Travelling Sewing Kit

Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari also sold a range of sewing boxes made of kiri or paulownia wood. Kiri wood is thought to be ideal for sewing boxes as they can be closed tightly which keeps needles from rusting. The boxes came in many sizes but I choose the dinkiest box they stocked. This darling travel sewing kit. The lid fits so precisely that the lettering on the front is stamped across the box and the lid to show the correct alignment when replacing the lib. The small characters on the right appear to be 三條本家 みすや針 (Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari). I would love to know what the characters on the left say.

© Carol-Anne Conway

The accessories fit very snugly inside their box and are all made of the same fabric. There were many different fabrics and colours to choose between.

© Carol-Anne Conway

In the lid is a pin cushion and the box contains three spools of thread, a pain of mini snips and a packet of needles.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

I have not used this yet but now I am reminded of how lovely it is, from now on this will accompany me on my travels.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Needles and Pins

So, would you like to see what I bought in Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari?

© Carol-Anne Conway

It may not look like much but to me it is a precious haul. The first thing on my shopping list was some handmade Japanese needles. The needles are so precious that each one is individually wrapped. The proprietor wrote the needle sizes on the front of each packet.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And on the reverse he wrote their names.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Inside each paper packet the needles are kept safe within a little foil package.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And here they are, my beautiful hand made needles purchased in Japan, from left to right oo-buto (#10), ai-chuu (#8) and kiritsuke (#5).

© Carol-Anne Conway

The needles purchase from the fishing shop were slightly less lovingly packaged. I imagine that the outer wrapper gives the name of the shop as well as the telephone and fax numbers. The needles were wrapped in a second piece of paper something like gress proof paper.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Inside that the needles are threaded into a piece of the same paper. I have no record of their sizes and cannot remember exactly what they are but I believe that they are #11, #9 and #7.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And here, for comparison, are a some of my JEC needles (far left), the Misuyabari needles and the fishing shop needles. We are told that there is only one needle maker left in Japan. The JEC and Misuyabari are so a like that they are most likely to be from the same manufacturer but the fishing shop needles are distinctly different and I suspect that they come from a different manufacture. They do not appear to be of the same quality. I have not used either the Misuyabari nor the fishing shop needles yet.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I also purchased this pack of pins. They are not hand made but these are useful when beading.

© Carol-Anne Conway

The other item on my shopping list was a tekobari. I already have two but again but, hey!

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy stitching

A Needle in a Market

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to visit Japan with a group of Japanese embroidery friends and my lovely hubby. The despoke tour was arranged for us by Gill Clay who also served as our tour guide while we were there. As well as a few of the countries' vast array of cultural and historic delights, our tour was taylored to our interest in textiles and included visits to some places that we had specificly requested. We had a very full intinary.

© Carol-Anne Conway

We were based in Kyoto and many of our visits were based in and around this ancient city. One such trip was to the Nishiki Market. The oldest, and most famed, part of the market is a long narrow shopping 'street' that specializes in food and is a great place to explore some of Japan's culinary delights. This lively part of the indoor market is what Gill had taken us to see but we knew that beyond "Kyoto's Kitchen", within a part of the market that had been modernised, and whose shops were more akin to western shopping centres, lie hidden a glimpse into yesteryear and an absolute gem as far as we were concerned. When Gill let us of the leash to expore the market for a couple of hours, a few of us set of to find Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari - the needle shop.

© Carol-Anne Conway

One of our group, Dee, had learnt of the needle shop from a post on the blog JustHungry. This post provided a good description of how to find the Misuyabari shop but, unfortunately, we had neglected to take this information with us on the day we visited the market, we had to rely on our memory of the blog and our inginuity to reach our goal. We searched for some time and were on the point of giving up when a flash of inspiration from Maggie lead us to the prize. We knew that we were in the vicinity and Maggie had spotted a shop selling traditional knives; she asked them where we would find the needle shop and they furnished us with directions. As it turned out we were standing virtually next to the small and inconspicusious allay way that lead to a small Japanese garden and there, in this oasis of tranquility, was the even smaller traditional store that is Misuyabar.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

The shop is tiny, consisting of one counter and some shelves along one wall, but the contents of the shop are enough to make the heart of any needle(wo)man race. Needles - hundreds of needles beautifully arranged in the glass counter - and pins - exquisit little pins - and gorgeous wooden sewing kits. Everything a needle(wo)man could desire. Had we had the resources, I think that we would have purchased the entire contents of the shop. However, we could not initially see the items for which we had made this pilgrimage - hand-made embroidery needles. Luckily, Denise had come prepared with some sample needles and when she showed these to the gentlemen behing the counter they reached below the glass cabinet to retrieve the tray containing our quarry.

© Carol-Anne Conway

When we went our seperate ways, we had agreed a time and place to rejoin Gill and the rest of the group and we were aware that our time was rapidly running out but this was an experience not to be rushed. And besides, the gentlemen were not to be rushed; each item that we purchased was lovingly wrapped and labelled for future identification. I should perhaps mention that the gentlemen spoke no English and we speak no Japanese so the entire transation took place through a series of jestures, hand signals, smiles and squeels of delights.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I find it hard to express how much I enjoyed my holiday in Japan - every moment was a highlight - but this little excursion to Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari is one of my most treasured memories.

Here is a link to the post on JustHungry that describes how to reach the shop and has some lovely pictures. Here is a link to another blog post that describes their visit to the shop and has more lovely pictures. Happy Harikuyo

p.s. We had a second, unplanned, needle adventure in Japan. We visited an embroidery house in Kanazawa where a few of us took part in an embroidery workshop. I'm not entirely sure how it came about but the proprietors of the embroidery house arranged taxis to take us to their needle suppliers who were closed that day but agreed to open there store especially for us. When we arrived, we were a bit perplexed to find ourselves at a fishing tackle shop but, sure enough, they did stock hand-made Japanese needles in a range of sizes and were more than happy to sell us some. As at Misuyabari, the proprietors spoke no English (or so we thought, wait for it) so the transaction was conducted through the now familiar jestures and smiles. When we left the store and climbed back into the waiting taxis one of the gentlemen ran after us calling "Where from? Where from?" "England" we called back as we waved good bye. I had visions of them in the local sake bar that evening telling their friends "You'll never guess what happened today - a group of English ladies came into the shop and bought our entire stock of needles". And I can hear their friends saying back "Ha! You and your fisherman's tales!".

Harikuyo

When I first heard about the Harikuyo festival I didn’t have any broken needles to lay to rest so I devised my own needle ceremony. On 8 February each year I put aside an hour or two to clean and sort my hand-made Japanese needles. I like to spend this time in quiet contemplation of what my needles and my other embroidery tools mean to me. Cleaning them and sorting them into their needle felt is my way of showing them appreciation for the joy they bring me.

This year I have broken three needles. This rather surprised me as I have rarely broken a needle in the past. All of the broken needles were size 10 bead needles. I placed them into the felt patch at the back of my Harikuyo needle book, placed there for that very purpose.

© Carol-Anne Conway

If I were to be true to Harikuyo, I would now sink my needles into a piece of tofu and bury them but I’m not sure if I want to part with them. I will contemplate their fate while I clean my needles this evening.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Susan has set up a Mr Linky for everyone to share their Harikuyo blogs this weekend.

Happy Harikuyo

Festival of Needles

In my first ever post I said "As far as I know, I was born with a needle in my hand." If that was true it would have been one of my mother’s sewing needles. They were all I used for many, many. Basically, if the thread went through the eye of the needle, and the needle went through the fabric, I used it.

My first "embroidery" needle came with a kit. My first ever embroidery was not a kit but most of my early ones were and from those I collected together a variety of embroidery needles. I began to realise that there were different types of needle and, to a small degree, what they were suitable for but provided I could, I still stitched with the first needle I laid hands on.

When I think about my sewing kit, there are many tools that I would not like to part with but I could probably make do without or find a substitute. The one tool that is totally indispensible is the needle, yet until recently I barely gave them a thought. I think that is partly due to the fact that I obtained most them for free. I don’t even recall buying any before 2005. I may have done but they were so cheap and insignificant that I really don’t remember. But I remember very clearly the needles that I acquired on Monday, 14th February 2005. They were bought and paid for in advance but this was the day I received my own set of handmade Japanese embroidery needles.

Handmade Japanese needles stored in their needle felt (on the top edge).
Machine-made needles on bottom edge and a pin (for no particular reason)

From the beginning Jems (Japanese embroidery students) are taught to value and care for their needles. They are expensive and not readily available; you can’t get them from your local needlework shop. The needles are stored in a block of lamb’s wool felt to prevent them from rusting. The eyes of the needles are hand finished; there are no burrs to snag your silk. The points are also ground by hand; they are very sharp and very precise. A clean needle glides through the fabric like a hot knife through butter and they are by far the best needles I have ever used.

Lacing needles and a sinking needle stored in the back of the needle felt

In recent years I have developed a far greater appreciation of my needles but I still don’t think that I fully appreciated them until a year ago. That is when I first heard of Hari-kuyo. Reading about this ancient festival caused me to stop and evaluate my relationship with my needles, what the really mean to me.

Size 2 and 3 machine-made needles for bead embroidery stored in a seperate needle felt together with a flat head pin, two handmade needles
(and some more pins for no particular reason)

When I sit down to stitch, I exhale a long, contented sigh. When I pick up my needle, I feel my shoulders relax and as I begin to stitch all thoughts of the minutiae of daily life drift away. Tamura-san advocates a short time spent in meditation before stitching. For me time spent stitching is like meditation, it feeds my soul. I have finally come to value my needles, all of my needles, for what they give to me.

This evening I will be cleaning and sorting and giving thanks to my precious needles.

Happy Stitching

*******

Members of Stitchin Fingers are holding a Festival of Needles.

Susan has blogged about Preparing for Harikuyo.

Jane has blogged about Harikuyo, Festival of Broken Needles on Japanese Embroidery.

Shiny, Happy Needles

Hand made Japanese needles are more expensive than mass produced needles; the Japanese Embroidery student is taught to look after them. Whenever needles are not being used they are kept in our needle felt. This 100% wool felt contains natural lanolin which helps protect them from the elements. Even so, with use the natural oils in our fingers and dust build up on the needles. A good indication that a needle is dirty is that it 'squeeks' and does not pass through the fabric as freely as normal.

Needles can be cleaned with a lightly abrasive material such as ScotchBrite or finishing grade glass paper. This will remove the film of dirt without roughening the surface or blunting the tip of the needle. After scouring with abrasive and before stitching, the needles should be polished with a scrap of fabric to remove all tracres of dirt. Dirty needles appear blackened; clean needles are shiney and silver coloured.

In Japan, the Festival of the Broken Needle is help on Frebruary 8th. I don't have any broken needles but I did have dirty ones. I have spent the evening cleaning my needles and takibari, giving thanks for their service and drawing on their spirit to improve my stitching skills.

Happy Stitching