Happy Friday + Randomness

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Happy Friday! When I first started reading sewing blogs, I kept running into the acronym “UFO” and puzzled over that. Those of you in the know are aware that it stands for “unfinished object” and has nothing to do with extraterrestrials. Until these last few weeks, I’ve rarely had UFOs. It drives me nuts to have half-done projects lying around so if I get as far as cutting out a pattern, I will do everything I can to finish it within the day.

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However. With multiple exciting events occurring simultaneously, I’ve had not one or two or three…but six UFOs hovering reproachfully in the vicinity. I don’t know why I decided to cut out a bunch of the same patterns assembly line style, and clearly, this is not doing good things for my peace of mind. Luckily, in between various to-do items, I managed to complete this quintessentially Japanese linen dress this week. It’s a size 90cm from this book, and my friend’s little girl is going to look smashing in it. I’m afraid I wasn’t too imaginative and used a striped linen similar to the one in the book, but you can never go wrong with grey stripes, I say.

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One down, five to go. It’s progress, at any rate, and I already feel much, much better!

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I’ve recently discovered that K has been reading this blog (she cried when she read this post and rushed over to give me a soggy hug). I’ve now been instructed that all K quotes must go through a stringent editorial process, and I’m not allowed to post anything without her approval. The editor-in-chief is out of commission on a playdate so we’ll have to skip a quote this week.

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Have a fabulous weekend, friends! It feels like the peak of summer these days here in Seattle, and I’m soaking in all the vitamin D (the doctor tells me I’m deficient, but then again, all Pacific Northwesterners are probably vitamin D deficient).

It’s the end of May
Getting giddy about June
Summer is coming

P.S. The She Wears The Pants Giveaway winners were Claire R. and Pola, congrats!

Serendipity

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I’m a sucker for serendipity. I asked about coincidences for a giveaway a while ago, and delighted in the comments. And to date, this one is still the best serendipitous moment I’ve ever heard.

Anyway, I’m about to go into major photo shoot mode for book #2, and for the past few months, I’ve been doing some prop scouring. I knew I wanted some vintage-looking ephemera — particularly a film camera — so I’ve been casually browsing through thrift stores and flea markets whenever I could.

I wasn’t having much luck in finding what I had in mind, and one day when I was taking a walk around the neighborhood, I noticed that a bookstore near my house was having a close-out sale. Although I’m a huge aficionado of book shops, this one was dedicated to all things nautical (not my particular interest), and always appeared closed so I had never been inside. I’d sort of suspected it was a front for nefarious activities (given the maritime theme, modern-day pirates, perhaps?). Curious about the sale, I walked in.

They’d already cleared out the books and all that remained were shelves upon shelves and odds and ends that seemed out of place. A baby carriage, for example. The shop had been around for more than a decade, apparently, and the owners loved to collect paraphernalia. But now they were moving out of state, and wanted none of it.  And then I saw it: the vintage camera.

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As I beelined for the camera, I also spotted wooden spools and awesomely distressed wooden crates. I was smitten with the “Happy Home Brand” crate and snatched it up without hesitation. It pleases me immensely that the box used to contain figs from Seattle (I like to paint figs. In fact, I happened to be doodling some a couple of days ago, which you can see below). The Schwabacher Brothers were enterprising Bavarian-born Jewish merchants that dabbled in various businesses, and in one of their stores, they “sold everything from a needle to an anchor.” My kind of guys.

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I’m excited to include my new-to-me camera (and the crate and spools) in the upcoming photo shoots. Right now, it’s resting on the most current draft of my book — 230 pages! I need to finish editing (and cutting a lot out) by next week, and when I look at all those pages, it feels a bit daunting. We’ll see if that sewing I had been looking forward to will actually happen.

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But the point is this: you never know where you’ll find the treasures you seek. I certainly didn’t expect to find them in a mysterious bookstore, but that seems appropriate, yes?

 

Limiting Beliefs + Monthly Income Report + Furoku Membership Sign-up

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The husband tells me that I have a Teflon shield of hope and optimism. He says that this is both my greatest strength and my Achilles’ heel. “You’re too optimistic,” he advises, “you need to be more realistic.”

What does that mean, being “realistic”? I’ve been thinking about that a lot. In many ways, it seems to me to be another word for limiting beliefs. Or a way to make sure you hold your hopes in check to avoid disappointment. To remain caged, as it were.

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Over the weekend, I had two presentations for Little Kunoichi. I mentioned the one about the bookstore, but I also had another one the day before at K’s school. The contrast between the two presentations was striking.

Presentation 1 at K’s school: 100+ kids, a slew of teachers, riotous Q & A with endless questions from the audience, a better-than-expected sales, and many lovely words of encouragement up on offer.

Presentation 2 at the bookstore: 2 kids and 2 moms. 7 people, counting the awesome employee Jessie, K and her friend, who sat in the audience to make the space look less empty. Actually, it was really only 1 child and his mom that showed up for the reading, and the other mother-daughter pair was roped in because they happened to be in the store at the time. I messed up reading my own book (accidentally skipped some pages), no questions were asked, and I led a disastrous origami demonstration. One book sold.

I loved both.

I learned a lot from the presentations (never ask 100 kids to look for a hidden bunny in the middle of a reading, and make sure to know how to make the origami project before teaching it). In both cases, I couldn’t believe I was physically sharing a book that was just a blip of an idea two years ago. I told the gaggle of kids during presentation #1, “I’ve wanted to write and illustrate books since I was your age. It took a long time for it to happen, but it did.” Small faces nodded up at me in what felt like solidarity. I told the one kid who was old enough to speak at the bookstore, “Thanks for coming to the reading!” He stared at me for a moment and said, “I’m hungry.”

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Back to being realistic. The odds of “making it” as a book author and/or illustrator are stacked against me. My editor for book #2 told me that the vast majority of authors have day jobs, and I don’t have the courage to research how many books are actually sold on average despite the backing of an established publisher. If I looked at the numbers, I would toss my current manuscript out the window and would never have proceeded with Little Kunoichi. I would go find myself a nice office job in downtown Seattle with a 401K plan and call it a day.

Then I think: If I were realistic, I wouldn’t have gotten married. What would be the point when half of marriages dissolve?

If my mother had been realistic, she wouldn’t have left Japan to go to Germany when she was nineteen — she didn’t speak a lick of Deutsch. Which led her to go to NY, where she met my father. If she hadn’t been so unrealistic, I would not exist. That would make me sad, even though I wouldn’t exist to be sad.

If all people upheld realistic as the universal measure, our human history would be as bland and as uninspired as overcooked rice porridge (something my mother would give me to soothe stomach aches). No inventions. No scientific discoveries. No art or music or literature. No internet. I mean, can you imagine how unrealistic the internet must have sounded fifty years ago? I’m obviously not of the same caliber as the great artists and discoverers, but I’d like to lean more in that direction.

I don’t mind trying things that may not work out. Because how can you know without trying? And even if they don’t work out, I’m annoyingly good at finding lessons in adverse situations. It’s a curse and a gift (it’s a curse because people want me to stop making everything a teaching moment – this reminds me of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid illustration where Greg, the main character, gets scratched by a cat, and his mom is kneeling beside him saying something like, “Okay, spell it with me: C-A-T”.)

I’m prepared to be hugely disappointed or devastated by the failures. The problem begins when I use “being realistic” to stop me from trying what I truly want to do — I’ve become certain of this. The word is often used as a crutch or interchangeably with responsibility and it urges me to focus on a paycheck or some socially acceptable mode of behavior or activity, and this too makes me wary and weary. As I grow older, I see how wise my mother is. I told a friend once that my mom could eke out food from concrete, as resourceful and creative as she is. She defines life with possibility and inventiveness, not with brand names, a business card or a false sense of security.

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I believe there’s a difference between foolhardiness and this so-called shield of hope and optimism that I seem to possess. I can always go get the job with the 401K — of this, I have no doubt — but how often will I get the chance to create books? To blog about things that matter to me? To forge an as-yet-undefined-but-potentially-wonderful community through the Furoku membership? Sure, I could put these things off for later, tomorrow, next year, but when that time comes, will I actually do it? I doubt it. I’ve already spent way too many years putting off things I really want to do.

I have a lot of realistic, limiting beliefs, of course. I’m also starting to get criticism and this only feeds into my natural tendency to doubt myself. The thing is, I’m training myself to turn a deaf ear to them unless it’s helpful somehow. To shore up an underused belief in myself to combat these thoughts. I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s pretty hard.

My book readings may have audiences of zero or bazillions (goodness, I hope not. The stage fright!). My Furoku membership may grow or not. I may not be able to make anything resembling a “real” income doing the things I love, because, as my little painting shows below, my target amount of $20,000 (the moon) is still far, far away and the year is almost half over and blah-blah-blah. Sometimes I have really high moments of “Yes!! I can do this!!” and other times…well, that’s me on the ladder, and to date, my total income is $864.44, of which $486.63 was from last month (thank you, Janome Gnome, for suggesting that I illustrate my income monthly reports).

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But that’s okay. I’m just going to keep trying my best, and maybe, just maybe, it will work. And if I go splat and have to sheepishly admit defeat? Well, I’m always full of optimistic ideas and hey, I still have 7 more months to go.

In the end it doesn’t matter because right now, I feel like I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing in spite of the doubts that try to take over, and that, my friends, trumps being realistic.

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P.S. I’m keeping sign-ups for the membership open until the end of this week, May 31st. Furoku #3 is in development!! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the full story.


Email address (to get furoku):
Full Name


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P.P.S. The unrealistic bet for Little K to make $100,000 is still on — If I win, M will get a Little Kunoichi tattoo. I loved all of the tattoo placement suggestions! If you feel up for it and truly liked the book, please leave reviews on Amazon or any other bookseller sites – this will help promote Little Kunoichi!

P.P.P.S. I think I will finally be able to share some sewing later this week. I miss sewing for fun!!!!!

P.P.P.P.S. I’ve been remiss and didn’t honor Memorial Day to acknowledge the men and women who serve and have served our country. Many, many thanks.

 

 

Happy Friday + Randomness

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Happy Friday! A couple of days ago, I attended an event called “Young Author’s Day” at K’s school. It’s a big deal — the entire school participates and all the students are shuffled into groups of about 10 kids from various grades. Each student takes a turn reading a story he/she had written, and my favorite part is listening to the “About the Author” section. They all invariably include information about their family, a hobby and a totally random factoid like how they like to eat cereal for dinner or are completely opposed to school uniforms.

K’s group was exceptional. The fifth graders blew me away with their poetry (their haikus made me want to delete all of mine from here), and K recounted how M and I got engaged, which the teacher found hilarious. There was one girl who read a story about finding a lizard in the middle of the street and how she ended up keeping it as a pet (a true story).

The first grader who went last stole my heart, though. I saw how her hands trembled as she clutched her book with the green construction paper cover. Her cheeks blossomed into the color of the brightest of pink peonies, and her voice was so soft, barely a whisper, that all the kids tipped to their sides, cocking their ears to catch the small gasps of quickly strung together words. I remember being that little girl. The one who refused to go until there was no choice, the one who hoped that reading the story super fast would make it less frightening. I couldn’t quite hear the story in its entirety, but I saw her carefully drawn illustrations of a fox and clouds, and a little girl that looked very much like her. She beamed with relief and pride as the group enveloped her in applause and hands shot up to praise her efforts. What a beautiful, beautiful thing.

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Have a delightful weekend, my friends! I am going to RELAX. So, so, so, so excited about this.

At Mockingbird Books
I’ll be doing a reading
I feel like that girl*

I’ll be doing a storytime reading of Little Kunoichi at one of our lovely local bookstore this weekend – there might be a little bit of trembling involved…

Giveaway: She Wears the Pants [CLOSED]

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A long time ago, when this blog was just a gleam in my eye, I had coffee with a writer friend who was an expert in the blogging world (at least more of an expert than I was or am). I confided in her that I used to maintain a blog that had petered out, but I loved it and wanted to maybe-sort-of-kind-of begin another one. I bounced around some ideas with her (“Sewing? That sounds like too much work,” she declared). After much hemming and hawing, I was no closer to figuring out what sort of blog felt right, but she told me this: “Whatever you decide to do, eventually you’ll start getting free stuff.” I slapped her knee lightly, snorted and said pshaw.

Well, here we are three years later, and she was right. The lovely folks at Tuttle sent me not one, but TWO copies of this rather hipster book of sewing patterns to give away. It’s called She Wears the Pants. I’m not sure how I feel about the title, but I do know that I’m definitely going to sew up a bevy of outfits from this when I eke out valuable moments for myself in the next few weeks.

Compared to most Japanese sewing books, this one is dark and moody and dramatic, but I like it despite my penchant for light and airy. The photography is simple as always, and the light is beautiful. I usually try to have an accompanying sewn project to share with my book giveaways so I can provide a more rounded out review of instructions and such, but I’m going to have to just show you my fave spreads this time:

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The Oval coat is oh-so-chic, and must become part of my Fall wardrobe!

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I love the shape of the mini dress on the right so much…

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Again, I’m a sucker for the boxy shape on the right.

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This outfit that’s also on the cover looks so comfy. I need to add another striped shirt to my collection of three dozen striped shirts, no?

There are a few quirky projects too, like this one called the belt stole:

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It’s fun, right?

To win a copy of this book, I have a question that requires some thought. What’s something that people are surprised to find out about you? For some reason, folks are often taken by surprise that I’m from Los Angeles. So many people think I’m from Hawaii. I also have absolutely no sense of direction and this seems to throw people off too. Before smart phones, I used to build in at least an hour to get anywhere new because I would inevitably get lost. It’s part of the reason I’m constantly early to events, meetings, etc.

I love finding out unexpected hobbies/characteristics/origins about people. Like Rosey Grier’s passion for needlepoint. Or K’s skateboarding interest. Or the fact that M used to work for a big corporation by day and lived in a hostel by night for a few years (this was by choice – he said the people were way more interesting).

So. What’s surprising about you?

The giveaway will be open until next Thursday, May 28th, and I’ll announce the TWO winners the next day! Enter away, international folks. Good luck!

P.S. In case you were wondering, the winners of the Little Kunoichi giveaway were Kristi A., Maki, Sophie, Karen and Anne.