Baby's Reversible Dress

One weekend while trying to go through my things to clear out my bedroom at home, I came across a bunch of old patterns that I had once wanted to save... in case I ever started making clothes. Well I'm making clothes now so I decided to bring them back with me to the cities to see if I wanted to work on any of the patterns. There was one pattern in particular that I wanted to use. It is toddler sun dress from 1985 that I had worn when I was little; thank you grams! I told my mom I wanted to try the pattern and she commissioned a little outfit to give to her friend that has a little girl. We picked out fabric and decided on a monkey to be the character stitched on the dress. So, the first steps included drawing up a monkey and creating a pattern for it.

Here are the fabrics for the two sides of the dress and for Monkey.

Here is Monkey after a gazillion hours of hand stitching! haha I should get compensated for at least the effort put into that little part!

Monkey side of the completed reversible dress.

The back side of the dress.

Since the back flaps open, baby will need to cover her bum so the reversible dress comes with two pairs of little baby bottoms.

The dress reversed, showing the mix and match of solid and pattern.

The completed set...

...and reversed!

That was a fun project. Took waaaay longer than originally planned, (no Monkey next time ;) ) but I like how it turned out!

Tokyo: Part II

There was a lot still to see in Tokyo that Dave and I had to fit into our vist and I had learned after one day of walking around that I had underestimated the damage a Tokyo vacation would do to my feet. We walked and walked and after 12 hours of walking... well feeling one's feet gets difficult! Despite the lower body pain, we had to keep moving. Monday morning, bright and early, we got up and headed for Tokyo's fish market. It is located in Tsukiji and is the largest fish market in the world. I didn't want to take too many pictures there because I had a fear of being run over by the men speading around on there little delivery truck things. Imagine: aisle upon aisle of fresh sea food, crammed with sellers, buyers, and tourists taking pictures. Workers cutting tuna with ban saws, tuna that weigh more than I do... and all of this taking up an area of about 43 football fields! I felt kind of awkward there... The workers don't like that there are always tourists wandering obliviously around their work place. I had been awar of this before going so I tried as hard as I could to stay out of the way (no pictures helped), but it is busy place... I did manage not to get hit by anything. After the fish market we hopped on the subway to go to the oldest garden in Tokyo, Koishikawa Korakuen. Below, Dave is looking up the wall that separates the garden from the rest of the city.



















Here was a little Bonsai tree in the park. First without scale figure and then with Dave as the scale figure in the scene.




























After the oldest garden we went to the Imperial Palace grounds. Unable to enter a tourist must walk all the way round the moated, walled palace grounds. Here is a picture at one corner of the grounds showing the moat, the wall, and a little building of what purpose I do not know. The entire grounds are unavaible to visitors unless you are the Emperor, his son, or somebody with special connections or unless it is the Emperor's birthday or New Years. While we were at the entrance we saw two cars leave the property (one, I speculated, containing the Emporer, the other, his guard). Also, we witness a guy on a motor bike enter the grounds... a son perhaps?



















Here is a picture of another building on the grounds. It is set very romantically back in that are, probably with great views so I imagine that it is the palace... haha














This is the view on the other side of the street from the palace grounds. A garden or park in Tokyo seems always to have a view of skyscrapers. There was something about this arrangment of buildings that attracted me. They were all to stark and repetative, but together formed a nice composisiton I thought.














Next stop for the touring was Roppongi. In Roppongi is located the 21_21 building designed by Tadao Ando. In school we learned of Ando's reputation to spec the smoothest concrete possible for his buildings so it was fun to visit this work of his to be able to touch his smooth concrete! Last time Dave was in Tokyo, he saw this building, but didn't get to enter. This time, there was an art show displayed, therefore open to the public for 1,000 yen! So, we got to touch the inside too!














This building was beautiful inside and out and it felt great too!














The picture below was the only interior shot that I was allowed to take. It looks into the first and only upper level gallery. Ando created a playful art gallery with daylighting, a not so appreciated element in the world of art display as sunlight has deterious effects on art. Ando, however used varying degrees of natural light and interestingly angular spaces of the gallery allowing the movement one takes through the spaces to give a visitor a higher sense of interaction through the ever changing light and dark. Past the upper gallery space one decends downstairs to look over a light filled space, but the stairs continue around a turn and lead into the first gallery that is more void of natural lighting, only receiving what it can from the light of the adjacent room. You are directed through this smaller room into a dark transitory gallery which leads into another smaller room adjacent to the largest gallery of the building, which if my memory serves me right is also artificially lit. At the back corner of the gallery is a small entry to another small, dark transitory gallery that leads to a little passage that gets darker yet, having no access to any reflections of day light. As you turn the corners of this passage and exit, your eyes take a second to adjust to the light of the space you overlooked while decending the stairs. On the left are large windows looking out into a small courtyard below ground level. I wish there were pictures to accompany this verbal tour... Hope it painted a little bit of a picture.



















...and another shot.














After Roppongi and Tadao Ando, we made our way to Shibuya. Shibuya is a ward of Tokyo that is a major fashion location for young people. Dave and I spent a lot of time wandering this streets visiting some of the many stores that were there. The last building we visited was an eight story "shopping mall" just for the ladies. The floors were filled with boutiques with overflowing merchandise... Tokyo's style at the moment is very frilly and floral. There were some very cute clothes, however I didn't get any. I'll hope to make some perhaps. After visiting 6 of the 8 floors we decided to head to the big crossing depicted in the pictures below. In this first image, the crossing is empty, just before the walk signs turn on, see the crowd standing across the way.














The way this intersection works is simple, cars get their turn and then pedestrians get theirs. In a span of, lets say, 30 seconds, thousands of people are crossing the road going every direction. It is choatic and exciting to participate and to view.

































And as the sky gets darker, the lights of the buildings begin to shine!



















There was one last place we wanted to get to that night, Tokyo Tower. That was located back in Roppongi and from the subway station where we got off, a really, really long walk.



















On Tuesday morning we wanted to take a look around the area we had been staying. This is a picture of the Sensoji Temple entrance.














This is a picture of a pagoda on the property.



















After visiting the temple we decided that sushi in Tokyo could not be missed even if Dave's stomache wasn't quite up to food yet. We had found a sushi-go-round to eat at. Set up on a circulating conveyor belt was the best sushi platters that I have ever eaten. We did get too adventurous in our tastings but here is what we did try: fatty, expensive tuna - so good!, shrimp spring roll, yellow tail, mackrel, shrimp, crab roll - this one was probably my favorite after the tuna. Oh Tokyo! You were awesome and had awesome sushi! Where will the world lead me next?
p.s. One last thing about the trip. I almost forgot, though not sure how that was possible. We flew home first class... yeah... it was awesome!

Tokyo: Part I

After the plane ride from Seattle, the mood turned because Dave had been attacked by food poisoning. He had a terrible Friday night spent awake and in the bathroom. It was a sorry, sorry time and would lead to an uncomfortable week for him. Saturday morning we sat around in the hostel room hoping that David's health would come around. At one point he felt well enough to accompany me to the temple nearby in Asakusa, where we were staying, but there was a festival and with all of the people it was too much; we decided to get back and get more rest...














David and I are both bummed about the situation and spend all of Saturday sleeping/laying around the common area of the hostel.



















Sundays are when the teens costume play in Harajuku and this was something I really wanted to see so I hoped that Dave would feel up to heading out Sunday. Below, we are in the Subway on our way to see some sights. As a first timer in Tokyo, I soon was able to give the city a description: overwhelming. A common description, I've read, but real. For instance, public transportation, here is the map of just the metro subway system... I think. This map represents half of what we were dealing with for transportation as there was a train line called the JR line that we used besides the subway... That's a lot to look at! After a while I began to see past the Japanese characters and figure out how the system worked.
You might notice while viewing my Tokyo posts that the pictures seem disjointed... I attribute this to the fact that Tokyo is overwhelming! I can't post all 350 photos!



















Moving on. The first thing we wanted to do was get a glimspe of Tokyo from above. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government building hosts a free observation viewing from the 45th floor.
Here is part of the massive building/complex designed by the architect Kenzo Tange.



















This is a scale model of the complex that was housed up on the 45th floor where we went to get the birds eye view of Tokyo as far as we could see... again... overwhelming!














For a sense of scale: All of the buildings standing tall, tall, tall in the following few pictures, are just that, really tall. At ground level one feels towered over standing beneath 7 to 10, maybe more, story buildings, and as far as the eye can see are the towering buildings covering the land.




























These were a cluster of skyscrapers near the government building, an example of the tall, tall, tall!



















And now at ground level again, you still feel small. This picture is also a great example of the Japanese way to advertise. It is quite common to see signage posted... everywhere!



















Throughout the sea of concrete, steel, glass, etc. there are areas of green. While we were visiting the parks of Tokyo, we kept noticing a paculiar smell that began to become overwhelming... that's Tokyo. We couldn't exactly decide what the smell was; probably some plant, but an awful one if that was the case! Here is a scene from Yoyogi Park...














...in the park is located the Meiji Jingu Shrine where tourists can witness traditional Japanese wedding ceremonies. I felt a littl like I was intruding, but how beautiful is that?














At the exit of the park begins the Harajuku world. I don't know if it was the season, or the time of day, or ... I don't know, but there wasn't a lot of costume play going on so that was somewhat dissappointing to miss out on, however we had to move forward so we walked the streets viewing some of the building housing high end fashion. One beauty is the Dior building. This was actually used as a precedent for one of Dave's undergraduate design projects. It is pretty elegant from the outside, but we didn't go in to check out the interior... I felt underdressed ... or something. haha.



















The side street attached to these high end boutiques contained shops where apparently the teens of Tokyo frequent. In one side street two Japanese fashion students stopped us and asked to have a picture of Dave and I to record our fashion... that was fun!
I would also like to note the architectural juxtoposition of high end boutique to teen fashion central... turning the corner from Dior to enter these little streets was comforting... I felt I fit into that scene a little bit more... expense wise hehe.














I liked the look of this building too! Coolest H&M I've ever seen. We shopped that one a little bit, but since I haven't been shopping in... forever here in MN I didn't know what was unique to Japan or not.



















After we left the bustling streets of Harajuku found ourselves in another little park. This one had a few ponds/lakes... (they were more ponds) at one end and Dave and I wantedto check them out. This is the picture we found! Swan paddle boats, lots of them, crowding this little rec pond. I was insisting to Dave that it was romantic... he wasn't having it. Seeing this sure makes you appreciate living in MN, land of 10,000 lakes!














The last picture of this segment is of this cool little building we saw while walking around. We weren't sure how that whole front piece functioned, but I found it quite interesting to look at it. I also liked how it provided space for greenery and a patio so that a person could enjoy their little garden while watching people down below.



















This isn't all! Stay tuned for Tokyo: Part II!

Downtown Seattle's Library and Market

So, as I explained in my last post, Dave's and my Tokyo trip had a detour to Seattle! I wanted to share some pictures from this quick litttle visit. One of the main things we wanted to see in Downtown Seattle was the Seattle Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus. My memories of learning about this building in my Contemporary Architecture class aren't crystal clear, but I do recall my professor telling us that the strategy used to develop a program for the public library and then use the program to inform the eventual design was so new and exciting she couldn't wait to see the sort of influence that this building's birth would have on future designers methods of design. Check out OMA/LMN Architects' concept book to understand the effort that went into making this library a success.
For our vist, Dave insisted that we have the correct approach, though he had never seen it before in person, much less approached it. :) The correct approach for Dave was from the water, up a giant hill...

...approaching the west side of the building. We are halfway up the hill at this point!

Dave is excited! I was excited! It is the Seattle Central Library! Yay!

This is the "reading room" I believe. The giant atrium brings light to the whole space.

This is looking down to the second level's entrance/exit. The cladding of the building, steel and glass allow for natural lighting every where. Natural light, a seemingly obvious desire for any inhabitant to any space, yet so many of our spaces lack it...

The stacks are on multiple levels and are all "attached" by a ramp that circles each level acting as a spiral to deliver a person seemlessly through each area.

That was a little taste of the library. One critique that I devoped in my very abreviated visit (we only had twenty minutes and then we had to catch the train to the airport) is that it became a little maze-like. Ups and downs were somewhat difficult to find and sort out, but perhaps one who frequents the library knows the layout perfectly!

Here are a few pics from the other things we saw in Seattle.

Looking out over a harbor with mountains in the distance.

A bit of the skyline from the harbor.

Here was the entrance the market. This was a really cool market with fish, fresh fruits and veggies, handmade crafts, baked goods etc... It was pretty cool, but I was distracted by looking at everything to take pictures of the vendors...

Here is a shot of the inside of this market area. Seattle seems to get going a little late. This was probably around 8:30 and still closed. I liked the old time feel of the building though.

Dave and I, happy after our day adventure in downtown Seattle!