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.
Wish I was in Australia and could slip a skein of each of those "must have" threads into an envelope with a Christmas card and post them to you. I'm not though, but at least you'll know I thought about it!
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen, I appreciate the thought.
ReplyDeleteIts not "in the neighborhood" but the Daiei in Tokorozawa has a Yuzawaya that carries DMC threads (or at least it used to!).
ReplyDeleteI found this conversion chart on the net which starts with DMC and gives you the numbers of the other brands:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/shugei/color.html
If you still need some that you can't get, let me know and I'll post them to you as I have two very large craft stores near here.