Saturday 20 August 2011

hot, hotter, and hottest and ...

Hello, I am back.  Not that I was on holiday or was ill.  Thank you for visiting my blog while my absence.

It's August.  The most detested month if you ask me.  Most Japanese people do not like summer (in my opinion), unless you are on the beach side.  It's really, really a miserable month down here.  However, this year I have my beloved ice cream maker with me.  I have of course made a regular ice cream but I find sorbet is easier to make and more to my liking.  To make fruit sorbet, you just process your fruit through the blender, sieve, and chilled it in the fridge, then process it in the machine.  My absolute favorite is watermelon.  Oh, how I love my ice cream maker.

As you may know I live in Japan and one of the traditional performing arts is called Noh.  Kabuki is the other and more famous and fancier.  Kabuki has been performed in both Europe and North America so you may have known what it is like.  Noh, on the other hand, is a masked play, mostly singing and dancing.  The singing is on a little monotonous side and sounds like chanting and dancing is very subdued, so subdued the performer almost do not move.  No set or prop on a few metres squares of a stage.  Not for everyone but it's beautiful nonetheless, especially if you could catch the meanings of chant like singing.  There will be a performance held at the Noh Theatre near our place later this month and I am looking forward to it. 

In case you are wondering if this is still a craft blog heavy on Japanese silk thimbles, here are two of my latest thimbles:
I used to make a lot of this design.  This is a weaved nine patch diamonds but I like to call it "Harlequin" because it reminds me of the cover of Agatha Christie's "Mysterious Mr Quinn".  
This one is the same design I have been making recently a lot; pinwheel.  Because of the colours I chose for this one, red, green, and gold, it resembles poinsettias.

I have added the poinsettias thimble to my "Share Your Thimbles" at Flickr and found out that we have a new member to the group.  Please kindly go over to the group's page here, and welcome our newest active member, May as magic_pochacco.  She has uploaded a lot of lovely thimbles and beadings.  May, if you are reading this post, please kindly mention the size and material of your work in the description field of the photo. 

If case you are interested in purchasing my thimbles, here is a link to Etsy.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Chloe, I wandered where you've been? I have your blog on my blog list and haven't seen you for ages. I love sorbet too, your orange sorbet looks delicious! I hate hot and humid weather too. I'm glad I'm not in Japan at the moment. I don't know if you visited my blog lately. I'm organizing to bring a Japanese textile study tour to Japan next spring. We are not going to Kyoto this time. If we do it again, I would like to visit Kyoto and if we could come and have workshop with you too. Keep cool and stitching - Hugs Nat

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  2. Hello Chloe! So nice to hear from you again. I can understand about the summer heat. The Noh theater performance sounds like an interesting experience. I had an opportunity to see a visiting Japanese drum performance this summer; it was very fun.

    The new thimbles are lovely. The new colors on the pinwheel are quite striking. Don't worry, September (and cooler weather) will be here before you know it.

    Happy Stitching!

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  3. Hi Cloe,
    I am fairly new to your blog, and a novice stitcher.Unfortunately with most patterns written in Japanese they are a bit hard to understand! I have been looking ever where to find the 9 patch diamond pattern in english with no luck.
    Could you please help me find a translated
    version? Unfortunately online programs are useless since the can't tell the difference between the text and charts.

    Thank you

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  4. Hi Cole:
    Can you share the red wheel make method??
    I want to make it, Many thanks

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