I was organizing files on my hard drive today and found some photos (albeit not great ones) of pieces that have been commissioned over the past couple of years.

I’m not actually a big fan of doing commissioned work because I feel so much pressure (got to work on that self-confidence) when I do it.  Most of what I do is for friends and family, but occasionally someone will buy a ready-made piece and then request that I do something custom for them.

The first piece is a cocktail ring hand-fabricated in sterling silver and set with Swiss blue topaz, which remains one of my favorite gems because it’s beautiful, yet relatively inexpensive, even for a sizeable stone:


Next, is a pair of earrings I made at the request of my friend Ruth for her mother’s birthday gift:


These are hand-fabricated in 18k yellow gold and set with crystal quartz and chalcedony.

The necklace below was commissioned by a woman who’d bought a similar piece on my website but wanted a second in greens and yellows.  In this case, I used peridot and lemon quartz:

She also requested matching earrings (apologies for the picture quality):


The photo below is of an unfinished earring designed and commissioned by a customer.  She sent me a rough drawing of what she wanted and I hand-fabricated it in sterling silver with a briolette of crystal quartz and cubic zirconia:

The finished earrings were quite large and very striking, with a lot of movement.  I used sterling silver leverbacks for the earwires, but I don’t have a photo of the finished piece.

I have recently finished knitting my first sock ever and I’m well under way on the second:

I had no immediate plans to knit a pair of socks, but I happened upon a Basic Sock Tutorial at Sweaterscapes.com and I decided it might be worth a try.

I suspected it wouldn’t be that difficult since I’d already successfully knitted a pair (or 12) of Knucks.  Not that they’re the same, but some of the principles are similar at least.  Anyway, the socks were easy enough.

I used the bamboo yarn I’d purchased in Japan:

I got about 100g each of 3 colors:  the light blue you see here, a very light beige, and the rust colored brown which I used for the socks.  My intention was to knit a scarf but now I think I will experiment with different sock designs using this same basic pattern.  The bamboo yarn is very soft and while I probably wouldn’t wear the socks with shoes because of the thickness, it does make for a good pair of lounging socks.

Possum Yarn?

My mother-in-law and her friend Marie recently completed a 5-week long trip to New Zealand and stopped at our house on their way back to England.  They mentioned the fantastic array of handcrafted items in New Zealand, and told me about a blend of possum-merino yarn which is apparently fantastically soft and luxurious.

I found a couple of online retailers for it,  so I’m thinking I might have to try it.

Sewing a Re-useable Shopping Bag

The other day I happened upon this tutorial at U-handbag.com:

Reusable Grocery Bag

While I’m all for reusing grocery bags, another very good use of this bag is for travel.  It would make a great fold-up bag to take with you to carry back all those wonderful souvenirs.

There are actually a lot of great handbag tutorials on this site, but my sewing skills are almost non-existent.  I’ve been thinking about taking a sewing class for a long time though, so this might be the perfect excuse.

Occasionally, I get requests from non-profit organizations to paint portraits for their benefit.  Generally they like me to donate custom portraits, where someone can bid on or donate money to the organization, then send me photos of their pet and have me do a custom portrait.  For some reason that’s not my preference though–I like to paint something, send it off, and be done with it.  When I paint for charity, however, I do try to paint portraits that would be attractive to a general audience rather than an individual pet owner.

The portrait below was painted for a cat rescue organization.  I chose a photo of my brother and sister-in-laws cat, Joey:


Joey Sleeps with the Fishes, acrylic on stretched canvas, 2003

I really liked this painting when it was done, and proudly called it "Joey Sleeps with the Fishes."  Unfortunately, the organization I was donating to thought that potential buyers might be offended by the tongue-in-cheek title.  "Sleeps with the fishes" implies a dead cat, afterall.  I reluctantly changed the title to "Joey Dreams of Fish."

In my heart, however, this painting will always be called "Joey Sleeps with the Fishes."  😉

Incidentally, I painted another portrait of Joey the following Christmas, which was intended to be a gift for my brother and his family:

Ball o’ Cat, acrylic on stretched canvas, 2004

Unfortunately, I’d neglected to prepare the canvas properly and when I varnished the completed painting it got completely ruined.   I was very disappointed by that since I really liked the painting.  Thankfully I photographed it before applying the varnish, so at least it still exists in the digital world.

Errr, I mean container garden.

Ahhh, it’s spring, that glorious time of year when I make a trip to the local nursery and buy new  plants for my balcony container garden that will eventually die from neglect. 


This is a blossom from my nectarine tree, which I’ve had for several seasons but have yet to get any nectarines from:

Here is the tree itself.  I love it, and it keeps coming back each year.  The fruit should come in July.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My reading nook:

The view from the other side of the balcony:
And finally, the real reason for this post, before I got sidetracked by my gardening:


These are my Springtime Stack rings.  They are hand-fabricated in 18k gold and bezel set with pink tourmaline (left), diamond (center) and peridot (right).  While they were made to be worn together as a set, they are pretty on their own as well, especially the diamond.  They are some of the best examples of my work to date.

There is one thing I love better than anything in the world (except Mick, but that doesn’t count), and that’s dogs.  Specifically, my dogs, Kramer and Stuart, although any dog will do in a pinch.

Because I am going through kind of a creative dry spell–that’s not exactly true because while I am feeling very creative, I haven’t had the time to do anything about it–I thought the dogs deserved a post of their very own.

So here we go:


My parents ran the Boston Marathon today, so my morning was spent tracking them on the Boston Marathon website.  I know it looks like I’m forcing him, but really, Stuart wanted to look at their results on the computer.  Honest.


On any give day, at any given time, this is where you will find my dog Kramer, who will be 15 next month.  This is our bed at the Santa Monica house, and it’s pretty high up.  In recent years he’s gotten a little less proficient at jumping up on it, but since he’s on it every time I go in there, I figure he’s doing okay.

This, of course, is Stuart:

“Must lay…on…couch…no matter how…uncomfortable….”


This is Kramer lying on his bed at our Oregon house.  The bed there is much too high for him to jump on–he won’t even try.  He likes to curl himself up into the smallest ball he can sometimes.  Oh, and yes, that is my bra laying on the floor next to him.  I’m too lazy to photoshop it out at the moment.


Can you guess which dog this is?  I’ll give you a hint:  it’s not Kramer.

Stuart the guard dog.  Yeah, right.


Stuart is a cuddle bug.  About 90% of the time, some part of his body has to be touching some part of mine, including when I knit (he’s actually jealous of my knitting needles).  That’s why most of the stuff I knit has little black dog hairs stuck in it here and there.

The dog pictured above is my aunt and uncle’s dog, Buddy.  He’s a big ol’ hound dog mutt, and deliciously kissable.

See?  Very, very smoochable.


Kramer’s Glamour Shot.

I’ll leave you with that one.

I am kind of in the process of developing a line to take into some local jewelry stores.  I say "kind of" because I haven’t decided exactly what I want to do, but I’m leaning in this direction.  Most of my jewelry sales have been online so this is a new and unexplored world for me.

The necklace pictured below is hand-fabricated in sterling silver and hanging on an oxidized and brushed sterling silver bead chain.  This particular work is a bit to rough for my liking, but it is definitely in the direction I want to go.  Lately I am loving brushed silver oxidized jewelry as opposed to my usual highly buffed and shiny work.


In keeping with my usual "jewelry with a message" style, peace, of course, will be the central theme of the line.  However, for various reasons I need to get away from the actual peace sign motif that I’ve been using so I am exploring other ways to express this in my work.  It doesn’t mean I won’t use it any more, it just means that I need to explore new ways to say it.

There are, I believe, different paths to peace and the first and possibly most important path begins with oneself.  To me, freedom of thought is an essential part of having peace of mind, and peace of mind is an essential part of promoting peace in ones own life, and ultimately peace in the world.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I have lots of ideas, but at the moment, not a lot of time to execute them.  Spring/summer is such a fun time to create jewelry though because we are able to bare more skin and what looks better next to skin than beautiful jewelry?

I’ve been wanting to knit this shrug/scarf ever since I saw it.  Somehow I got sidetracked though and forgot about it until I was suffering a "what to knit?" crisis yesterday and pulled out all my knitting books.

This design is by Teva Durham from the book Scarf Style.  If you’ve ever thought scarves were boring to knit, then you haven’t seen this book.  Most of the designs in the book will challenge my modest knitting skills, however this particular design is fairly simple and it’s so cute.  I picture it paired with a tank top, although by the time I finish I’m sure it will be too warm to wear it until fall/winter next year.  That’s okay, it will keep.

The yarn I’m using is rather delicious–it’s Debbie Bliss Chunky Cashmerino in light teal.  I bought quite a lot of it for a sweater project that I haven’t blogged because I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything with it.  I’m not crazy about the finished sweater, though it was the first one I designed and I really should keep it (as opposed to unraveling it and using the yarn for something else).  Still deciding.

Though the primary purpose of blogging our trip to Japan was to share the voyage with family and friends, I also did it with the hope that it might be of help to people (westerners in particular) traveling there.

That said, I’m including, in no particular order, some observations and tips that might help you plan (and survive) your trip to Japan.

Toilet Talk

No conversation about Japan is complete without a word or two about toilets.  Indeed, I think Japan might have the most sophisticated toilets in the world.

Toto is a name you will see quite often.  They are manufacturers of toilets–and not just any old toilets (although they make those too)–these toilets have seat warmers, bidets, warm air dryers, and general "spray" functions.

The toilet pictured above was in our room at the ryokan.  The buttons on the side displayed stick figure-like pictures showing what each one did.

Just when you begin to get used to toilets that do everything for you, including pick out an outfit and walk the dog, you enter a public restroom and find <GASP>, a squat toilet.  Look, I try to be open-minded about such things, but I was not a fan of the Japanese-style toilet.  I felt very vulnerable and self-conscious while using them, even though I had complete privacy.  And now when I look at the link above, I see I was facing the wrong way when I was using them–though I doubt it would’ve been easier if I was doing it right.

It should be said that many tourist attractions we went to included Japanese and Western-style options, so I really didn’t have to use the squat toilets very often, but I never knew what I was going to find in some places.  With the exception of hotel rooms, it was pretty much a crap shoot (no pun intended) as to what kind of toilet I’d find when I entered a restroom.  I took to giving Mick the thumbs up sign when exiting a restroom that had a western-style toilet.

Something I should’ve known, but for some reason didn’t, is that Japanese public toilets often don’t have toilet paper.  You will be a much happier camper if you carry some tissues with you, believe me.

When you get to Tokyo, you will almost immediately notice people on the streets trying to give you little packages.  I never took one because I figured it was just promotional stuff written in Japanese so I wouldn’t be able to understand it.  It turns out that while I was right about it being Japanese advertisements, they are wrapped around packets of tissues.  So take one–you might be thankful later.

Words to Travel By

While it’s true you can get by in Japan without knowing a word of Japanese, there are a few words and phrases you might want to learn in order to make your visit a bit more comfortable:

hai (yes)
ie (no)
sumimasen (excuse me)
domo arigato gozaimas (thank you very much)
kudasai (please)
nihongo ga hanasemasen (I don’t speak Japanese)
Numbers 1-10 (or at the very least, 1-5)
Basic food words for things you might need to ask for, like mizu (water), chicken, beef, beer, etc.

Without a doubt, the food/restaurant situation was the most stressful part of the trip for me.  Mick and I would decide it was time to eat then spend the next hour trying to find a restaurant that didn’t intimidate us.  Still, I managed to gain 5 pounds on the trip, so obviously I was able to feed myself.

I never heard anyone say sayonara (goodbye) in Japan, and the one time I used it I felt kind of silly–I’m not really sure when it would be used.  I think shopkeepers and waitpersons generally say something like arigato gozaimas (thank you very much) or doitashimashte (you’re welcome) instead of sayonara.  I took to saying arigato gozaimas when leaving since that generally seemed appropriate.  I rarely heard konnichi-wa (hello), but occasionally heard ohayo gozaimas (good morning).

Trains and Taxis

For us, taxis were by far the easiest and stress-free means of transportation in both Tokyo and Kyoto.  However, they are expensive.  Trains are a little confusing at first, but don’t let that stop you from using them.

Japan-guide.com has a "tutorial" on taking the train in Japan.  For the most part, you will be using #3 in the instructions, "Buying Tickets at a Vending Machine."  Please note, however:

"Sometimes, the station names on the maps are written only in Japanese. If you are unable to find your destination and the corresponding fare, you can purchase a ticket for the lowest possible price, and pay the difference at the destination station."

This is good advice, since 9 times out of 10 the station names are only in Japanese.  In fact, you might even want to skip the confusion of trying to figure out how much to pay by buying the lowest price ticket and paying the difference at your destination.

Most of the guide books we used gave very specific information about what train(s) to take to a certain destination.  This made it pretty easy to get around on the train.

If you are planning on taking the shinkansen take the time to figure out in advance exactly what you want and write it down.  The guy who sold us the tickets spoke not a word of English and had Mick not prepared what we needed in advance, I’m not sure we would’ve been successful.

Make sure you have a map that is easily carried because believe me you will use it.  For example, don’t expect taxi drivers to know where you are going because they probably won’t, and don’t be afraid to show them your destination on the map.  If you don’t, they may not be able to get you to where you want to go.  They may or may not speak English, but overall it is easy to communicate with them, even if you just give the name of your destination and point it out on a map.

We never took the bus in Japan but friends have said it’s just as simple as the train.

Little Things That Make a Difference

Wear socks when you have to remove your shoes at temples or restaurants or whereever.  It’s not a faux pas if you don’t, but you’ll feel more comfortable if you do.

— Watch the locals and learn.  This is especially useful in restaurants because sometimes you are served things and you’re not sure how to eat them.

— In restaurants, you will often find a small cup on the table.  The waitperson will put your bill inside the cup and when you are done, simply take it up to the cash register at the front and pay.  Whether or not they put the bill in a cup, in all but one place (and this was the fancy french restaurant in the hotel) we had to pay the bill at a cash register upon leaving the restaurant, Dennys-style, so I can safely say this appears to be the norm.

— You will surely read this elswhere, but it bears repeating:  At any of the numerous drink vending machines in Japan, you will have both hot and cold options.  The cold drinks have blue markings on the machine and the hot drinks have red.  I mistakenly bought a hot beverage at a vending machine once so just keep this in mind.

— You will be complimented on your "good Japanese" simply by saying arigato (thank you) or sumimasen (excuse me).  It is rude to accept a compliment in Japanese culture, but don’t worry, chances are you won’t know the words to accept it anyway.

— The bus (called Airport Limosine) from Narita Airport to your hotel in Tokyo takes forever, especially once you include the time spent waiting for the bus, travel time, and dropping people off at various spots.  Still, it is far cheaper than taking a taxi and it is exceedingly well organized (as are most things in Japan).   Unless you have money to burn, you will probably use it, just know it will take a very long time.

Helpful Resources

Websites:
Japan-Guide.com
Japan-Guide.com Japan
Japanese Guest Houses
Tokyo Trains

Books:
Lonely Planet Tokyo
Lonely Planet Phrasebook: Japanese
Fodor’s Japan
Just Enough Japanese

I started a new painting today–one that I think will take me awhile to complete since it is not my usual subject matter (dogs).

I started with a photo and a 12×16 blank canvas.  Based on the dimensions of the original photo (8×6), I penciled a 1 inch grid on the photo, then penciled a 2 inch grid on the canvas.  I then transferred my image to the canvas by sketching what was in each square of the original photo:

 
I decided to begin coloring my painting before finishing the sketch because my pencil was rubbing off as I drew.
This is a painting that will require many layers of color, so at this point the painting is very rudimentary, not much more than the sketch itself.

A bit more color:
 
At this point I kind of lost patience (as often happens) and I began coloring the entire canvas:

This isn’t entirely unjustified, as much of the remaining work is layering color over color, and I felt that painting the remaining base colors was the next logical step.

At this point I don’t have a lot of confidence in this painting, but it has miles to go before it’s completed.  Every painting I’ve ever done has a time when I’m certain it’s not going to come out right and then somehow I usually get it just how I want it.  We’ll see!

 Note:  You can view Mick’s photos of this day here.

We saved Harajuku for last because it was a Sunday, and that’s when the cosplay happens at Harajuku Station.  I wasn’t sure what else there was to see in Harajuku, but it turns out I didn’t have to worry–Harajuku is full of shops, from high end designers like Chanel and Louis Vuitton to quirky little places selling the trendiest of clothing and accessories.

Mick determined that it wasn’t too far a walk from the hotel to Harajuku, so we made our way through Shinjuku, which it turns out is crowded even on a Sunday morning.


I was in the mood to shop today, so I went into every shop that looked vaguely interesting:
 
In the store pictured above, they had some really cute tops that I was interested in buying.  The only size out they had was 2, but I figured they were European sizes, so roughly 1 would be extra-small, 2 small, 3 medium, and 4 large.  So how to ask if they had other sizes?  I would’ve needed at least a 3 and preferably a 4–unfortunately I only remembered Japanese numbers 1 through 3.

I was determined to find out if they had larger sizes, so I began by asking the sales person if she spoke English.  No.  I then went to the top I wanted and pointed to the size tag and said “san,” for 3, then I put up 4 fingers.  It took a few moments, but finally she said, in English, something to the effect of “only 1 and 2.”  Too bad they didn’t have larger sizes, but I did feel a degree of satisfaction from asking and understanding the reply.

We continued on our way to Harajuku.  Along the way we saw this building:
I know I’ve said over and over again how crowded Tokyo is, but here is just another example:
 
When we got to one of the main streets in Harajuku, we headed down a side street because the guide book said they were more interesting.  We ended up on a really cool little street loaded with shops.

Here was one of my favorites, at least from the outside (we didn’t go in):
 
It’s hard to read the sign in this photo, but the top says “Extra Dope Wear Select Shop.”  Classic.

Another cool looking place:
Home away from home:
 
Hard to read the sign, but it says “Santa Monica.”

We found an Italian bistro-type place for lunch.  Luckily, the waitress spoke enough English to ask questions and take our order.  I found that even western-style meals look Japanese:
After lunch Mick and I decided it was time to go to Harajuku Station to see the spectacle.  Boy, was it.  Although I thought there would be more people dressed up, it definitely didn’t disappoint.  Here was the view from a bridge approaching it:
Here is a glimpse of some of the “players:”
 
Gothic Lolita:
 
Basically, they just sit around letting people take their photos.  A lot of them were also putting on their make up there.

Our next stop was Takeshita Street, which according to Mick is the most crowded street in Tokyo:

 

It was an odd little street, filled with many different types of stores, but most notably, stores selling gothic-type clothes.

Mick was apparently enthralled by a woman cleaning the steps of her shop: By this time I think both Mick and I had had enough of Harajuku.  As we made our tired way home, I found a yarn shop:
I ended up buying some bamboo yarn, which I’ve been wanting for awhile.  It is surprisingly soft and the fabric it knits up to drapes really well.

As much as I loved Harajuku, I was ready to leave it by this time, and I was also ready to leave Japan.  We’d packed so much into the 9 days we’d been there that the beginning of the trip seemed a distant memory.

We ended this day, like all our days in Shinjuku, with a drink at the hotel bar: I think this photo pretty much says it all:
Goodbye Japan!  We loved you, but now I’m ready to sleep!