This is... how I recycle

Ahh.. now if we're talking about real, every day recycling.... I could go on and on about how it's done in Japan. I've written a brief bit about recycling day in Japan on my other blog, but to go into more detail...

In Japan, everything has to be separated, even into different coloured glass. About once every two weeks, in each area, recycling day is held. It's between 6am and 8am on the day. You can't go before or after those times. Up the road from me is a vacant lot especially for the recycling day in our suburb. On the lot, different nets, bins and signs are placed for different recyclables and "non-burnables". This is everything from plastic bottles, glass, cardboard, punctured aerosol cans (god how I hate doing that!), batteries, old clothes, potplant dirt, broken umbrellas, bits of wood, anything other than food or paper scraps really. We go and put all our items into the correct area under the watchful eyes of the "volunteers" (volunteering isn't voluntary, rather a duty). It's quite a pain, but certainly does make you more responsible for your own garbage.

While throwing it away in the normal garbage may seem tempting, you can't do that either. "Burnable" garbage must be placed in a special clear, city-specific bag. The garbage is then placed out on the street in an allocated spot (everyone's together) on the morning of collection. If there is anything in there that is recyclable or non-burnable, the collectors will not take your bag. You then need to do the walk of shame and pick up your garbage, bring it home, re-sort it and wait a few more days before throwing it out correctly. A friend of mine, living in a small city in Japan, was reported by the city garbage disposal to the school where she worked, because they worked out that it was she who was disposing plastic tampon applicators! I kid you not!

BUT, if we were talking fun recycling, well, that's really what this blog is supposed to be about, though I'm off on tangents most of the time - how I recycle kimono fabrics.

So, this is how I recycle! I use old fabrics that time has forgotten and make bags and what ever else I think of. Lots of fun!

And, well, another tangent... I just got home from Tokyo. It was a real blast. I have so much to blog about - meeting Fuji Mama, the Tokyo Design Festa, my very first artist's date... but that's all going to have to wait until I get a bit of sleep. Soon I promise!

Too Garish?

Where do weekends go I ask you? That one just flew by!

It started off with some yummy Tex Mex with some friends on Friday night and then Wayne and I went off to see Sweeney Todd at the movies. I loved it! The crush I got on Johnny Depp in his 21 Jump Street days continues to grow, I'm a big Tim Burton fan, I love musicals and I love things dark. So the movie was just my thing. The costuming was great. Ahhh... I'd love to be a costumer (is that the right word) when I grow up.... that and a fashion designer, and a mother, and a speech therapist, and a curator, and a linguist, and a theatre set designer, and a jewellery maker, and a gallery owner.... the list goes on....

So yesterday, between photographing stock and editing those photos, I started making a skirt. I feel I need some thing bright and cheery to get me through these cold, cold days. I plan on having the front panel a patchwork of kimono fabrics, the side panels and maybe the back panel black, but there may be a thing strip of bright kimono fabric off-centre at the back as well.

Here's the (rough) layout for the front panel. What do you think? Is it too garish? Too much?I'm hoping to find some time to finish it this week.


Today, as with most Sundays, was spent playing with fabric, oh, I mean listing on eBay. Here's a selection of some of this weeks fabrics.

We're back!

After a nice, but very busy Christmas, New Year break, we're back up on eBay. I have to confess, I really missed it and was raring to go this morning with the listing.


I thought we'd start the new year with one of my favourite new pieces - it's best we sell it before I decide to keep it for myself. I love black and red together and I love origami cranes, so when Mummy Mel bought this one, pictured to the left, she knew I was going to approve, and was going to have trouble parting with it.


We've also combined Mel's eBay paper store, so we'll be regularly selling origami paper, washi and yuzen.

This year, we'd really like to make our blog a little community and so ask for your help. We'd love to hear from you, hear about your ideas, projects, kimono fabric experiences, comments on our blog posts, links to your own blogs or websites, anything you think people would be interested it. Photos would be great, but even stories without photos are good. Tell us a little about yourself. We've got our first link up to one of our customer's, Jackie, website. She's a really talented photographer whose just finished an exhibition. We'd like to offer our customers a little present, that we'll send the next time they buy with us, for any contributions.

My email address should be showing at the top of the blog page, but otherwise feel free to contact us through the comments feature or through our eBay store. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

What is old is new again

Today Mummy Mel and I were invited to attend a Kimono accessorising day at a beauty salon. As some of you may know, most Japanese can't actually put on a kimono by themselves and so will go to a professional to be dressed. Most of these dressers are in hairdressing salons. The concept of today's event was that people could bring along their kimonos and obis and be shown how to accessorise them to bring them up to date with the modern kimono fashion.

Sadly, our timing was off, so we didn't get a chance to see anyone being dressed today. It did give us time however to chat to the owner of the salon. Kimonos themselves are very expensive pieces of clothing. A furosode kimono with long sleeves which is worn by unmarried girls and women can cost into the tens of thousands of dollars. Because of this, they can become family hierlooms and be passed down generations. To be up with the current fashion, it may not them be reasonable to buy a new kimono. The easiest way to update it them is with the under-collar and the obi and its accessories. Stand-alone collars can be bought and slipped in underneath the kimono collar. I have seen some really funky ones recently and have tried to think of a way of incorporating them into everyday clothes. I've seen some great ones with black lace, worn under a dark red kimono (my personal favourite combination) they can look very Victorian.

I took a close-up picture of this obi styling. You can see that the kimono and obi themselves are quite traditional. At the top of the obi, there are two scalloped shaped pieces. These are a new brilliant idea by the salon's owner. They have been made with antique kimono fabric and sewn onto a board of hard plastic. The plastic is them inserted into the obi and the item instantly updates the whole look. She sells these pieces with matching collars.

Around the middle of the obi is a thick fabric cord. This is known as an obijime. A broach has been slipped through the obijime. The stylist and owner of the shop is Mami Ichikawa. Once she gets her website up and running, we'll put a link to it on this site.

While there I took some other photos of kimonos and accessories.