With the strong quilting tradition here I would have thought there would be vibrant, energetic quilt stores, but it doesn’t seem to be that way. I think people focus on a particular teacher who provides classes and training, versus a shop to do it (though a couple of the places I went to offer classes, but since it’s all in Japanese I didn’t investigate further).
zoom in and you can easily see where to walk
After much searching around (thank you Badskirt Blog), I was finally able to find some quilt shops, not just fabric shops, in Tokyo. I checked with some other quilters I know here, and none of them had ever heard of them. So you know what to expect, they seem to carry primarily US fabric – so if you’re visiting from the US, it’s probably not worth the trip to these shops. Go to the fabric stores (see Nippori and Chain Stores blog posts) if you’d like Japanese fabric to bring home. Also, not a single bolt of batik fabric could be found. Thank goodness I’m going to Bali soon – I already told my husband I’m bringing an empty suitcase to fill up with batiks.
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Alley street of restaurants - after lunch time
so not at its most attractive |
To get to these quilt shops – go to the Nishi-Ogikubo station, about 16 minutes west of Shinjuku Station (on the JR Chuo-Sobu train line). Go to the South Exit. It's easy to visit all these shops in one day, though you need to pay attention to the shop hours.
If you make an immediate right, you’ll see an alley street lined on both sides by little local Japanese restaurants. They may not have an English menu, but you can point to a picture (or to what someone else is eating) if you’d like an authentic Japanese meal. [And if you continue walking, you’ll see on your right Seiyu, which is a chain owned by Walmart. Like in the US, it’s the cheapest place to buy groceries and household products (well, outside the 100 yen shops). It is the only place I saw a drip coffee pot for less than $75 ($16 – for a 4-cup maker). Anyway, groceries here are literally 50% what I pay in central Tokyo.]
Back to the quilt stores - unfortunately, all the websites are in Japanese, so you’ll need to know Japanese or use Google Translate to get a rough approximation of what they say.
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| Entrance to Pindot stairs |
The shop closest to the station is Pindot: www.pindot.net. It’s closed on Tuesdays, and open 12:00 pm – 7:00pm. But it’s very small, with limited cotton fabrics. It’s on the second floor with a narrow stairway, so you don’t want to carry a heavy bag up it. However, below it is a cute French café and would make a nice breakfast/brunch/lunch/tea stop (I didn’t see the hours it was open; I was there around 12:30pm).
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| Cute French cafe! |
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| Country Quilt Market |
Walking just over 5 minutes from Pindot brings you to Country Quilt Market: www.cqmjp.com. They are open 10:00 am – 6:00 pm. This place is the closest in style to a US quilt store. Fabrics are arranged by color, both on the bolt and as precuts, and I saw a lot of Moda, Robert Kaufman, and some Kona solids. They have items on sale, a selection of notions and a limited amount of threads. Upstairs (another narrow staircase) they have a small number of Liberty fabrics (3000 yen/meter, same as Yuzawaya) along with a rack of Japanese quilt books and magazines. This is the biggest store of the four I visited; I’d say about 500-1000 bolts.
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| small sales table on the outside porch |
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| Early's Print....see the lying Open sign? |
Less than a 10 minute walk from Country Quilt Market will get you to Early’s Print: www.earlysprint.com. They are open 10:00am – 5:00 pm and closed on holidays & Sundays. However, as I walked up to the store a woman walked out just as I realized it was the place I was looking for. It was locked and the lights were out though it was around 2:00 pm – and the sign out front said open. I peeked in the window, and only saw a very small amount of bolts along one bookshelf.
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| Sweet Flap - quilt stores almost always have cute exteriors! |
A one minute walk from Early's Print brings you to Sweet Flap: http://naopk.exblog.jp. The shop is open 1:30 pm – 6:00pm, and closed the 4th Sunday of the month and holidays (her website says classes are from 11:00am – 1:00pm). It is also pretty small, but has some Cotton+Steel, if you like that fabric line (it’s the only place in Tokyo I’ve seen it). She also carries Moda.
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| I haven't figured out what "menson" is. |
While walking back to the station I passed a ramen place with some magazine articles (in Japanese) posted on their display – as if it’s been written up as a good place to eat. I do a quick check on Rage (not a great name) online, and see some English articles giving it a good review. The various no smoking signs (they always seem to allow smoking in the ramen places) and large waiting area (indicting there’s normally a line, which at 2:30pm on a rainy Thursday there isn’t one) encourage me to go in and try it. One of their specialties is a type of chicken in the soup. There’s no English menu, but I said chicken (in English) and the waiter pointed to the spot on the menu and I said ok. It was good, but I wouldn’t make a trip just to eat there again.
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| Chicken ramen. Tissues are often your napkin in casual restaurants. |
Side note: To use public transportation, use an app to plan your route from your closest station to where you want to go. My favorite is Tokyo Rail Map, but you need wifi or cell data to use it. Google Maps works well too – and sometimes even tells you the platform number you need for the train. However, Google doesn’t tell you the station number for the subway, which Tokyo Rail Map does. Maybe that will change since the various train lines are planning to number their stations, with color coding and an abbreviation, in the upcoming months (like the subway lines).
