Enabler vs. Supportive Friend

In the Spring I went to the Tokyo Hobby Show and had my fill of interesting eye-candy. Some things spoke to me more than others, but the one thing I thought was really interesting were some multicolored purses I saw at a booth – the hoards of Japanese ladies surrounding the booth would be my big clue that something very cool was there that I had to see. With very little English, and even less Japanese (on my part) I was able to purchase the supplies that came with an instruction sheet ... that was of course in Japanese. I seem to be accumulating multiple sewing projects, and it would appear that for our time here in Japan I have acquired a taste for Japanese handbags. I have collected numerous patterns, which are all naturally in Japanese. I keep buying, and stuffing the patterns in my craft drawer (please note the word drawer, not room, not closet, but drawer - in a years time I have gone from a studio space to a drawer!) with the hope that one day I would be able to pull them out and spend hours sewing away, making really chic bags out of Japanese obis (the beautiful sashes they wear around their kimonos).

So I have two problems. The first is that I cannot read Japanese. The second is that I do not have my sewing machine (a.k.a my "Ferrari" - Jeff's name for my Bernina, which has to do with how much it cost not how fast I sew, although I can make it go pretty darn fast thank you very much). Not one to let a couple of obstacles like language barriers and lack of essential machines to get in my way of accomplishing a project I figured it would all work itself out ...

First problem solved. I have a neighbor friend, Etsuko, who is Japanese and happened to fall in love with a guy in the Navy and now follows her husband all over the world too. Lucky her, for the first time since they've been married she got to come home to Japan. Lucky me, I asked if she would mind looking at the directions and help walk me through the process and she said yes. As she started looking over the instructions she commented "wow" and I of course wanting to be clued in and asked "what?" It turns out the "fabric" I bought isn't really fabric but tatami matt webbing that's used to cover the edges of the tatami matts. O.K. I think, now that's cool. I'm going to make a purse out of tatami matt webbing. Love it!

Second problem, well sometimes you need your friends to support you in your endeavors - by either standing firm and saying "no" ... like as in "no, you don't need that Mocha Frapp if you plan to fit back into the clothes you arrived here with" or they could be an enabler and respond like my friend Val did with a "sure you can borrow my sewing machine, even though you put yours in storage for 3 years so that you could explore life beyond the machine." Thank you Val for being an Enabler! I had so much fun creating this bag, mmmm, well o.k. I'm sure sewing to most of you wouldn't be on your "fun" list but maybe creating would be ... and so for the first time in quite a while I created something out of flat pieces of webbing and even though I'm sure some of my "winging it" with the instructions wouldn't pass with the Japanese ladies I wiggled my way through to see what they were all looking at, it worked for me and I was ... inspired.