This is... My Best Op-Shop Find(s)

I love a good op-shop. There's nothing better on a lazy weekend than browsing through a few. My favourite finds back home are some fabulous outfits for retro parties.

Japan doesn't do op-shops the same as they do back home, they only have a few second-hand bookshops, a few for home wares and rarely for clothes. But... they do have second-hand kimono shops, so I bet you can guess where I go!

Here are a couple of my favourite finds

A kimono, of course, this one an uchikake wedding kimono with my favourite motif, the crane. The table was also a great find. It's called a kotatsu. It has two table tops and a heater built underneath. The blanket is sandwiched between the table tops, and then you sit with your legs under the blanket, warmed by the heater. It's absolute heaven in winter. There's where a lot of my crafting, reading and of course eating gets done during the cold months.

It's summer here now though, so the blankets have been put away. Actually, I have to confess, my apartment no longer looks so zen, it's now become more of a kimono warehouse than a living space. Buy hey, what's a girl to do?

Thank you to Lino Forest for this week's This is… theme, hosted by the fabulous Angela.

Sample Packs

Wow, it has been such a busy week!

For me, the week started off rather scary... I had someone get into my Paypal account. Thankfully, Paypal was on top of it and stopped all outgoing activity. It does mean though, that I'm still in the process of getting it unfrozen so I can access money myself.

I then had my parents arrive for a visit. My dad was teaching in Tokyo for a few days, so then he and my mum, came to where I live for a few days after that. While it's always great to see visitors, it does make life especially busy.

My mum is a quilter so she was in fabric heaven over here. She went crazy at my local craft shop, buying lots of gorgeous cotton fabrics for herself and her friends. She also had a hard time choosing from the large collection of quilting books that I showed her at the local bookshop. In the end, she found one that was exactly what she wanted, a creative use of the Japanese indigo-dyed fabrics, which while written in Japanese, had very clear instructions and templates.

I was a little concerned leaving her alone in my apartment with our collection of fabrics, but she was quite restrained. Knowing that she wanted to stock up on kimono fabrics, I prepared a number of sample packs for her arrival. She had a very hard time choosing and it was only my dad's reminders of luggage weight restrictions that stopped her from taking them all. So, after a long absence, our range of kimono fabric sample packs are back up in the store.

Mummy Mel is now fully back on board in the business which is great. She has become very talented at answering emails and sending out invoices with one hand, and the other holding little Ryder. She is now busy buying new stock which will include our first uchikake, the wedding kimono coat. Deciding on which one has been very difficult, but hope we can show you the final decision soon.