2017 started!

As a mother of 2 year old boy, I always had a good excuse not to do my work. After we bought a sand pit for Nico, I have to do vacuuming inside our home at least three times a day. I often need to change his clothes three times a day too, so I have more washing.  I often needed to catch up on my sleeping time while Nico was having an afternoon sleep because he used to wake up a couple of times during the night.

At the end of last year, my friend asked me to go to a business seminar together. A famous Japanese blogger who lives in Hawaii and has a successful business had a seminar in Melbourne. I always had a good excuse not to go to those things too, but when I read her blog, I thought it might be interesting and decided to go…and it was really great!

When I went to a seminar, I even had time to have lunch with my friend..Thanks Paul!

Of course what she talked about was interesting, but I found that she was interesting herself, very energetic and somehow I got power from her ;-)

After her seminar, I’m trying hard to find the time to do my work more. I do more work while Nico's sleeping, I do more work after dinner. It’s quite tiring but I achieved a few things during the last couple of weeks, which I thought I would never have time to do.

During Paul’s Christmas holidays, I finally weaned Nico and he started to sleep through the night, so I don’t have an excuse to have a nap while Nico’s having a sleep now.

Looking after my boy and my shop at the same time is not easy, but I started to enjoy my work more and the energy comes out from my body…then I remembered about my Japanese favourite book written by Hayao Kawai, a psychologist who said that “ people who try to save their energy often look like they're dead. The good example of this is a public servant who doesn’t smile at the counter (note: the customer service of a Japanese public servant is usually pretty bad and unfriendly). The more you use your energy, the more power comes out from your body, like a natural spring.’

In 2017, I will try to find more reasons to do my work and give myself energy!

Little Keeper's Market

Now we've finished our (maybe) annual Little keeper's market this year. Phew!

When we organised this market in April, some people asked if we were having it again, and we said "maybe before Christmas". It wasn't a promise or anything, but I was feeling a little bit of pressure that we had to do it. Now I'm so glad that we could do this again. I feel free from the pressure!

Last time, I organised the venue, stalls and my sister-in-law Maria helped me with the preparation. This time Maria got even more involved, and she organised the venue and stalls!

Yet Paul and Maria were still calling this market "Allie's market", so I felt a bit strange. This is becoming more "everyone's market". We could raise some money for wonderful causes (this time we raised funds for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and El Salvador Action Group) with everyone's generous offer of money, time and effort. Our friends helped us with coffee making. Paul's parents, their friend and Paul's uncle did the sausage sizzle. Fr Dave at St Benedict's offered the venue for free and our lovely friend and one of the stall holders, Charmian donated all her workshop money. How generous they are! The people who came along to support this market were great too! Some of them brought their family and friends too. Paul's workmates also came to support us. Some friends helped us with packing up and cleaning the venue after the market too.

The preparation wasn't easy, but I think this became a really great event.

Are we doing it again? Well I don't want to make a promise, but I hope so! We had great fun ourselves in the end :-)

What do you do when earthquake happens?

We're going to Japan soon - yay! We thought we couldn't go this year after the big renovation, but my parents bought tickets for us to see Nico. We're lucky...  Because my parents are buying the tickets, we'll try to focus on more family time this year, so we might not be able to show you some exciting spots in Tokyo in this blog! But I will try to update our trip here.

Whenever we go to Japan, like other tourists, we have to worry about earthquakes (and Mt Fuji eruption). Especially after the big earthquake in Kumamoto in April, people are talking more about a big earthquake around the Tokyo area. I wish Japan didn't have earthquakes or volcanos, but because of that we can also enjoy lovely hot springs. Japanese people can't avoid those natural disasters, so they know how to live with them very well I think. We had lots of earthquake evacuation training at school.

I'll write some basic tips for an earthquake situation here... 

1. When you go to bed, prepare your slippers or shoes next to you. If a big earthquake comes while you're sleeping, sometimes you have to evacuate with your barefeet. If there is broken glass on the floor, it makes it difficult for you to evacuate.
2. If an earthquake happens when you're indoors, open the window or door first and then go under the desk or table. An earthquake might change the shape of the door or window frame and you might not be able to open those later. If a fire stars, you won't be able to get out!
3. If you're at outdoors, stay away from shop signs or something big because they might fall on you. Once the tremor stops, go to a wide space like a square, park, or vacant land because there might be aftershocks.

We worry about these things, but we still want to go. That's funny how much we love Japan;-)

From June 4th to 20th, nuno and stitch shipping will stop. We'll still accept orders, but please note that the shipping will be after June 21. If you need us to ship soon, I recommend you to order before June 2.

With love,Allie

Our new cupboard!

Our storage space is finally ready and now I'm keeping all nuno and stitch products here :-) I got so much stuff for markets to display, so some of them are still in our little study/bedroom, but it looks much better now.

As you know already, our home is very small, but we've got quite a lot of storage. I think this is the key to live neatly in a small space.

As I was organizing this space, I made an inventory and feel a bit more organized. When I sell my products online, it's easy to track of my stock, but when I sell at markets, sometimes I forget to keep records and lose track. The worst nightmare for shop owners might be having no stock when you receive an order..well at least for me, so it's good to know how much stuff I've got. I think I'm stocking too much at the moment, so I might be able to do some stocktake sale soon. Stay tuned!

Now we also started using our cupboard door to record Nico's height. This was Paul's idea originally. At his parents place, one of the doors have heaps of height records for all members of the family (and sometimes friends too!). We wanted to do something similar, but we didn't have the courage to write something on our new doors! Now see what we did. We're using washi tapes. It's easy to peel off, it's colorful, neat and cute! We're looking forward to recording more and more heights for Nico in the future.

cookpad

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day last Sunday. Me? I had a wonderful day with my boys. I got lovely gifts, cards and flowers from Paul and Nico and also Paul made yummy breakfast for me. I was spoiled!


My Mother's Day gifts

-IKEA iPad holder

-double gauze hand towel from nuno and stitch

These two items make my cooking time in the kitchen extra fun!

I often use a website called "Cookpad" for some great recipes. It's a Japanese website so you might not be able to read it, but people can post their own recipes to this website and you can find thousands of recipes there. You often know which one is a good recipe from the number of reports from people who say they used that recipe.

They upload their own dishes and leave a comment on that recipe like " I cooked this dish twice already and my family absolutely love it! " or " I made this dish using apple instead of strawberries and it works well too". I think most Japanese mums are now using this website...even my mum!

Hopefully I can write a report on some of the cook pad recipes here and share them with you someday:-)
With love,
Allie

What is little keeper's market? My new challenge

One day my sister-in-law and good friend Maria told me about how her friends were impressed by the softness and quality of our "herringbone scarf" and talked about how difficult it is for online shops to show the quality of their products. Her friend suggested that something like a Tupperware party, where I can show and tell about my products, might be good for my shop.

When I started to look for a venue, I found that: a) it's a bit pricey to hire venue for myself and b) it's too big just for myself - so then I decided to get someone else involved. I didn't really mean to organize a market myself, probably that's the last thing I wanted to do, because it's too challenging for someone like me who has "0" confidence in English (read here..) and no connection to locals. Well, probably I wouldn't do that in my own country Japan either...

When I tried to find people interested in a "Tupperware party" on Facebook, most of the other shops who were interested in my idea were "Tupperware types" of people.. I thought that's okay as long as we can share the cost, but Maria suggested that I stick to my branding and find some businesses similar to mine. I didn't have many connections, but I knew some lovely business people who have their own brand/shop, so I started asking them if they're interested. Probably how many people I can get to the event is the most important part of their decision making, and I didn't have confidence around that part..but somehow they agreed to join my event. That was very exciting. We decided that all the stall holders do their own marketing and invite friends and family and I would do a little bit extra by putting flyers to locals.


And then how did this event become fundraising event? My husband Paul said he could borrow a coffee machine from his work and raise money for charity and I thought that's a great idea. Around the same time, I heard from my best friend Yuri in Japan that one of her close friends got cancer and that she was in critical condition. I met that friend only once at Yuri's wedding in Japan a few years ago. She was living in Shanghai with her husband, but she came all the way to Japan for Yuri's wedding and I still remember she was in a beautiful kimono.

When she found out about her cancer, it wasn't really at an early stage. She had to come back to Kyushu, her hometown to have a surgery. When Yuri told me she went to Kyushu for a day trip to see her at hospital, I realized that her condition was pretty bad because Kyushu is not a place where people make a day trip from Tokyo often (it's about 850 km away). When Yuri also told me she has a two year old boy, I felt like crying thinking about my own boy Nico. No mums want to leave such a small kid behind.

I used to say to Paul that I didn't care about my health. I could sacrifice myself for my family, so I didn't need rest. I always wanted to look after my family. But if they lose me, what would they do? I have to stay healthy for them...that's what I realized from Yuri's friend's story. Then I wondered if many mums might be the same, being too busy to think about their own health.


We picked the National Breast Cancer Foundation from many charities to support their good work, but our main purpose for this fundraising is to inspire people to think about their own health. I think everyone wants to make their family and friends happy, but without them, those people will be sad. 

Looking after yourself is not a bad thing. To treat yourself, have some afternoon tea and workshop at Little Keeper's Market and maybe get some nice pressie for yourself!

With love,
Allie

Our first TENUGUI + FUROSHIKI workshop

We had our first workshop last Saturday and had a great time ourselves. Well, our participants gave us some good feedback too, so it seems like everyone enjoyed themselves.

we made cutlery case with TENUGUI!

I wanted to include all the attractive points of TENUGUI and FUROSHIKI, so it went longer than I expected and my husband Paul said he started feel hungry during the workshop! Next time, I have to improve some parts definitely.

Through the preparation for this workshop, I learned a lot about the use of TENUGUI and FUROSHIKI myself - it really surprised me and I became a big fan of these fabrics all over again. I'm hoping to get more TENUGUI for myself and use them fully at our new home.

before starting the workshop..why do we need wine??

If you are interested in this workshop, please sign up for our monthly letter here. We will let you know all updated information in the newsletter.
This is also good fun to do with your friends. It's good for hens day crafter-noon party too. (I had a crafter-noon for my hens party too! ) If you have more than three people, I can also come to you.

I'm soooo excited about introducing this TENUGUI + FUROSHIKI world to you!

With love,
Allie

New item: double gauze hand towel

little garden (left)

hydrangea (right)

Why do some people care about tea towels in their kitchen but not hand hand towels in their kitchen/bathroom? These cute hand towels will definitely make your home feel more special and will impress your guests with how much detail you pay attention to;-)

New items:Noraya heavy cotton towel

This heavy cotton towel is a handy size (33 x 88cm) just like TENUGUI, but thicker and more suitable as a handtowel or tea towel.  This towel is designed by Naho Yamamoto (Noraya) and made in Imabari, Ehime-prefecture, a town famous for the best quality towels. Enjoy the nice feel of these lovely towels!

Nora-ya heavy cotton Japanese towel (a sheep and bread)

Nora-ya heavy cotton Japanese towel (good morning)

Nora-ya heavy cotton Japanese towel (good night)

Discontinued Items

We received a notice from Japan that there are some discontinued TENUGUI items. ”Discontinued” means that they've stopped making it, so once they run out of stock, we can’t order these again.

Theatre

City (cloudy day)


They are two of our favourites, so we'll try to restock one last time but we might not be able to do that. We currently have 2 Theatre (+1 Theatre lampshade) and 2 City (cloudy day) left in our stock, so if they are on your wish list, be quick!

New item: swallow and hydrangea

My most favourite flower is hydrangea. When I was little, it wasn’t my favourite because it’s a flower of the rainy season in Japan. I didn’t like my rain boots sticking around my thighs and making red marks. I also didn’t like wet socks and I didn’t like my brand new notebook getting wet in my bag. But when I did an emergency teacher job in Ballarat, one of the teachers gave me a hydrangea from her garden for a farewell – I was there for a month, and it was really beautiful. Ever since then, it became my favourite. One Aussie lady taught me the beauty of this flower.

See the product

Mulgrave Twilight Market

We had a lovely time at Mulgrave Twilight Market last night. Thanks to all the people who stopped by nuno and stitch. We kind of had the sunniest spot at the market and because of the sunlight from the west, we didn't get any shade from our own marquee! It was quite tiring standing in the heat but we really enjoyed meeting all the people there.

Now I can have a rest from making things for a while. I put so much time into my shop the last couple of weeks, so now it's time to work for my boys  ;) I am planning to make Tiramisu for Christmas.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

With love,

Allie

Christmas Carols and Market

So as we announced previously, we had a market stall at the Christmas Carols at Sts Peter and Paul in South Melbourne on Sunday. It was their first attempt at having stalls at the Carols and we were told not to expect too much (we know the people there very well), but it was really wonderful night!

Paul’s parents also had a stall there for their charity so we decided to take Nico with us. Setting up stall with a 1 year old boy running around wasn’t easy. Paul and his parents looked after Nico in turn. It lasted until 8.30pm but Nico was being such a great boy, enjoying all the music and clapping his hands.

my lovely helpers -Nico in Japanese jinbei

Except for nuno and stitch, all the other stalls were charity based, so I felt a bit bad, but the people gathered there were so nice and told me how much they liked my products. Thanks Sts Peter and Paul for having us there and for the wonderful night. The singing was really lovely!

And tomorrow, we’ll have another stall (it will be the last stall of this year) at Mulgrave Twilight Market. It’s a "handmade products only" market...the “nuno and stitch production line” is still in progress. There will be lots of food, lovely stalls and Santa Claus will be there, so come and have some fun!

With love,

Allie

getting ready for another market..

Hello everyone. I haven’t done any proper blog posts lately… I’ve been busy with the “nuno and stitch production line” :P We had market stalls at Glen Waverley South Primary School and Belgrave South Community Market so far, and some of the fellow stall holders recommended to me to go to the Mulgrave Makers Market. Luckily my application for the market was accepted, but there’s one thing I need to prepare a lot for - I’m allowed to sell only handmade (by myself) products there!

 

 

 

I already had handmade goods like lampshades and CHAIR Zabuton, but they’re not enough. So I’m making makeup bags I sold at Belgrave South Market and some cushions using our favourite sashiko Furoshiki. 

 

 

When I started nuno and stitch, I wanted to have my handmade range but it was almost impossible. Firstly, I didn’t have enough time. I was busy enough with updating my blog, Facebook, the website, sending emails to wholesale shops, and of course looking after my boy(s) and our house.

Secondly, I thought I couldn’t use my sewing machine while Nico’s sleeping. Most of my work is done while his sleep. Nico was pretty sensitive with sounds.  

 

 

But now I’m kind of "forced" to make more stuff to sell. Now I use the sewing machine even if my boy is sleeping. Sometimes I’m doing it until 1am and have to get up for feeding at 3am. It’s not easy, but I’m actually enjoying it. I’m a very clumsy person but I love making things!  

 

With sewing and other stuff, my home office became a kind of chaos. It’s not really comfortable to work in a space like this.. Hopefully I can clean this room before Christmas comes..

 

 

If you’re interested buying my handmade products, please visit us at Mulgrave Twilight Market. We use beautiful Furoshiki and TENUGUI fabrics for our handmade line. 

 

Mulgrave Twilight Market

Cnr of Jackson & Wellington Rd

Dec 23 rd 5-8pm

 

Hope to see you there!
 

With love,

Allie 

New colours and patterns for CHAIR Zabuton

We have new colours and patterns for our CHAIR Zabuton. It's great, colourful and comfy Christmas gift for the home, work, the kids, friends and family. Great for everyone!

http://www.nunoandstitch.com.au/zabuton

Mihoko Seki Small Envelopes

In Japan, people use small envelopes called pochi-bukuro (literally, "tip bags") when they give money to someone. Our small envelops are "tip bags", but they can be used for heaps of things. One of our customers told us that she'd use these to give someone plant seeds as a present. Wow! We never thought about it. We love people get different inspiration from our products ;)

nuno and stitch stationery

New items: Fun Sticky Notes

Take a look at these colourful fun sticky notes. These will make your travel planning extra fun! Or you can make your work/study a bit more enjoyable;)

So many uses, all of them fun.

Price range $4.95-$6.60
See the products : http://bit.ly/1Nope6I

Register now and get a 10%off discount code!

Register our monthly news letter now! You will get a 10% off discount code for Christmas gifts with the November issue, out tomorrow:-)


Sign up here
http://eepurl.com/bzHkdT

New items: Christmas TENUGUI and Fireworks TENUGUI

New items: Get ready for the festive season! These are lovely for wall decorations and table runners. Create a theme in your home that is sure to impress your guests. After the festivities, it’s great to be able to fold these away and and put them in your drawer - that doesn’t take up space wink emoticon

Holy Night $24.20

Christmas Ornaments $24.20

Fireworks-hanabi $24.20

Photo present for Nico

Today I'm so happy to share our Nico's First Birthday photos taken by a professional photographer, Wei Wei. She's our friend from years ago. Paul and I met Wei Wei for the first time soon after we met each other and we weren't even dating! (Actually the day we met Wei Wei, Paul gave me a lift to my apartment for the first time!)

It was at that time that she just came to Australia to stay with her boyfriend and to study photography. We didn't see her much for the last 4 years, and during the time, she became a professional photographer and we got married and became parents.

I occasionally saw her lovely photos on Facebook or her blog and kept thinking to ask her to take Nico's photo someday. Then this special occasion came along...Nico's first birthday. When I checked her website, I was pretty surprised how reasonable the cost is for her to photo shoot for parties. A styled photo shoot involves a bit more cost and effort, but just asking her to come to our party and take photos was something we could afford. After seeing her photos now, I think she should have charged us more, but we're so happy that we could have her at our special boy's first birthday.

As I mentioned in my blog entry about Nico's First Birthday party, having a photographer at the party was the best choice we made (and not any photographer, but Wei Wei!) We were too busy to take photos and if she wasn't there, I'm sure we wouldn't have any photos. My sister-in-law Maria had her son's first birthday 6 months ago and she said she didn't have any photos (except for the ones her friends or family took) and she regretted a little that she didn't have a photographer.

If you have your kid's first birthday soon, I do recommend to get a photographer. It's much better than buying expensive toys! Your child will get heaps of toys from other family or friends, but they won't remember his/her first birthday, so being able to keep lovely memories in photos for them is really great.

Am I writing for too long??? Ok, ok..now I'll share the photos!

All the editing is done by Wei Wei.

Nico wore a bow tie from nuno and stitch!

 

 

Here is Wei Wei's details

her website http://www.aweiding.com/
blog http://hernameisweiwei.blogspot.com.au/

I'm sure Nico will love these photos in the future too!

With love,
Allie