Fabric shopping in Kyoto and Osaka

I finally made it home (yay!) and have the energy to put together my post about fabric shopping in Kyoto and Osaka.

Here's my Kyoto haul: 

Two more sewing books from a bookstore at Kyoto Station, a sewing kit and needles from Misuyabari, and fabric from Hand Craft Dream in Aeon Mall. 

First, the books. I'm really excited in particular with these two because the patterns include larger sizes! The one with the blue cover covers sizes S-3L and the white cover book has sizes 7-15.

I'm sorry about the quality of the photos. The light in my room makes everything yellowish. 

I made sure Misuyabari was on our to-do list. I've seen such great things about this little needle shop and I was excited to visit! It did not disappoint! I was practically skipping down the alleyway once I recognized the pink shop from photos posted by Cashmerette. The alley opened up into a cute little Japanese garden with the little shop. 

I got a cute little sewing clips which included little handmade snips, some thread and little thread spools, a small pack of needles, and a little wooden box with a pin cushion in the cover. So cute! I also picked up some sashiko needles (short and long) and two cute little handmade decorative pins!

If you want to visit Misuyabari, the best source of directions is the Cashmerette blog.

I wasn't planning on shopping for fabric while on Kyoto. I know there's Nomura Tailor and Nomura Tailor House, but since I was traveling with my family it just wasn't going to happen. However, in the mall near Kyoto Station (and our hotel) there was a craft store called Hand Craft Dream. It's on the top floor of Aeon Mall and has all sorts of craft supplies from beading, leather craft, embroidery, and fabric. I was so overwhelmed by all the fabric! Most of it was quilting cotton in precut amounts. There were also some apparel fabrics and tons of notions. I ended up with a couple of cute cotton prints (musubi and kokeshi dolls), a small bit of double gauze (raindrops), and two remnant pieces (the yellow with flowers and the white with blue and green flowers). I'm excited about these! I'm planning on using them mostly for my Etsy business making pet accessories. Imagine little dog and bunny bandana in the musubi print or the doll fabric. Too cute!

Now, on to my haul from Osaka. The first place I went to was Toraya, the three floor fabric store mentioned by many bloggers. 

It was pretty easy to find. Betty Stitchup has some good directions, but I just got the address from the shopping area's website and plugged it into Google Maps. If I thought the craft store was overwhelming, this topped it by so much. The first floor has so many different fabrics. There were vinyls, cottons, double gauzes, polyesters, and much more! I had to make sure I shopped wisely or I could've spent so much money and time there. 

This is what I ended up with:

The plaid and blue crab fabrics were remnants that I'm hoping to make a button down (up?) and maybe a boxy tee or tank from. The purple fabric on the right had some fat puffball bunnies on it. This is definitely going to be some pet accessories. The bottom purple fabric is a lovely double gauze. I've read some awesome things about double gauze and decided to give it a try. It's light and soft and I'm looking forward to working with it! I bought enough for a blouse though maybe I could make dress bodice and add a different fabric for the skirt. If I recall correctly it was 115cm x 2m. We'll see.

I also found a fabric store in another Aeon Mall in Ibaraki in Osaka called Pandora House. I stumbled on this shop accidentally. Like the other mall store, it had a lot of cute cotton prints, but I ended up with this:

The three fabrics on the left are knits. Yeah, three. The blue, grey and white stipe, and purple. It looks like two thin knit layers sewn together similarly to double gauze. The purple and blue have one side that's a heathered version of the inner color. The striped is a solid white on the other side. I thought these were intriguing but we're only available in precut lengths so I'm not sure if I really have enough to make a full blouse or anything. The sample hey had in the shop was a long sleeve with the knit on the front and chambray back. That's an idea. The other two fabrics would also make cute blouses if I have enough fabric. I'm not sure what type of fabric it is either but I'm not sure I've seen it before.

So that's my fabric shopping in Japan round up! To recap, I found some fabric and sewing books in Kumamoto, books, fabric, and needles in Kyoto, and lots of fabric in Osaka. If you're visiting Japan, I definitely recommend shopping for fabric! Even if you're a beginner like me, it may be worth picking up a sewing book or two with patterns that look interesting to you. Something to work towards!