Knitting in Japan

I realized I forgot to post about my knitting group on Monday night. It was good – two other knitters came, and two more people stopped by and promised to come again on a night when they were less busy.

We agreed to meet every two weeks. At our next meeting, we are going to try to make some small knitted stuffed toys (along the lines of the mobile monsters from Stitch and Bitch Nation, for those of you in the know). I’m not sure if the group project thing will continue or not. I can see some advantages to all doing the same project, but I also liked my group in Seattle where everyone showed up with something different in a different stage of done-ness.

For the record, I do not ever intend to make this. For some reason, I just wanted to share its existence with you, though.

Also, another thing I’ve noticed about knitting in Japan: I’ve had trouble finding a good yarn store (although I’m told there are some in Tokyo), but no trouble finding needles. This is because of dollar stores. Well, here they call them 100 yen stores, but you get the point. The store near the electronics district here in Tsukuba sells bamboo needles (all sizes, including double-pointed) for ¥100. They also sell plastic needles for the same price. Their selection of yarn, however, is pretty sorry – guess the good bargains can only go so far.