Happy Friday! I may have mentioned this before, but in my family we had this sacred tradition: on the morning of New Year's Day, my mom would plop a few pairs of new underwear on all the kids' beds, and the three Ishida offspring knew that it was mandatory to don one of them to bed the first night of the year. Just to clarify, the new undergarments are worn on the first evening of the year, and not on New Year's Eve. I have no idea if this is a traditional Japanese thing, or if it's some weird ... Read more

It's that time of year when I go through all of my photos to assemble a calendar for my extended family (I'm using Artifact Uprising again since I loved their wooden clipboard calendars last year - they delivered within three days even though I chose the 7-10 day option, which was a nice surprise). Wading through my picture archive is no small feat since I take thousands and thousands of photos a year, and because I'm so sentimental, I get caught up in nostalgia. I may have even shed a tear or ... Read more

Good morning! As Christmas approaches, our weeks feel stuffed to the gills and as much as I'm enjoying the socializing, I keep punting sewing out of the to-do queue. We're diving headlong into winter, and alas, K somehow lost the Alpine coat I made her which would have lasted another season. I loved that coat, so it's a bummer. Which means, I'm now trying to find my sew-jo for stitching another one up. All this to say, this is a cheater of a post since I don't have much to show you other ... Read more