Tracy of Touch of Grey commented on my first post back asking about the secret needle shop of Kyoto. I learned about this place from Okan Arts which is Patricia Belyea and (I believe) her daughter, Victoria Stone. Patricia spoke at my guild and did a workshop on Sashiko some time ago and I’ve been reading her blog periodically ever since. When the trip to Japan came up, I immediately went to her blog to start planning my own personal textile tour. And this shop, called Misuyabari, was high on the list of places I had to visit. The blog post above gives a very detailed description of the shop so please go there and check it out. But the highlights are it’s very old, 400 years old. And the man who helped me is the 18th generation of needle makers. The shop is secret because the mall it’s in basically grew around it making it hard to find.

I put the address in to Google Maps and I was able to get to the mall or shopping plaza. But from here I could not locate the shop. I had to pull up Okan Arts’ blog post about the shop and they gave very detailed instructions along with pictures and I enlarged the pictures and looked around to find things that matched the pictures. Because the post was a few years ago the shops themselves were not the same so it made it a bit of an adventure. But I found it.

I regret not taking pictures of the garden in front of the shop and path from the mall to this little area but I was a bit excited at finding it and it started to drizzle. And the blog post from Okan Arts does a great pictorial of it.

The shop is very small and only the old man was there. So he could really only help one customer at a time. Luckily as I was coming in, a lady was just coming out. I waited a little as he cleaned up the counter so he could help me. I browsed around. Basically he spoke only Japanese and I don’t speak Japanese so I said Cross Stitch? and he would show me the cross stitch (tapestry) needles. Then I would handle them to see which fit my hand best and then ask for however many I wanted. I did the same for Sashiko, quilting, applique. It was fun! and I thought I was spending a lot of money but at the end of it all I spent a total of $35 for both mine and my friends’ orders.

I bought wooden boxes to keep them in but not the one pictured above. I asked but they were for display only and not for sale. I think they are so cute. And I have those little wool balls. My daughter saw them at my LQS one year and had to get it for something that never got made. I never thought to use it as a little pin cushion. One day I’ll run into those things and use them as such.

If you ever make it to Kyoto, hopefully you can add a visit to this secret needle shop. I thought the needles would be very expensive since they are still made one at a time like “little samurai swords” but they weren’t.

Hugs,

Melanie