An old favourite

Today I visited to an old favourite. Craft Heart Tokai was part of my earliest days in Japan. There was a branch between our apartment and the language school we attended in Sapporo from 2000-2003, so I walked past it twice a day for two years. Back in those days I had approximately an hour free in the day - only an hour, where I could do something outside the house. My time, otherwise, was totally spoken for. Learning Japanese ranks as one of the hardest things I have ever attempted so those years weren't fun. Tokai represented an oasis where I could escape and dream of what one day might be (if I ever had any time). 

I've always been drawn to crafting and this is close to the perfect Japanese crafting shop. Not too big and overwhelming, not too small and crowded; a very tastefully laid out shop.

So you can understand that when we moved to Tokyo five years ago I was thrilled to find a branch of Craft Heart Tokai close by.

Unfortunately today they didn't completely satisfy my needs. Their cross-stitch supplies leave a little to be desired. But then so did most craft shops when I was in Australia last year. The biggest issue surrounded my carefully prepared list of must-have thread numbers. The pattern I'm using uses DMC categorised threads. Tokai only had Olympus threads (I can't figure out if that was the case before because I cannot remember having this trouble before). They also didn't have any conversion charts, so I had to ask for help. And typically Japan - help was very forthcoming. The shop assistant dug around somewhere and found a conversion chart. The only problem was it was an Olympus to DMC chart - numerically ordered by Olympus numbers, not DMC numbers. So for all 10 of my must-have thread numbers she had to go through the entire list and she did so with considerable patience. But they didn't have three of my must-have threads. So now I'm back to the drawing board - I'll have to check those numbers and see if I have anything close to them, I may be able to substitute.

Overall though, it was, as usual, a very soothing activity to browse in this shop and remember and dream.