and kind of "hippie" or "granny" or "reggae, black music inspired" hat.

I wanted to get out that taste and make them more cute, mid century inspired.
Now I am making several design of the series but the fast one is very simply, just brown and navy and regular wool yarns.
Unfortunately I don't have the photo for the fast one but my friend still has it..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgn78fCZkbk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWOnHb32Z60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=986tFCMGs8M

These songs are my memory songs,
probably this is little sound funny for people know me at present time.. in 90s, I was working at a Jamaican record store in Tokyo for a few years.
While I was working in there, I went to Reggae Clubs every weekends with my friends.
Dancing and drinking untill morning.. waiting for first train.. tons of crows in the early morning..
it was crazy, great memories.

Found a treasure

I found a small treasure at a craft fair.

Misterious butterfly pin.

Created by eloi - she creates cute, chic jewllery.

www.eloi.ca

Sunday treat

I love having waffles on Sunday morning. (Well tomorrow is still Saturday..)

I often make them on Sundays.

The other day I made waffles with fresh whipping cream and maple walnuts.

It was so good, we couldn't stop eating!

Long, rusting tracks

Long, rusting train tracks -

We went to a junction for photo shooting.

I felt like travelling a different world.

Long, long rail tracks from under my feet and I could see some beautiful mountains further there.

little bit of darkness and beautiful view - strange contrast.

Holiday is coming soon..

Once Halloween was over, as soon as the mood changed into holiday seasons in cities and TV commercials.. Most busiest season in a year is coming.

Well, holiday season is baking season.

I love baking. I often bake treats.

My faborite smells in baking process are..

#1 smells of making berry jam - It is like a smell of lovery moment.

#2 smells of caramelised sugar - Sweet but little bit bitter, as my life.

#3 smells of opening the oven once finished baking - Mellow and aromatic, waiting for the moment!

fairy tale mushrooms

Do you remember the mushroom with red roof and white spots in fairy tale?

They are based on"Amanita muscaria mushrooms". I heard about it from my boyfriend.

The other day,we found them while walking and they remind him his childhood.

He was interested in mushrooms in his childhood.

And the"Amanita...mushroom" was special kind for him - they are rare and he was dreamed about to see them.

Halloween magic

Yesterday, my feeling was kind of sad in the evening.

Everyone get out home for Halloween parties and sound of fireworks everywhere, but my boyfriend must work next day and we just staying at home.

After the dinner we went out for a walk.

The atmosphere of around our place was different from usually we were walking at night.

Kids were walking around to get the treat and houses were beautifully decorated, candle lights..

Then I back home, I was satisfied having a good time for the walking and appreciated for the Autumn scenes here.

Thank you!

Cuppycakegumdrops,

she made neat drawing on her blog.

http://cuppycakegumdropsgirl.blogspot.com/

Thanks cuppycakegumdrops!

The smell brought me to..

My boyfriend is really into perfumes -

The other day he brought me to a department store and we smelt several perfumes.

One perfume called "songes" by Annick Goutal, as soon as I smelt it, I remind in Bali.

I 've been to Bali several times before.

Then I was staying there, always smelt similar smell of the perfume.

Anyways, after I smelt the perfume and I found the discliption of the perfume that is maden as image of a tropical place.

I think she creates not only smells of the perfumes, she creates worlds through smells.

Vinna Baguette

Vietnamies foods are delicious and interesting.
Some of them are French influenced.

I ate a Vinna Baguette at a Vietnamies first food place.

It is a Sandwich, the ingredients are French bread, BBQ chicken, sausage, carrot and cucumber picles.
Sound like regular ingredients for sandwiches, but they are all vietnamies style of the tastes.
Now I am thinking about trying to make a Vinna Baguette with my recipe in a future.
Because I love the crunchy crispy texture. Sandwiches are fun to eat.

Back to Vancouver

I went to( actually my boyfriend's brother and his girlfriend brought us) a great sandwich store.

The sandwich was maden with foccacia bread and good Italian hams, fresh ingredients.
Plus set with their original potato tips. The price was almost same price as subway sandwiches.
It was really deliscious, of course - hams are smoky and tasty, veggies are crunchy.

http://www.socialatlemagasin.com/butchershop_about.html

My Exhibition

I'm doing an exhibiton at a small cafe in Itabashi.
There is a cozy and stylish Japanese old house cafe.
Today I 've stayed there a few hours, it was like staying at somebody's house, nice to stay.
Many interesting books, cozy sofas, fine coffee, good food..

Roji cafe
68-1 Itabashi- ku, yayoi cho, Tokyo TEL：03-3956-2254
http://www18.ocn.ne.jp/~rojicafe/galleryspace.html
mon～thur １１：００ ～ ２０：００
fri,sat １２：００ ～ ２２：００

At Tobu-tojo Line, Nakaitabashi station

Memory of the Copenhagen

I'm back to Japan from Denmark.

I was in denmark for working, helping my friend was joining a show.

The show was really really good show, seems she had a good time at the show.

Of course I had a good time too. I was happy to be there as a her assistant, and got some great experience for working too.

Anyways now I love Denmark because there is an old city, but there is modern fashion and industrial design sceens too. I like the balance of both of them.

I uploaded my photos in Denmark by flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomokotahara/

Copenhagen

I'm in copenhagen working for a week.My friend is joining in a fashion event , I am helping for her.

Just yesterday we arrived Copenhagen, the city is classical atomosphire, so many old buildings. And a lot of people ride beautiful bikes.

Tanabata

They are bamboo trees at Meiji jingu.

Tanabata festival is on 7 th July, the memorial day of a legend in Japan( and China ).

Anyways people celebrate the day and they wright down their wishes on a charm(paper), and hang on bamboo trees that like ornaments on the christmas trees.

Nemunoki

I went to Mori art museum in Roppongi.
There is an art exhibition by "Nemunoki school"
Nemunoki school for handycapped children is in shizuoka prefecture in Japan.
The exhibition was awesome.
Their paintings have beautiful colors and unique motifs.
I was impressed.
This link is about nemunoki art museum in different place, please check it.
http://architecturephoto.net/syasin/001/he001.htm

Tokyo

Now I am in Tokyo, my home town.

I just arrive here two days ago.

When I got off from the airport limousine bus, I could smell like a summer flower.And I felt warm, humit air of Japanese early summer .

I was really shocked about one poor cat

Chibiyaku is an alley cat,I always mentioned her.(about the story, see the blog on myspace)

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=38380938

Anyways today I found her on a gabage bin.She was wet and looks very,very skinny and couldn't move well.

Seemed she was through away by somebody.

So me and my boyfriend saved her and brought to SPCA.

I thought she is young cat but the person at SPCA said she is old and her tooth are broken.

I was really sad and shocked.

Keepers must have responsibility for keeping animals, please.

Confetti

I just finished to make this Item.

Inspired by Art Déco style.

I tried Etsy treasure list

I create my treasure list today.


The title is forest and trees.


I tried to make it earthy and little bit of humorous taste.


http://www.etsy.com/treasury.php?id=1178484213244U64710

Water bottle monster

Accutually,I was making in the middle of different project, didn't expect to make this type of thing..But once I finished to make him, looks really funny.His detail is on my etsy store.http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=64710

Square house

I built a house.

It is made of fabric and yarn.

There is a blue bird on the roof.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5844345

Japanese sweets

I got a gift from my friend in Japan.

She is a package designer, her blog is here but written in Japanese.

http://kirjememo.exblog.jp/

Is this a hollyday?

I am thinking about new products with sipping cold coffee.

I am doing baby apparel products and "zakka" for stores from before.

But I am making hats mainly so I didn't post it for my webstores.

But I started to sale those gift Items on my webstores from yeterday.

I found out those gift Items are not only cute or neat, they make people's mind heal or releave.

Also they give us to enjoy for living in ordinarily life.

Napping Squirrel

I saw a squirrel was napping.

sunny days

Weather is getting better now..

Winter in Vancouver - so much rain almost everyday.

But it was sunny day yesterday, and today is also sunny - I saw an alley cat was rolling on the ground.Looks like she is happy.

We need more sunshine days.

Frill thrill

Finally I made the hat!

I just got the Idea last night and I made frills and sewed one by one.

There is a vintage button on the side.

Today it was heavy rain all day and I desided that I just staying at home all day.

My first blog

I am a hat designer,maker.
I'm making hats everyday.
Sometimes I couldn't make them at all , like a robot used all battery power.
Sometimes I could make so many Ideas, like a storm comes suddenly.
I made the hat yesterday.I love it.