Travelling Temaricious: Latvia ❸

English follows below

旅するテマリシャス:ラトビア❸

いよいよお待ちかねの野外民芸市へ。森の中で開かれる年に一度の民芸市は清々しい青空の下で開催された。

Finally, heading to long awaited the folk art and craft festival in Latvian ethnographic open-air museum i.e. the forest. The sky is blue, the whether is perfect for the day!
白い屋根のスタンドが続く森の小径が美しい。

Passage to the stands. White roos are beautifully lining up.

街の市場で几帳面に並ぶ野菜をみて、ラトビアの人々のその性格を感じとっていたのだが、様々な手作りの民芸品から見てとれる細やかな気遣いのあるつくりを何度も目にし、それは確信に変わった。

Neatly displayed groceries in a market hinted character of Latvians but great handmade baskets, wooden pieces, mittens and many more things proved that I was correct.

自然な姿を生かした木製カトラリー類は木のぬくもりが優しさや安心感を与え、繊細な細部には生活に役立つ実用的な配慮を感じる

Wooden cutleries make the most of the natural character and you can feel the warmth of wood gives a sense of security. The all the hand-crafted items were carefully made paying attentions to small details for them to be practical and beautiful.


何個あっても嬉しい籠類。お気に入りのサイズや形を見つけるのが楽しい。経験豊富な友人のおかげで白樺を手に入れる事が出来たが、残念な事に白樺の籠の職人は少なくなっているそうだ。

The baskets, you can never get enough of. It is the place to indulge yourself to find your perfect basket(s)! There were so many varieties, more than I could imagine.

Thanks to my experienced friend, I was able to have a few white birch baskets. Such baskets are becoming rare piece as there are only a few craftsmen remaining.

ラトビアといえばミトン。想像以上に羊毛100%、更に模様編みでもってダブルに編まれたミトンは暖かい。ミトンもそうだが、民族衣装のベルトなどに使われたCelosana(ツェロサナ)と呼ばれるカード織りのリボンもラトビアの昔からの神話や自然のシンボルを模様にしていて古から続くストーリーを感じさせる。配色も地域性があるように感じた。手まりにとても似た性格をもつ民芸品だなぁと共感、もっと勉強しようと決めたのだった。

今年の冬は暖かいミトンとブランケットでぬくぬくが決定して、ニヤニヤが止まらない。

民芸市の様子の続きはまた明日…

Latvia is mitten. Mitten is latvia. 100% woollen, pattern and double knitted  mittens are warm and soft. From the patterns originated in symbols of Latvian mythology on mittens and Celosana*, you can tell the long history and the stories. The symbols, as well as the colour pallets that differ region to region, I realised their folklore seem to share similar trait with Temari. It is fascinating. I am going to study more about it.

It makes me smirk, when I imagine the warm cuddle of new mittens and blankets I will have in this winter.

* belt/ribbon for folklore costume

Travelling Temaricious: Latvia ❷

English follows below

旅するテマリシャス:ラトビア❷

ラトビアの首都、リガに到着し、待ち受けていたのは夏らしい青空だった。ヨーロッパの6月はキラキラと輝いて美しい。

It was summer blue sky that was waiting us in Riga, the capital of Lativa. Europe in June seems sparkling with arrival of summer joy.


チェコやハンガリーに住んだことがあるものにとってロシアの影響を多分に受けてあろう国を旅することに少し肩に力が入って緊張してしまうのだが、なんだか随分と違うことに気がつく。

Having lived in Czech republic and Hungary, I cannot help myself getting a little nervous every time I enter former Soviet territory but I realised that it feels little different this time…

そうだ海がある。

Yes, there is a sea.

魚がある。

There are fish. (Fresh!)

日本人にはこの海がある要素は大きい。

It must mean a lot to Japanese people, at least for myself, who are brought up near the sea.

街並みの中にあるリガの生活が目に優しく飛び込んでくる。

The life on streets of Riga started to gently jump out.


そして、なんでもない本屋に毛糸が売っている手芸オタクの聖地を感じさせる場面に初日に遭遇したのだった。

Then, piles of yarn in a bookshop shelf caught my eyes. It is a new sight for a usual, not particularly fancy,  bookshop like this. It is a good sign. Now my expectation is getting even higher after seeing a sanctuary-for-handcraft like scene in my first hours in Latvia.


ラトビアに歓迎されたような気がして、民芸市への期待は高まるのだった。

It felt like Latvia is welcoming us.

 

Travelling Temaricious:Latvia ❶

English follows below.

旅するテマリシャス:ラトビア❶

バルト三国を暗記していた高校時代、忘れないように三国を上からエ•ラ•リと覚えていた。この意味のないエラリがこの歳になって、その真ん中の国ラトビアに旅することで経験を伴うエラリに。

ラトビア行きの多大なる影響は西荻窪で出会った手芸オタク達が毎年出かけていて、様々な自慢話をこれでもかとしてくるので見てみたいという単純なワクワクから。当然のようにフィンエアーを予約していた。

ラトビアに行く目的は年に一度開かれる民芸市。

どんな風景なんだろう。

楽しみは続く。

長時間の機内のお楽しみは手まり作り。

3 Baltic countries – I used to memorise name of each country with a made-up word “E-LA-LI” when I was teenager. How could I have known that this made-up sound “ELALI” was going to be a meaningful word after many many years later.

I have decided to go to Latvia because of my friend’s passion for the country. The friend from my local bar is also a keen handicrafter. Every June, she has been visiting Riga, the capital of Latvia, since 4 years ago. She showed me off how fantastic it was after every trip. When she mentioned about the coming year’s trip, I booked a Finnair flight as a matter of course.

The main purpose of this trip is to visit once-a-year Latvian folklore market taking place in a forest.

How would it be like in the forest???

I set off my long journey with entertaining myself by Temari making…

pre-booking: TEMARICIOUS 100 colours threads set

 

Tokyo is going to have a hot summer soon after rainy season ends. Half excited and half scared of the heat!

Long time, we have made you wait for 100 colours set! It will be ready by the end of October  and will ship out after November. We will get pre-booking of 100 colours set up to the end of October and we will start selling from November with the limited no. of sets. We don’t know yet how many we can sell after November yet.  Please book your set!

 

TEMARICIOUS 100 colours threads set

 

We made very TEMARICIOUS 100 colours threads set with popular acrylic drawer for the PresentForYourself. Hope you enjoy it and looking for your orders.

It took almost 2 years to dye 100 colours and each colour has a story with us.  Yellow from Philadelphia fleabane in Spring, Indigo blue in hot Summer, Brown from hand-picked acorns from our neighbour park in Autumn, Red from fallen cherry leaves in late Autumn… All the colour matches each other just like in nature. Nature colour magic never gets you bored! You like collecting threads organisers??  We hope this acrylic drawer helps your threads organising too!

 

IMG_1144

Special 100 natural dyed colours set for you

TEMARICIOUS 100 colours threads set

USD 270/all-in

The price include shipping worldwide!

Enjoy delicate shades of natural colours.

Special 100 Colours in a Acrylic Box with 3 Drawers.

Natural Hand-dyed Thread
Crafted in Tokyo.

Designed for: Temari stitching,
Embroidery, Cross stitching,
Sashiko, Quilting, Canvaswork
(Needlepoint), Hardanger,
Braiding, Tasselmaking,
Scrapbooking, accessary making etc.

Box:
W25.5cm x H10cm x D17cm
Acrylic

Thread:
100% Cotton
100 bundles (10 x 130cm/bundle)
Thickness: approx. 3/6 DMC25

Selvedge Magazine

Another luck came to Temaricious that Polly Leonard of Selvedge magazine sent us an email asking us to be featured about Temaricious in May issue! and then further luck came that Barbara B.Suess of temari artist in USA contacted us to write about our business. We have been a fan of Barbara’s temari book, so we are very happy to get known each other.

Selvedge magazine will be available from here.

 

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Barbara’s web site

Barbara on Facebook12694815_848185861957135_8353490067010136722_o.jpg

 

 

TEMARICIOUS shop

Temaricious on Facebook

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Find your treasure:  www.temaricious.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Christmas Present for Yourself?

Finally, Tokyo is getting wintery and looking forward to Christmas and New Year holidays. Lots of Christmas illuminations and romantic atmosphere  all over the town.

Including me, my family has 2 birthdays in December and Christmas. Present-exchange never ends at home. In our case, we try not to be realistic to tell what we want. As the result, my husband’s theory is that what you really want never comes as a present so buy it by yourself!

We made very special 100 colours natural dyed embroidery threads set in popular acrylic drawer for the PresentForYourself. Hope you enjoy it and looking for your orders.

It took almost 2 years to dye 100 colours and each colour has a story with us.  Yellow from Philadelphia fleabane in Spring, Indigo blue in hot Summer, Brown from hand-picked acorns from our neighbour park in Autumn, Red from fallen cherry leaves in late Autumn… All the colour matches each other just like in nature. Nature colour magic never gets you bored! You like collecting threads organisers??  We hope this acrylic drawer helps your threads organising too!

Have a very merry December before Christmas!

 

IMG_1144

Special 100 natural dyed colours set for you

 

 

 

 

TEMARICIOUS 100 colours threads set

USD 260/all-in

The price include shipping worldwide!

Enjoy delicate shades of natural colours.

Special 100 Colours in a Acrylic Box with 3 Drawers.

Natural Hand-dyed Thread
Crafted in Tokyo.

Designed for: Temari stitching,
Embroidery, Cross stitching,
Sashiko, Quilting, Canvaswork
(Needlepoint), Hardanger,
Braiding, Tasselmaking,
Scrapbooking, accessary making etc.

Box:
W25.5cm x H10cm x D17cm
Acrylic

Thread:
100% Cotton
100 bundles (10 x 130cm/bundle)
Thickness: approx. 3/6 DMC25