Santa and Birthday Cake

My friends invited me to join them for a Santa basket making craft session. Of course, I said yes! 

Before we could get started, we had to have tea and cookies, of course.

This is the kit.  It came came from this shop - http://kamileon.jp/

We followed the directions, and it was very fun to do this together.

Our hostess is the very best pizza maker, using ingredients from her garden. She also made homemade bread with marmalade.

I’m sorry I didn’t take a better photo of the birthday cake. It was both beautiful and delicious. 

When we finished for the day, this is what my Santa basket looked like.

 I worked on it more at home to finish it.

My friends are very good to me.  I look forward to our next adventure.

Friday Finish - Playing with Felt

I’ve been playing with felt again, making some ornaments and pins.

Neighborhood Shrine

Late one afternoon, on a narrow road, across from an apartment building, I found this shrine. It was very quiet, almost like it was waiting for me.

Work In Progress Wednesday

Rapunzel progress

Japanese Pattern 23

Drawn Thread progress - I worked on this just a small bit this week, where the scissors are pointing.

Sunday Leaf Looking

Sunday, I joined three friends to see autumn leaves. After parking the car, we walked to the gate of the Nishiyama Honmonji Temple. This gate is black, not the usual bare wood.

 

There were many tall steep steps.

This is the temple I previously visited for the Nobunaga Festival last month. We entered from a different direction then.

We ate lunch at a small popular local restaurant. We had to wait a bit for a table, but it was well worth it!  We all ordered the same meal, which costs 1200 yen.

Our next stop was a tiny farmers market, which also served food.

The vegetables sold are grown behind the building  This is the daikon (giant white radishes) field. Also the restaurant where we ate lunch gets vegetables from this place.

After that, we went to Sengen Taisha Shrine, in Fujinomiya.

The water in this pond at the shrine is crystal clear, coming from Mt. Fuji.

Before ending our day together, we had a hot drink at the Edoya Cafe near the shrine. I had a cafe latte.

I had a great day with my friends.