Turning Japanese

I'm joining in with Finki's January design challenge, which is all about turning Japanese.

I've created some little kimono dolls, out of kimono fabrics my younger sister (Scalpel Bettie) gave me for Christmas; plus some oddments donated by my mother. Japanese fabric is beautiful, so I was really happy to receive these bits and pieces as a present. And because they came as a giant bundle of offcuts, I don't have The Fear about cutting into them the way I do with really BIG bits of lovely fabric. It's almost as if the smaller genre enables me to be freer with what I make!

Then, to top it off, My One True Love returned from his cycling weekend and brought me a present .... of these lovely Japanese fabrics! There's a wonderful shop in Bright that stocks Japanese materials, buttons and beads.

I love the way he does this. How many husbands would go away on a blokey cycling weekend and still manage to find the fantastic fabric shop and go in and pick out a whole range of incredibly wonderful stuff, for their wife? My One True Love is certainly a king among men.

Earnest the Easter Wabbit

Hello everybody. My name is Earnest the Easter Wabbit.

I popped out of a giant sewing-machine shaped egg on Easter morning. I drank Russian Caravan tea from a porcelain cup before bounding off to hide for the Easter Egg hunt.

It didn't take long for someone to find me. I think my Japanese-designed linen outer gave me away. My Amy Butler gusset was completely hidden. Isn't gusset a lovely word? My creator loves that word. It smacks of old ladies and euphemisms.

But back to the task at hand. It could have been my spectacular ear that was spotted first. I dressed it in camouflage ribbons and laid it flat in the grass, but even the best-laid plans can come undone.

I'm very fond of my giant pom-pom tail. I like to waggle it when something particularly pleases me.

At full stretch I measure approximately 30 centimetres high. Let's not talk about my waist-to-hip ratio. Easter means chocolate, and lots of it, and that's all I'll say about that.

I have button eyes, I'm stuffed firmly with polyfil and I sit up all by myself. What a talented wabbit I am.

I deserve a burrow that's really special. If you let me come home with you I promise to nibble your ear and bring you chocolate carrots in the night, and whisper stories to you of faraway places ....