Interesting video about Boro textiles

Wada on Boro: Japanese Rag Textiles Go from Shabby to Chic from Andrew Galli on Vimeo.
"In Japan, mended and patched textiles are referred to as 'boro', or rags. For some time within Japan boro was regarded with shame because these utilitarian textiles are strong evidence of rural Japan's impoverished past. Nonetheless, boro has begun to attract considerable interest outside Japan."

Scrap Buster Pencil Case

My much loved scraps have now been reborn into a pencil case.
At first my scrap project was going to be yet another book cover, but the finished size turned out to be a little smaller than anticipated (measure twice cut once). In the end I made a pencil case. The zipper was really hard for me to put in, and after wrestling with my sewing machine, in the end I did it all by hand. I had to rip out the zipper no fewer than 4 times, until I finally got it right. How is that for perseverance!
捨てられない残り布が再生しました。可愛いペンケースになりました。ファスナーがどうしても奇麗に出来ませんでしたが、４回目の試み、やっと成功しました。頑張りました。

Scrap Buster mini quilt ミニキルト

I have the hardest time throwing away little scraps of beautiful material, especially antique japanese cloth and material from past projects.

素敵なハギレを捨てるのが苦手です。もったいないと感じます。特に昔の絣や藍染、前の作品で使った物を捨てられない。そう言う問題はありますか。
Following a great tutorial from sewmamasew.com , I set out to get rid of all my bits and pieces of leftover material by making a scrap buster mini quilt.
捨てられない小さな残り布を使って、分かりやすいチュートリアル（個人指導）を受けてミニキルトを作りました。英語分からなくても絵が分かりやすいから見てください。

First I trimmed all my beautiful scraps into perfect square, then carefully arranged them into a pleasing design.
先ずは正方形に布を奇麗に揃って、接着芯に配色を考えながらアレンジしました。


With the iron, I bonded the fabric to the interfacing, and now I was committed.
アイロンで張ります。


With the final arrangement complete, I now dusted off the sewing machine, and started sewing.
完成しました。　今から縫います。

What a simple method to get perfectly straight rows of squares with perfectly matched corners!
先ず、縦の列を一つずつ縫います。縫い代を少し切って、縫い代を割ってアイロンをかけます。
縦の列を出来上がれば今度横の列を同じように縫います。過度が簡単に奇麗に揃います。

素敵。wow!
What should I make, a book cover, a pencil case, a bag, a wall hanging?
何でもに合いそうな布を出来上がりました。何を作ろうかな？　やってみませんか。

Oilcloth Bookcover オイルクロスのブックカバー

Carry your book everywhere and anywhere with an oilcloth piecework book cover!
This is just one book cover in a series, this one using Anna Maria Horner`s oilcloth material.
For directions and inspiration, I googled "book cover, tutorial" and came up with many helpful suggestions and ideas. Don`t you love that red velvet rickrack. I`m such a sucker for trimmings.
What`s beneath the beautiful exterior?  A gaijin friendly, large print with furigana version of Natsume Soseki`s Botchan.
米デザイナーのアンナ　マリア　ホーナーのオイルクロスを使って頑丈なブックカバーを作りました。今度読んでみよう本は外国人と子供に読みやすくしている夏目漱石の坊ちゃんです。

Spring is very rainy and windy this year in Amakusa. I love the yellows and light greens you can find dotting the mountainside.
天草では今年の春は雨が多いです。それなのに山の新緑が美しい。