This year spring was over it even started. I have a feeling that with another blink of the eye the leaves will be changing. All I have to show for the past few months is a new wardrobe (hooray for shopping at home), a new job lined up for summer and a whole pile of coasters (which has been waning with recent birthdays, though). Not bad, if I do say so myself!

But for all the knitting I didn't do, I at least got myself together enough to finally block my Hanami last weekend. Take my word for it, it looks even better in person. Now I just have to decide what I'm going to say at my goodbye tea ceremony in a few weeks when I have to give it to my tea teacher. *Sniff, sniff*

Posted by Molly at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm back from Tokyo, but unfortunately so is the scarf. I tried my hardest to weave in all those ends while I was there, but 4 episodes of Survivor and the season premiere of Top Model still only got me through one end! (Keeping that in mind next time I think about making one of these). The job is halfway done, but it has been hard to get motivated to do the other end now that it is getting warm. If it's going to be a fall scarf anyway, so what's a little bit longer, right?

It's a three day weekend here (yay!) so if you're looking for me, I'll just be knitting in front of the TV.

Posted by Molly at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm still enjoying the crispy-bacon-crinkly look of the scarf that was scrunched up, lengthwise on my circular needles for almost two months. But I love the way it turned out! Why did I promise it as a gift, again? I didn't finish this "Valentine's Day" scarf in time for it's namesake holiday, but I am going to Tokyo tomorrow so it will be hand-delivered soon. Before I block this and hand it over, the only question is fringe or no fringe?

Posted by Molly at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

When my mom was visiting we spent a day at the Tokyo Quilt Festival and had some very serendipitous fabric shopping experiences which inspired me to finallydabbling in a new craft that I have been around for a long time but only recently itching to try.

It was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at quilting, although I don't have the resources (or the time, really) to work on anything but a small scale for now. Coasters, anyone?

Posted by Molly at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

As I put the ratty old sponge that I had been using on the side of the sink after doing the dishes the other night, the cute tawashi from my friend Megan that was hanging RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME caught my eye. When I've given washcloths to friends, I always hope they will actually use them and not have reservations about using it because it's "too nice." But here I was doing the same thing! Megan had told me that this would be particularly good for wiping out the sink itself, but my sink was a mess and the cute panda was just hanging out, cute and pristinely white.

I still haven't actually used the cute tawashi (maybe I could use it if I had a cute backup one waiting) but instead of adding sponges to my next shopping list, I remembered my stash of antibacterial yarn* and whipped up a tawashi of my own. I broke out my new Hamanaka rakuraku crochet hooks that I got when my mom was here too, which make crochet even more fun. My new dish tawashi is cute, but not too cute to use so it's already been put into circulation! That's one less thing to worry about remembering on my next big shopping trip.

*Everyone has a stash of antibacterial yarn, right? These yarns became really popular in Japan a year or two ago for making all varieties of tawashi (which is the Japanese word for these knitted or crocheted scrubbies). You can use tawashi made out of these to clean dishes even without dish detergent, and they are surprisingly effective! I'm skeptical about the actual antibacterial qualities because I don't really understand how that works, but Cafe Kitchen, the tawashi yarn that I like the best, has silver ions in it that apparently give it all its power.

Posted by Molly at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)