27/04/2013: Almost May already! This year is going so fast!
02/04/2013: Happy Easter. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.
01/01/2013: Happy New Year!!
24/12/2012: Merry Christmas!!
13/11/2012: Getting hand-made presents ready for Christmas!!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Tea Set

Tea themed gift set
Coasters, Cozy and Pot Mat

I found this near the back of my Japanese "Patchwoork Classroom" magazine and was delighted to find the pattern was included. The instructions left a little to be desired in comparison to some of my other Japanese magazines, such as "Gosu Rori". There was a lot more writing and not quite as many drawings so a couple of inbetween steps I had to extrapolate from the diagrams and the photo of the final product.

Overall I would say there is just enough in these magazines for an intimediate to expret to construct the projects. You have to know some basic quilting skills and some basic construction techniques because even though they are demonstrated in photos at the beginning of the instructional section, you need to know when to apply them so I wouldn't recommend this for a first project. However if you are fluent in Japanese that may also help your understanding.

Tea themed gift set
Inspired to drink a lot of Oolong tea

My gift arrived at the recipient the day before Christmas - 6 coasters, tea cozy and pot mat all constructed out of the supplies I showed you earlier. The back of the cozy has three applique hearts in different fabrics with the words "tea", "coffee" and "time" embroidered. She nearly didn't get the 6th coaster, because while having every trouble in the world I'd forgotten to sew right sides together when turning something inside out... and had to unpick it after I'd trimmed into the corners. I didn't think I could resurrect the poor thing and was surprised it held together as well as the ones I did right.

If you are looking for the magazine for yourself, try a search for パッチワーク 教室 No.71 on ebay (you may need to install Japanese characters on your computer) I am a huge fan of the Japanese magazines because they contain so many more projects than English language ones and the instructions have a lot more pictres.

1 comment:

Ainead said...

And the gift was very much appreciated! A mug of tea is resting on a coster as I type now!

I'm a huge fan of Japanese craft magazines too. I think it's for a few reasons... often they advocate upcycling (I've seen a number of projects which take an old item of clothing and turn it into something new and gorgeous), they are reasonably easy to understand, I love the simple but clean style of the projects and, like you, I think they have a tonne of projects and ideas.

I'm using one of my own Japanese craft magazines to make you a thank you present for my tea set gift. :D I'll have to send part 1 and the accompanying letter on Monday.

<3 C.