Last Saturday our local church women's group (Relief Society) held a get-together with lunch, fellowshipping, and a choice of craft to learn. I met some nice ladies and learned a new-ish to me craft: Ikanbari. It was F.U.N. fun. I love washi paper, and baskets, and so this could get dangerous over time.
Our teacher graciously prepared each basket ahead of time by covering it with shoji (screen) paper as a base. I'm sure that took her a long time! Then we set out ripping our paper and glueing it in place with rice paste, to cover our baskets.
I loved this one:
Incidentally, when I bought my paper, they carefully packaged it up (complete with a handle). So nice.
A little spot of red is nice in any room.
It's actually winter themed - maybe I will use this at Christmastime, not sure.
And a couple weeks ago I joined a field trip to the Kyu Furukawa Rose Festival. It was a hot day, but a good one and I'm so glad I went. It's hard sometimes to break the ice, but in a transient (for us foreigners) setting like Tokyo, it's just so good to meet some potential buddies and foster that "we're in this together" feeling.
These shirts will spend some time drying in the dual-use bathroom!
Tomorrow I am off to the Yokohama "Quilt Time" Festival (ok, Japan is starting to feel like an OK place to be!) - I will post about that next week!
x
Cynthia
