Picture of the Day: Tropical Orchids

Golden Rock
Nevis, St. Kitts & Nevis
07.02.2011 

At Home in the Kandacho Corporus

Everytime I come back to Japan I take a walk by my old apartment building, the Kandacho Corporus.  It's a non-descript greyish-brown apartment building that could be anywhere but it was the place that I called home for a little over a year. It had a great location close to a train station, shops and restaurants and was very spacious for a Japanese apartment.

I didn't ship much over since I wanted to buy things in Japan and have space in my shipment home to bring everything back. I had fun furnishing my place and it ended up being an ecclectic mix of Japanese and Western that worked well for me.

For my living room I bought two couches at Nittori (kind of like a Japanese Ikea) and found some Japanese chests at recycle shops (Japanese second hand stores for home goods).  I hung up some of my travel photos and displayed some of the items I picked up during my travels to make things homey.

I had a galley kitchen without too much storage space so I bought an open shelf storage unit for easy access to things that I used often.  For storing food items I picked up the large jars at recycle shops and the small ones at a hyaku-en store (Japanese version of a Dollar Store).  I bought my dishes in Seto, which is a Japanese town famous for ceramics and pottery. One of my favorite things in my whole apartment was my Nisshin Flour Milling sign which I picked up at the To-ji flea market in Kyoto. I have it hanging in my kitchen back in the US now.

I didn't want to buy a Western mattress so I decided to try sleeping on a Japanese futon and loved it.  I read before bed most nights so when I found this little table at a flea market in Kakuozan I knew it would be perfect for a "futon-side" table.

Since I had extra space of course I had to have a craft room.  I bought the table at a recycle shop for ¥1000 (about $10 at the time) and it was great for spreading out lots of projects.  I had started collecting old globes when I would stumble across them in the US so when I found these two old Japanese globes I had to have them.

Back home in the US, I have several of the items from my Japanese apartment incorporated throughout my house.  They are full of great memories of the time I spent at the Kandacho Corporus and seeing them everyday brings a smile to my face.

Picture of the Day: Boat Woman on Halong Bay

Halong Bay, Vietnam
08.13.2011

Flying Off Into the Sunset

The upside of my flight to Japan was that I got bumped up from economy to first class.  On a 13 hour flight this is no small thing and makes a huge difference for me in sleeping comfort.  

The downside was that the flight was delayed for an hour due to the airline filming a commercial at our gate, which is the strangest reason I have ever heard of for delaying a flight. There was a silver lining, however.  Due to the late departure, we took off right as the sun was setting and I had a spectacular view out my window.  Right above the horizon the sky was brilliant orange, striated with clouds that faded into a deep navy blue.  Absolutely gorgeous!

Picture of the Day: Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque
Istanbul, Turkey
11.26.2009

First Trip to Kyoto

Today I am heading back to Japan for a work trip. Japan has played a pivotal role in shaping who I am. It is the foreign country that I've visited the most and the only country outside of the US that I have lived.

My first trip to Japan was back in early April 2006 for a business trip a few months after I had started my job.  I had never been anywhere in Asia before and I was thrilled at the chance to go. Being a work trip I didn't have much free time, of course, but I did have a Sunday off that I used for sightseeing.  With just one day available for a mini trip and already being in Central Japan I decided to go to the obvious choice, Kyoto.

Kyoto is a magical place, full of amazing ancient temples and shrines.  The fact that it was cherry blossom season only enchanted me even more. I visited some of the more famous sights of Kyoto including Nijo-jo, Nishi Hongan-ji, Kinkaku-ji, Sanjusangen-do, Heian-jinja and Kiyomizu-dera, soaking everything in and taking pictures.  

After leaving Kiyomizu-dera I slowly wandered down the hill through the maze of shops and stores back to the road. I saw a trio of Maiko (apprentice geisha) and was impressed with their poise and beautiful kimono. I also had a chance to try Kyoto's famous sweet, yatsuhashi, which is a soft sweet rice flour wrapper with various fillings like sweet red bean. Ever since it has been a favorite special treat for me.

As I rode the Shinkansen from Kyoto back to Nagoya that evening I didn't know that I would eventually live in Japan or even that I would be back on several trips, but I did know that I had a special day and seen some amazing, beautiful places. I'm looking forward to going back...

Picture of the Day: Arizona Sunset

Wittman, Arizona
United States
10.04.2011 

Baby Quilt for Vanessa's Little Man

When my roommate from grad school, Vanessa, had her little man I wanted to make a baby quilt for him.  Her nursery items were full of bright, vibrant colors and when I found the Punctuation Alpha Card fabric by Moda I knew it would be perfect.  

For the center of the quilt I cut out each alpha block and then pieced the blocks together with black sashing. I assembled 'D' - 'W' into a rectangle, made a strip of 'A' - 'C' and 'X' - 'Z' and then set the three pieces aside.

For the outside border of the quilt I went through my fabric stash and pulled out a bunch of bright scraps in rainbow colors. I cut each scrap to 6-1/2" and then cut strips in random widths from 1" to 2-1/2".  I arranged the strips in a random order and sewed them together. I then added a section of the border to the top of the 'A' - 'C' strip, the bottom of the 'X' - 'Z' strip, and both sides of the 'D' - 'W' rectangle.

To make the corners I made four rectangles of the colored strips 11" x 13", two with the strips going vertically and two with the strips going horizontally.  I then made a diagonal cut across each of the blocks and then reassembled the vertical strip and horizonal strip triangles to make the mitered corners.

To finish the quilt top I sewed a mitered corner block to each side of the 'A' - 'C' and 'X' - 'Z' strips and assembed the 'A' - 'C' strip,  'D' - 'W' rectangle and 'X' - 'Z' to each other.  I basted the quilt top to the batting with an alphabet print for the quilt back and then quilted it with a straight pattern.  I completed the quilt by adding black binding around the edges.

Vanessa loved the quilt and it really warmed my heart to see it in her son's nursery when I visited her in DC this past summer.  It is far from a perfect quilt with some uneven seams and stiches but it was made with love for a very special little man and his wonderful mom. 

Picture of the Day: Koala

Sydney Wildlife Center
Sydney, Australia
11.23.2010 

Kitchen Island for Mom

As I am getting in the swing of planning out my Christmas gifts for this year I thought I would share the gift I made for my mom for her birthday/Christmas gift last year.  She and her husband were in the final stages of remodeling their kitchen and the last item they needed was a kitchen island so I decided to build it for them as a gift.  

I started by repurposing two old cabinets as the foundation for the island. They were different depths so I build out a frame to make it square and then boxed the cabinets in with a sturdy piece of plywood on the back and beadboard on the sides. The hinges to the doors from the cabinet were removed and retrofitted with a rev-a-shelf to allow for easy access to a pull out a garbage and recycling bin.

On the backside I came up with the idea of making an open bookshelf for my mom to store her cookbooks and other knick-knacks since she already had plenty of seating in her kitchen. I made the posts by taking 2x2s and wrapping them with 1x6s (for the top), 1x10s (for the bottom) and some scrap molding. For the shelf I screwed a ledge into the back of the plywood and attached it to the posts using my Kreg Jig.

To finish it off the holes were patched with wood filler and sanded down.  With a few coats of white paint and new hardware it was almost complete.  For the top my mom wanted butcher block, so she had a piece of the Ikea Numerar in oak cut to size (I got the leftover scrap for a project for my kitchen) and mounted that for the countertop. 

Along the way I wasn't sure if it would come together well and there were a number of frustrating times (including a chop saw that wasn't cutting square and a wrong molding cut that almost made me run short on molding to wrap the posts) but the end product turned out nicely. My mom and her husband are happy with it and that is what is most important to me.