Nina's Ballet Bag made with Kokka's Retro Animal Print

Nina's ballet school students and company members will perform "the Sleeping Beauty" this weekend. Nina has been performing in the Nutcracker for five years but this is the first time for us to participate the Spring Production. I made a ballet bag for the last Nutcracker performance. She's been using that for going her lessons and rehearsals three days a week since then. The bag seems getting dirty and worn-out a little bit, so I decided to make a new one for this Spring production.

I had this super cute half linen fabric from Kokka. This is one of fabrics I got in Japan last Summer. As you can imagine, I fell in love with this retro animal print at a first sight. The color and the style of these adorable characters feel very nostalgic. I think many women grown in Japan in my age would feel the same. I had a flannel Kimono pajama in the print just like this when I was so little! I am not going to tell you how many,  but its sooooo many years agooooo! \(*o*)/

Starting with a very rough sketch with the dimensions I want.

All the parts prepared. I made bias tapes with my favorite gingham check cotton for trimming.

Assembled all together....... then....... Ta-dah! It's finished!!

I put two outside pockets and one inside pocket for keep a pen and a little note book. There is a inside bottle holder as well. The top opens wide so she can easily see and reach the whole contents in the bag.

Oh, my. She's grown. I really need to get new Summer clothes for her. Things she wore last Summer are all shrunk! Well, of course. She has turned nine on May 15th. On her birthday we talked about the day Nina was born (in Japan). I feel that it was only a few years ago, and sometimes it feels many many years ago (or even that's somebody else's story!). Have you ever felt like that? Here is a snap shot of her and her birthday cake. The tie she is wearing is a gift from me. The tie and the cake were homemade.

Today they had the first run through on the actual stage. She took her brand-new bag to the theater. This week is going to be a busy one!! I hope you had a great holiday and started a good week. Happy sewing!

"Flower Garden Granny Square" Flickr group

Hello everyone! Did you start a good week? It is a beautiful day we are having here in Indiana. My day has been very busy and I am working pretty much efficiently. It feels great!

I know, I should have done this much earlier, but finally I created the Flickr group named "Flower Garden Granny Square". This group is made for people who adore my free "Flower Garden Granny Square" pattern to show off their creations made with this pattern. I posted this free pattern on both this (English) blog and my Japanese blog two years ago. And soon, this pattern started walking out alone around the world through the internet. Until today, I've had about 100,000 accesses to the pattern only on this blog. I cannot track the numbers of the page access on my Japanese blog but more than 100,000 accesses sounds miraculous to me. Definitely amazing! I kept wishing to see what people are making with my Granny Square pattern. And I only got a few chances to see the images of items that some of my blog visitors made. That is the reason I finally started this group and I am hoping this will work for me and many crocheters who make (or wish to make) something with the pattern. Having a place to communicate with other crocheters would be fun. This group is open to everybody. Please feel free to share your photos of your creations and your ideas about the Flower Garden Granny Square pattern with other readers of Harujion Design blog! Let's enjoy!!

Out of season knitting

Hello! Did you have a beautiful Mother's day? I did have a good one. My daughter secretly made a treat for me in the closed kitchen after the dinner. It was a (fancy wine) glass of soda float! It made my day of course, even though that was so very sweet and the soda was cloudy with melted frozen yogurt bubbles. Hope all the Moms and Daughters spent a good time and realized their bonds again.

I finally finished the French Cancan shawl! You can find the pattern here on Ravelry and my project page is here. (You need to sign in to see the project pages.) The finished shawl is a bit small so I would consider this item as a scarf. In the pattern, there is a suggestion and a how-to for making it larger as an option. However I like the result and I would love to make another one larger in a  different color. Only if I had free time to do that. Probably not. Since I have more shawl patterns to knit in my wish list!! That is a happy thing to have so many things which I love to do in my to-do list, right?

 

And there is another project on my circular needles.It is going to be fun.

 Thank you for reading, and please have a wonderful week. Happy knitting! OXOX