Tenugui

I have gotten really obsessed with tenugui lately. Tenugui are Japanese cotton hand towels that are typically 35 by 90 cm and often printed with really cute interesting patterns. I became obsessed with them by shopping at the Marukai 98 cent store where they sell some cheep (made in China instead of Japan) but still cute tenugui. Here are some dish towels that I made by piecing together different tenugui that I got at Marukai 98 cents.



But then I found this book at a Japanese book store in Torrance and became really obsessed with the patterns on the tenugui that mostly can only be found in Japan.



It's just ridiculous how cute some of the patterns are. Anything from fruits and vegetables, to any kind of animal, to weird stuff like test tubes and beakers. There is one place that I have found in LA though that sells the really nice tenugui, tortoise in Venice. The only problem is they are $12 a piece. I'm starting to think they might be worth it. Check out this owl one they sell there.



I've made a good number of random things with the Marukai tenugui. Like this bag.



And my favorite this apron.



I just realized that I posted pictures of this apron in two blog entries in a row. I just really really like how it turned out.

Owl Swap

I keep doing these craftster.org swaps. They are strangely addicting. It is so hard to pass them up when the theme is some sort of cute animal. Anyway these are the things that I made for the owl swap that just got over.

First is a dish towel with my happy owls printed on it.




Then a wristlet made from really cute Japanese owl fabric that I got at this tiny Japanese fabric store in Gardena called Towa Fabrics. I also embroidered little owls in the corner.



This is a stuffie/pincushion that my swap partner has since named owlfred and decided that no pins are allowed to pierce his flesh

This is my absolute favorite. For some reason it took a really long time to get partners matched up for this swap so I got really antsy waiting to start crafting. I had just done the last apron swap so I was kind of in an aprony mood and decided to make an apron using the owl tea towel fabric from Marukai 98cents, my vintage mushroom ribbon from Idaho and plain broadcloth printed with the happy little owls. I made it and loved it so much I decided I couldn't give it away so I made this one, with green fabric instead of yellow, for the swap.

The next swap I'm doing is a mobile/windchime swap of which I will definitely have to post pictures of the finished product. After that I am swearing off swaps for a bit. I'm going to try to concentrate on making stuff for my etsy shop.