My favourite knitting and fabric shops in Japan
Hi everyone!
I am back on the blog to share the first of two posts about textiles in South Korea and Japan where I travelled to recently to celebrate my 40th birthday :) I hope you find it interesting and that someone actually finds this post as whenever sharing anything in here or on social media, it feels words, images, releases of products, etc... end up in a dark hole.
Anyway. This first post is about some of the beautiful shops I found along the way. I am not featuring all the places I went to but those related to textiles and crafting in some way and that stayed with me afterwards. Shall we start?
List of fabric, yarn and textile shops in Japan
1. One of the places I visited during the first time I visited Japan in 2015 was the Nippori district in Tokyo, which I am sure will come up on your Google searches of fabric shops in Japan. The area features numerous haberdashery and fabric shops and there is even a little map you can get at the station so that you don't miss anything.
As I already knew the area, I almost didn't go back. I didn't need any fabric and I didn't have space on my luggage (we never check in and our airline allowance was 7kg...) but! something told me that it would be nice just to take a look ;)
Instead of going to as many shops as possible like last time, I went straight to Tomato, the most popular one. It has two or three stores in the same street and in the end I bought 1.5m of a quilted fabric to make a waistcoast. There are several sale sections and you can find all sorts of fabrics. Take a look.
2. Leaving Tokyo, I discovered two beautiful shops in Kyoto (my favourite Japanese city from all the ones I've been to). The first one was a shop called Musubi, selling the most beautiful Furoshiki I've seen.
Furoshiki are traditional Japanese wrapping cloths traditionally used to wrap presents or to carry your tupperware when eating out. They are in all souvenir shops in Kyoto, but I wanted to find more special ones and they are for sure here. The designs are so beautiful and different! Take a look. (I am not sharing more pics so that you are surprised when you get there!).
3. The other shop I absolutely fall in love with was Walnut Kyoto and Amirisu. It is a bit out of the way but totally worth. I think it is one of the most beautiful yarn shops I have ever been to.
I got a skein of yarn (hand dyed by them) and Sashiko needles and a cloth (Sashiko is is a form of decorative reinforcement stitching or functional embroidery from Japan. Traditional sashiko is also used to reinforce points of wear, or to repair worn places or tears).
Take a look at the shop.
There were also a few fabrics and haberdashery here and there.
4. Moving onto Osaka, I found two places I wanted to highlight. The first is another knitting shop that people mentioned quite a few times online. Masuzakiya is very close to Namba Station and you will be able to find a big selection of yarns, most from Italy and other countries but also featuring Japanese brands. I didn't buy anything but it was nice to take a look.
5. The second shop, which I didn't even know was there (thank you to a member of the sewing community I found out about it) is the.... ATELIER OF NANI IRO! Honestly, I couldn't believe it! :) Again, the little shop was out of the way, but I really wanted to take a look. The atelier was small but very charming. They had a few fabrics, lots of samples of clothing made using their fabrics and a selection of finished scarfs in different sizes (I got two, hehe).
I bought 1.5m to make a blouse for the Summer.
6. The last place I wanted to mention was just pure luck that I found it. We were hiking around the Yoshino mountain to see the amazing cherry blossoms that grow there (go and Google it because it is honestly so incredibly beautiful) and suddenly, I saw outside a tiny shop this:
Of course when I saw all those beautiful colours, I needed to take a look inside :) It was the tiniest shop where an elderly woman was selling hand dyed threads specially used for Sashiko. I honestly could have bought them all! They were all so pretty. (Pics are a bit yellow because of the lighting inside the shop).
And that is it for this post :) I will be back next week writing about museums and traditional textiles. I hope you found it interesting. Leave a comment, thanks for reading and see you soon! :)
Ana
xxx