JAPANESE PAPER

In addition to textiles, there is, of course, paper. Apart from buying some (too much), everything you buy is wrapped up in wonderful paper. I brought everything I could home including the paper shoppers which came with my carefully wrapped  up purchases inside.

I have just cut the bags apart and ironed them. On the left are shown a lfew of them. To give you an idea of scale, the piece on the top right is about 20 inches square and is quite heavy duty so could be used as a book cover without any card inside.

This photo is of tickets! You have to pay to get into shrines in Kyoto (not in Tokyo) and the red and black tickets with calligraphy are temple tickets. They are about 10 inches long. All ironed and ready to use.

There are many stationers selling beautiful paper. Here is some I bought. A stationer in Kyoto saw me opening all the drawers where they keep the best paper and arrived at my elbow with a Lever Arch file of samples. Not much hope of communication but he indicated the number on the sample and the number on the drawer and then ushered me to a desk and chair to examine the samples. Worth his while, I spent a lot of money.

This was the most expensive sheet of paper. The paper is not much more than tissue paper (the crosses are the floor tiles. The pattern of cranes in a landscape is in gold leaf. Goodness knows what I shall do with it. Gloat over it for few years, I expect.

The Kyoto stationers sold packs of 5 paper table mats with wonderful designs on them and they worked out at about £1.10 a sheet so I bought several packets. They are a little bigger than A4. It seems to me that the patterns are seasonal. They were doing a lot of autumn leaves. I went to the bookbinding class yesterday afternoon and bound four copies of Michael's Morning Glory book. But I also started on another book which will be bound in Coptic style. That has a lot of cartridge paper in it but I am using some of the paper mats in it as well.

I have had a lot of trouble with computers since returning home and the kitchen/scullery roof needs replacing. The builder has been to see it and says he will patch it up until spring. In his opinion, it is a waste of money doing a flat roof in wet weather. What this has shown is that I have decided to stay in this house for the foreseeable future. I am about to have some bookcases made and I am thinking about turning one large room into a studio and knocking more windows into the end wall. If I do that the peach tree will have to go. So I am not quite decided yet. But it would make a huge difference to the light in the room.