Celebrating the end of schooling

We’re nearly at the end with The Reader. In just 4 school days time, The Reader will attend her final day of secondary school. Then she’ll have a few weeks holiday (full of study, mind you), a week’s study leave, and then her final exams, stretching over a few weeks.

She’s so very ready to finish school, and would love to get those exams over right now, if possible!

I’ll be heading to Perth in November, right after her exams finish, for some classes with the Western Australian embroiderers guild. The Reader was then going to join me and we’d go sightseeing for a few days, to celebrate the end of her schooling.

However, the other day, a textiley friend mentioned to me that she was going to Tokyo, and was looking forward to fabric shopping while she was there. She’s been before, and said how wonderful it was and how reasonably priced the fabrics are compared to what we have here in Australia. And that got me thinking…

The Reader did the pattern drafting course with me some years back. She’s taking a year’s break next year to work for a bit, before heading to university. And she wants to do lots of sewing during that period. I thought, therefore, that she would love to go fabric shopping. On asking her, the response I got was little excited squeaks of happiness!

I investigated airfares. I found that by purchasing well, we could get airfares to Tokyo for around the same price as going to Perth. It surprised me, but encouraged me! It’s now decided, I will go to Perth, then come home, and we’ll both head to Tokyo for about 5 days. We have friends in Tokyo who have unexpectedly and very generously offered for us to stay with them, which will be so lovely.

Have you been to Tokyo? What textiley, fabricy, embroidery things do you recommend we do/see? I definitely want to see some Kogin, seeing I’m currently writing a book on Norwegian pattern darning, and Kogin is the Japanese pattern darning. We’ll go to Fabric Town (Nippori) and I’ll hope to get to some yarn and embroidery stores if possible. Hit me with your recommendations please!