This is another square that starts as a circle and ends up as a square. We did puff stitches and front post trebles, which we are getting better at I think. I like the effect both made and I like how the square seems to taper off to one side because of the puff stitches. I also like that after row 12 I get this line since I am doing back stitch only again.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colours in this. That soft purple with the turquoise is heaven, or perhaps the sea?
The circle row has turned into a flower. I think it looks a bit like a waterlily.
21x21 cm, 31 grams and four hours to do, not much frogging went on in this.
*Kio's square. I especially like her last dark purple row, very subtle, that dark looks good when used sparsely I think, and with good team colours.
It is Tuesday again, and I want to show a song from the concert I actually loved, they sang a lot of new songs that I had never heard before.
Like Tsubaki Factory and their new song Hitorijime, Counrty girls with Dou datte ii no and Juice=Juice with Keep on Joshou Shikou!! and Dream Road~ Kokoro ga Odoridashiteru.
None of these have been released as singles yet and I don't think I have a clear favourite, but both Juice=Juice songs are growing on me and Dou datte iii no seems a lot of fun but we will see.
But I can tell you that I really liked all of them, although none of the songs stayed on my mind after the concert, there were so many other brain worming songs in both concerts. Like Summer Reggae! Rainbow, Maji Bomber, Dot bikini, Hatsukoi Cider, Goodbye Natsuo, Ora wa ninkimono, Boogie Woogie Love, Samidare Bijo ga Samidareru, Crazy Kanzen na Otona, Genkimono de ikou, Utakata Saturday Night, Itoshikutte Gomen ne and Samba Kobushi Janeiro which all left me humming the next few days, but I do remember trying to dance to Dream Road~ Kokoro ga Odaridashiteru using my glowstick with various results.... It was fun! The concert hall was much smaller than I thought, and everyone stood by their seats for the entire concert which started at the dot of announced time, I LOVE Japanese concerts, why everything can't start when they said they would is beyond me and really stupid. Can you see the small disco ball in the ceiling? Even though our seats where not the best we saw everything. From C-ute's disbandment message to Masaki not being able to sit still to Makoto's mushroom hairdo. I would love to see another concert later.
We went to the Nakano Sun Plaza concerts on Saturday the 20th and Sunday 21st of August. In blazing sun we stood outside in the cue for goods where a nice Japanese Wota helped me to buy my stash... On day one we saw Sunshine parade just the two of us, and on day two on Rainbow Carnival, our friend Miss Felt came too. She hasn't been a fan in years so it was nice that some really old songs were sung in that concert. And I finally saw the dance of Shanimuni Paradise live, that dance is ridiculous. Mister M loves it since it is so dumb. And I saw C-ute do Momoiro Sparkling which made me happy. I would so L O V E to see them in concert, they have such great songs and on stage personality that a joint concert can't really express. Since they will be disbanding in 10 months I don't have much time, but that would be a dream come true.
Tsubaki Factory with Hitorijime.
I have shown this song already, but none of the others are out yet and I do so love this song.
I bought a lot of fan stash in Japan. We not only went to the concerts, but the Hello!Project store and Tower Records where I could see their autographs and their section of albums and DVD's. I must confess I bought some a lot.
A Hello!Project t-shirt I sported on concert day number two and two towels of my current favourite groups. I also bought a C-ute wrist thing. Mister M borrowed one of my towels for the concerts.
And we had glowsticks, I do somewhat regret not buying a C-ute one, but the generic one is fine, it sparkles.
I bought a C-ute towel with their faces since this is their last H!P tour, a Sato Masaki cloth and picture, and a gacha gacha where I "won" the picture of Angerme Kamikokuryo Moe, I think, and since I have somewhat not loved them since both my favourites left I am thinking this means she will be my new favourite...
At the H!P store I bought a C-ute bag, umbrella, Country girls pin, Buono scrunchie and a cell phone thing not in the picture. Since I spent som much money I got all the small pictures for free. Japan is big on the "gifts" you get for buying stuff. So I got Masaki, Duu, all of C-ute and Momoko. And I bought Kobushi Factory last single since one of those songs where not on iTunes and C-ute last album and six Concert DvD's where two of them where double so I kind of got eight for the price of six.
I could have bought so much more but we worried a little about the suitcase space. We may have bought 18 kilos of omiyage and treats. But Mister M bought lots of manga, so it was not all me.
The bunnies are true C-ute fans I think, they came running and plonked down on my t-shirt the second I was done displaying it on the floor.
Here was the bunnies before we left, all lovey-dovey and sharing their food in peace.
The bunny sitter came and spoiled them rotten and gave us pictures and piece of mind which was great and helped us have fun on our trip.
Which we did.
I am thinking of doing some posts to talk about what we did that was fun and share some fun snaps.
I wanted to start off since it is bun day and all to show off some of the bunny things we bought.
There are a lot of bunny things in Japan, so we bought a lot of traditional looking rabbit and the moon things in Kyoto.
A fan
Bento fabric
A mirror
Two coasters in fabric
Chopstick-holders (these were not traditional jumping over the moon bunnies)
And some stamps. (We also bought a stamp of a matsuri but I will show that in a later post)
GachaGacha bunnies
Post it of a bunny
A lovely bag
And at the airport I bought a bunny umbrella that can be attached to a bag.
I don't think I bought any rabbit things in Tokyo come to think of it... (other than in Disneyland but I think those will be for the Disney-land post.) but I did buy lots of other things.
Here are some snaps that the bunny-sitter kindly sent us. ^^
And here we are back with the bunnies, we have been home a few days now and are still not done washing the clothes, but the bunnies don't seem to mind.
Except now both their and our daily-rhythm is off, I am up earlier and their siesta is earlier too...
Mimle gave me a small tentative lick yesterday so I am happy even though I see mostly their butts and them hiding. I think they might be a bit miffed with us being gone for so long even though they were excellently taken care of.
This square is no longer free, which is why *Kio made it, since I started crocheting just by looking at the walkthrough I didn't notice it until I was almost finished.
I Love this square, I am planning to make a dozen as potholders since they seem perfect for that and so I will buy the pattern later. I don't know how the pattern is written, but the walkthrough makes it look very simple and enjoyable. I love the purples here with the soft green. I made mine with a sort of gradual colour progression makes the square pop.
I love this square.
As always 21x21 cm, ca 30 grams and four hours of fun. And I didn't even have to frog anything.
I love the front post treble crochet that goes into the middle, it gives the square some nice texturing,
I think the Firenze square looks like a butterfly.
I Love this square, super fast and super fun. I mean there are both cluster stitches and spike stitches what is not to love. It is dense and lovely and would even suit a potholder I think, I love this square but I already said that.
21x21 cm again and a little under four hours to make and possibly around 30 grams.
*Kio's square. This time I love both squares just as much and it makes me think a whole blanket in this pattern but in different colours would be smashing. This pattern makes me think of candy somehow.
And we are in Japan, Yay. I want to buy everything! And this weekend is the concert.
So this is a short post even though I wrote it beforehand.
Another a little bit older song, from 2013 from when Juice=Juice where newbies, I remember I loved this song and had such high hopes for this group, and I must confess a lot of their songs are a hit or miss, I like about half and none as much as those four-ish first songs.
But in this concert they have shaken it up and some newish songs are sung by other groups and I am looking forward to the Factories to sing this. I love the dance even though there are some awkward parts but that is Hello!Project for you.
Juice=Juice will sing this Angerme song and Angerme will in turn sing Chotto Guchoku ni! Chototsumoushin from Tsubaki factory.
I think this song is Ok.
I look forward to seeing Morning Musume sing Itoshikutte Gomen ne though.
A 2001 song, Tropica~l Koishite~ru by Matsuura Aya, not my favourite Ayaya song, but cute and genki. I wish Ayaya were still active.
If you want to see the complete list of songs for the concert(s) click here. Only a few more days to go. I can't wait. I need glowsticks, and towels and t shirts and things.
Since this was a wedding blanket I was happy there were so many heart squares and not just flowers although flowers are a big part in most weddings and love relationships too, but it fitted.
This was the most visible out of all the hearts some were very subtle. I did a post with all the hearts here if you would like to see the lovely blanket. We also added some filet-crochet heart squares which I will talk about after all the other squares have been talked about. ^^
But here goes, the Grandma's heart square. I am guessing it is called grandma's heart since the center is a heart and there are grandma stitches around that? The grandma square rows were really easy and made fast progress. There are popcorn stitches in this square too and in this one I think my popcorns were ok, *Kio's still popped more so maybe my popcorns were taken out of the microwave too soon?
At around row 4 the picot stitches are added but the walkthrough suggested waiting until row 5 was finished and I did, somehow I added my picots wrong the first time so it was a square and it bothered me so much I had to go back and fix it even though I had done the entire square AND sewed in the ends. So now the picot row is in a neat little heart shape.
This is another one of those squares that I think would look good as a blanket with many of these together and I am sure I could make twenty something of these without getting tired. Perhaps with some regular granny squares?
*Kio's square, the fun thing about *Kio and my square is that even though we have different colours we have pretty much changed colours at around the same places, her popcorn and picot rounds are the same colour and mine too. I do like her colour combo better, but I think maybe it is because of my dark purple, it seems that colour is hard to make look good...
This song will be in the concert and sung by these members, this song is brand new. Another Tsunku song and it shows, I really like this song, the music video looks like it has gotten some money spent on it too and I like it a lot, the manga like section really makes the video. And I love the clothes, they fit the song perfectly. I must confess I haven't looked all that much at this group but I think I might now.
There is this time-machine slot where they sing songs from the year some members where born and those songs alternate so that they might not be sung, and so far there are songs from 1999, 2000 and 2001, and I like one song from each so I am happy with whatever year they choose. They might even sing newer time machine songs I guess.
Since I am pretty sure I have shown the I wish song by Morning Musume before here is the heartbreaking version from Tsui and Kago's graduation.
I L O V E this song!
TsujixKago have been my all time favourite idols and this song has been on my playlist for years.
The lyrics to this song are also lovely, Kago's last line is awesome, I can't believe how they sing this whilst crying.
These past few months have been hard for Hello!Project fans, girl after girl graduating and I do feel a bit sad that now that I will finally see a concert some of my favorite girls from the past years have graduated and I don't really like anyone in angerme anymore now that both Meimi and Kanon are gone. My favourite in C-ute (Chisato but Airi is a close second) won't participate in the concert since she just had throat surgery so I won't see her either and I have loved C-ute since the beginning, Berryz disbanded before I could see them, I almost went to France when they had that concert but I couldn't. Same for Buono. So I do feel a bit sad. Now my favourite in Country girls after Momoko graduated (and my first favourite girl left quite early too so I had to find a number two favorite). But there isn't all bad news. Buono is back!
Buono was epic, I loved their songs and the girls are just perfection, their return concert is the day after we leave so we couldn't go to it which made me really sad, but now they are releasing another single! Which makes me happy because I think maybe that means they will continue and perhaps come to Europe again, if they do I am SO going, I will not miss out on another H!P group in Europe no matter if I like them or not, and Buono! I L O V E!
Here is their official statement from their Youtube account and you can tell they are as psyched as most fans are.
And the new songs sound awesome! I love Airi's last line in - So La Shi Do
~ NeeNee it is chilling but Rock no Seichi sounds good too and it is apparently an answer to Rock no Kamisama seems like I have to wait until 21st of September which is so long before I can get this single... I am not the best waiter.
I hope Miyabi's new unit will be good, they will sing in the Buono concert, oh how I wish I could go, but they are sold out already it seems.
Also seems like they have a band again. ^^ I like that.
It is Friday again and Mister M has finally started his vacation so this post comes a bit late, but better late than never. This week I want to show my finished painted doll cradle which is about fifty years old that I recently got from my mother.
Here it is in our house and as you can see the colour is a bit dark and faded and my mother and I agreed it needed a new colour.
I have started using it for yarn, and here is the haul from this summer. Drops had a sale, first on wool and then on cotton, but now I might have enough for a while. Maybe:P
Some of these balls belong to *Kio and gacha stitches.
So here it is finished, with a very light purple, I think it might have benefitted with a bit more colour and a bit less white in it, but I still like it. When alone it looks white, but put it next to some purple or white and you see that it is indeed purple.
And my stash has decidedly decreased. Although I must confess not all of the yarn has been used yet, I have used about ten balls and given *Kio around ten that was hers.
In school back in 2006 we had an assignment where we had to make something out of plastic. I chose to crochet and design a purse using strips of old plasticbags. I was quite pleased with myself actually and this might be one of the first crochet projects I finished before I started crocheting again as an adult. My teacher was not quite as pleased and gave me a C minus, which I thought was unfair as I had done what the assignment said... Oh well, I still like it, and it is almost waterproof, except for the holes, but now that I have showed it off I think I have to throw it out in my decluttering process, it is though which is why this has been in the closet the past ten years, but I haven't used it and it is time.
I have no idea what hook I used or how long this took me, I am guessing about a week, and the button is glued on using melting glue and I glued a flower on top. My mother helped me a lot with tips whilst I did this, so thank you mum. The body was stitched using dc stitches and crocheted together at the side. Then I made chains on the handle and button closing. I would have given myself a B as I did follow the goals I set, not that it matters much. It was however a pain cutting those plastic bags and making this so I do not recommend it.
I Love this square, it has spike stitches, enough said. In fact this blanket was when I first learned spike-stitches and I loved them so much *Kio and I used them in our decorative bunting pattern Søtten which you can find for free here.
Look at those pretty spike-stitches.
I love the walkthrough because as before it calms me down when it tells me that the square will curl on round 11 but will straighten itself out eventually. Usually when my crochet curls I frog it and start over, again and again, so this saved me a lot of time.
See how they run weighed 32 grams and 21x21 cm after my added rows, so it is much bigger than the squares in the original cal, but we needed a bigger blanket. And all that grey really helped calm the blanket down and made crocheting them together a lot easier too.
*Kio's square.
I think her square are busier than mine, not that that is a bad thing, her square sort of feels electric, with the colours and the spike stitches I feel like it is alive and might jump around like Flubber any minute. I love her purple with the ice turquoise. But I do love my dark and middle blue together, I used that combination so much I ran out of middle blue quite early so I had to buy more.
Only one more Tuesday tunes before the concert, I still have had some trouble finding some of the newer songs, so here are a couple of oldies but goodies.
Aya Matsuura Good bye Natsuo
I wish I had seen Matsuura live, too bad she graduated so many years ago, she was great. But this song is epic, and since no one can compare to Ayaya, I have doubts as to how good this could be sung by some of the newbies, but since it is sung by all I have hopes that it will be ok. This song is really hard to sing.
Usually sung by Petit Moni I had to show my favourite H!P group W singing it live. I am not sure this will be in the concert since they seem to change some songs, but this song is great live. Wahahaha
