Saturday

Kathleen had a few hours to kill before catching a flight at LAX and I offered to help her kill them. At first, I thought a walk and brunch at the beach would be nice. Uncle Bill's Pancake House is a good, unpretentious place with views of the ocean. We made plans and she put out a call on her blog that any of her friends in the area were welcome to join us. I forgot that she has a HUGE fan base and UBPH is not a good place to take a large crowd on a weekend.

I picked her up at her hotel, which is conveniently across the street from the European bakery/deli where I buy Burda WOF and Mark buys his German groceries. It was only that morning, as I was leaving my home (with Mark's shopping list) to go pick her up, that I realized that she would probably want to visit Sanseido, the Japanese bookstore where I bought my copies of Pattern Magic and Pattern Magic 2.

Silly me. Southbound traffic on the 405 cost me some time. Then, hoards of people descended upon the deli just as I got there. The wait for the loaves of rye and salami was interminable. I had to fight jostle past two older German ladies for the last loaf of farmer's rye. Then rubberneckers created another traffic jam on the trip northbound on the 405, making a pre-brunch visit to the bookstore impossible.

Brunch, and waiting for the only table in the place large enough to accommodate us, cost us more valuable time. Afterwards, the group reconvened at the sewing books section of Sanseido. We should have changed our plans and just eaten at the excellent food court in Mitsuwa marketplace.

Here's Kathleen and Birgitte, before we cleaned out the bookstore.

Actually, I was rather embarrassed and disappointed. I had talked up their selection, but they had only half as many pattern books in stock as the last time I visited back in November. I wanted to buy the patten book of fashions inspired by classic movies. (They even recreated shots from the movies!) Alas, I didn't find it. However, I couldn't resist this book.

I know that my sister and I have a gift moratorium, but she NEEDS this book. I mean, she loves fleece. She loves her dog. This book was written for her. They also have directions for making fleece dogs without dog hair. Their needle-felting cushion is shaped like a bone. Gotta love that.

Does this not look like Iris' cousin, Waldo?


After Kathleen left for the airport with her ride, Birgitte and I headed back into the store to special order copies of Pattern Magic 1 and 2 for her. When she heard that I bought Iris Hello Kitty jello molds at Mitsuwa, she had to get some for her six year old daughter. We struck out again. I couldn't find them either.

At least we found the table of bargain-priced past issues of Japanese fashion magazines.