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Here is a little something I worked on in the September holidays of 2023. I didn't know for sure if I would be teaching Japanese in 2024, but I had Japanese fabric and I wanted to sew something. Was I sewing in faith or folly? No idea. I might have just needed a project. 

In any case, I started with a yukata that I loved wearing, but had found on inspection that it had some holes in the fabric from some little bug that had been living in my storage drawer. So much of the fabric was still perfectly fine though, so I took the thing apart and considered how to use it. 

I decided if I were to teach Japanese again, I would need something for my classroom. So this, along with a number of random Japanese fabric samples that I had collected from homestay students over the years, my old sushi dress and a new piece of Japanese fabric mum had given me earlier in the year and I was ready to go.  

I did end up buying some black fabric for the letters, wanting this to be more than just bunting (if there is such a thing as "just bunting"), but also a sign for a potential room that I would be teaching in. Doing the maths, I figured I had enough fabric to make a rather long and big sign to declare Japanese to everyone. 

This did make it super hard to photograph on the floor of my house. I printed/hand drew all the letters on paper first to check size and layout and then went onto the black. Did the fancy interfacing glue stuff to get it stuck down and then zigzagged around each letter with white to make it clearly visible. 

Each of the letters down, I sewed the backing fabric on (right sides together and then flipped out) and bound the top with a long strip of exactly the amount of fabric that I had left. This project was actually a great way to use up all this fabric that would possibly have had no life otherwise. I only ended up using the sleeves of the yukata and a part of the okumi, so I actually still have a stack of that fabric left for something else. Pajamas maybe? 

Anyway, I did end up getting given Japanese to teach for 2024, as well as my own room, so hooray for faithful preparation. Hopefully the kids get excited when they see it too. My classroom as a whole is still coming together, but it is rather exciting to have one!