it's over a year since i even mentioned chopsticks, and longer since i reported any new ones. i buy them less and less frequently. i have so many and even though i have pared the collection down multiple times, now i really REALLY have to know that i'm getting something quite unlike anything else i have, or i pass it up.

i found these today and the rapture was instantaneous. here they are with some very fragrant holiday paperwhite narcissus.

maybe i am getting to the point where i want to scan (we have a good scanner now) each of my pairs of chopsticks, and each of my chopsticks rests, and give it all it's own page, this collection.

the wooden chopsticks cabinet is in the den, aka "the poe room", and festooned with homemade and/or childhood dolls and pillows.



there are also some pairs on shelves on the opposite side of the couch, along with some favorite artwork.

the cabinet is up, and pairs of sticks are finding new homes all over... the new home!!! more to come!!!

answer: everywhere!

no, actually, i don't know where the big wooden cabinet is going to go yet. but the pairs i have spread out all over the apartment here, will probably be going into similar situations in the new house.



nothing i'm showing here is anything new; and, in fact, i did get a new pair a couple of months ago, and haven't posted them here yet. i'm just kinda looking around at these familiar pieces, thinking, "where will those go? where will those go?"



i guess i won't really know until we become more familiar with the house. but i've never owned a house before, so i'm looking forward to the opportunity to add more "permanent" fixtures, cubbies, and display zones than i'm used to having.

we ordered a new bed yesterday too. we keep grinning at each other saying, "we're getting a home! we're getting a home!" it's very exciting now. less than a week to go until closing!

i have actually gotten a few real gems lately -- but haven't been posting all of them.

here are a set of six chopsticks rests from japan. they are dainty -- smaller than i thought they would be. very fine. they are all little people, and made by fukagawa porcelain, "purveyor to the imperial household". (when you have no real social context for a country, you have to wonder: is this stuff like lalique, or like corningware? anybody can make up a slogan...)

i have been bargaining heavily with the island nation. i send self-patterning sock yarn to minako in tokyo, and she sends me chopsticks -- and chopsticks rests.

thirteen chopsticks rests -- and one pair of chopsticks, the baby-learning kind, with finger cuffs, so cute -- arrived last week. minako knows how i like to make perfect matches between rests and sticks. so i hope everyone will be patient. i have not made all the matches yet, and have not gotten pictures of all those that i have made! i want to do this right.

but you see, i have put some of the new rests in my "little stuff" holder on the wall -- along with my piece of bazooka joe in hebrew writing, a pair of earrings featuring my dad's head, some incredible hulk paraphenalia, and other treasures.


here's one of my perfect matches, though -- these are my twig chopsticks (seen previously on this site, check the archives) with a smooth oval wooden lozenge. lovely! thank you minako. this hobby brings me much peace and pleasure.

boy, the collection is really growing at an alarming rate when i forget to show things off. this was another ebay auction that we won -- and again, had to get two identical pairs. i have wrapped the second pair as a gift. as you see, they come with a matching rest. i didn't mean to make them look like they were mating, they just fell that way.

the chopsticks collection has been growing.
i am not a hoarder. i am a rather obsessive-compulsive editor of my possessions, in fact. and recently, the collection was thinned down considerably.
but things have been showing up that i can't pass by. like a cinnamon-wood, pewter-elephant adorned pair which came with another identical pair, and a little carrying case. i gave the extra pair and the carrying case to tim.


the nightmare before christmas chopsticks on ebay were impossible to resist. again, there were two pairs, and one of them -- the "sally" pair (i like "jack" better) -- is going to a co-worker who loves this movie, and has her own budding chopsticks collection.


... as far as accessories are concerned, we found these little sushi picture menu dishes, for soy sauce, at the chung may supermarket in chinatown.



... and the recent coup de grace, the 100-year old, carved jade chopsticks that we won (and were almost outbid for in the last minutes) on ebay. you know how i love to match a pair of chopsticks to just the right rest. well, i found that rest today...



... when we went to a lecture on japanese courtyard gardening at the japanese house in fairmount park.
i told ben that i was going to stay away from ebay for a little while. there IS one more pair coming, actually... oh, heck. i do often go for months and months without adding to the collection at all -- sometimes, i think, you just have to take your opportunities. i still have a pair or two of chopsticks that i wish i had gotten when i could have, and didn't, and maybe they will haunt me forever. but for this week -- i'm feeling pretty flush.

an exercise in having it all come together...
this is a favorite pair of chopsticks and a new rest, which make a good match. the rest was sent recently from a japanese knitter who needed self-patterning jacquard sock yarn, which is hard to get in japan. she sent me a number of pairs of chopsticks and rests as a trade. the rest is cement with a little patch of blue glaze.
and, i made a little arrangement from the planters outside, and put the blooms in a bud vase: larkspur, snapdragons, and a miniature rose.

last night i came out to the supper table (yes, ben had made supper), and found a little gift -- and card -- at my place.

miffy chopsticks!!!

i had a miffy book when i was very little. these are utterly adorable. what more can i say about ben? i have never been so in love.

... of course, it will remain a "work in progress", simply because i love playing with my chopsticks.
but, it was really dark back there, in the back of it. in a dark hallway. so it needed to be lightened up a little. i went to pearl and got some lovely handmade papers and lined the cabinet bottom and back...




... and here are a few of the specimens inside.

god, i am so mad that we didn't take a "before" picture of this thing. weeks and weeks of stripping, sanding... and frankly, we didn't even do a GREAT job (we did a good job, but it wasn't the kind of care i take with writing, or knitting...) and i didn't enjoy it at all. ben says he had a good time. good. now i know who to ask.

so we found this thing out in the rain one night on the corner of 12th and federal. clearly it had been the bookshelf that attached to a desk. it was covered in layers and layers of sludgy varnish. we stripped that off, added a bottom piece, and now it is home to some of my chopsticks collection. (i would never put my whole collection in the same place. that would be hoarding, not collecting.) i'm still playing around with what will go inside, but it does look pretty. i put lemon oil on the wood, so it's shinier than it was (stripping it really dried it out) and it smells nice.

i bought some maple stain for my spinning wheel. that's next, ben. mwah!

after almost 48 hours indoors, we got the car dug out and headed uptown, where we had lunch at tokyo lunchbox. then we walked over to ruka, just to peek in and see what they had. well, they had a lot. i haven't bought myself chopsticks for "no good reason" in a LONG time. i came home today with three pairs, AND one cute little chopsticks rest.
here you see the stunning bone pair, inlaid with little circles of shell or mother of pearl...


... and here are the "confetti"-like ones, with similar shiny-shell bits. here too is a closeup of that little rest. it's really no more than a bit of clay with two thumbpinches on the sides, fired and glazed. it's charming.

but these are the absolute favorites. from vietnam, in rosewood, with an inlay as well, they came in this sweet, puffy, rose-pink, silky little quilted bag. i am completely in love.

some haul!

here you see a picture of the card tim gave me for my birthday today -- a popup card featuring a deluxe sushi meal in a tatami room. there's even chopsticks! it's adorable, and perfect for me. so what is extra funny about this?

that TIM'S birthday is in ten days -- and i already have this EXACT card sitting signed and sealed in an envelope here, waiting to give to HIM!

it's also interesting to note, that years ago, on the first birthday i had when my parents separated -- the first year they gave me separate cards instead of one "mom and dad" card -- they both bought me identical cards.

loretta gave me an american express gift cheque for christmas! and i have had my eye on these metal chopsticks, from the museum shop at the philadelphia museum of art, for some time. we went and picked them up yesterday. they are the first pair of chopsticks i've gotten in a long time.

This spritely fellow supports two steel chopsticks, and wards off evil chopstick spirits. Also purchased during our visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

We bought this when we went to the Munakata Shiko exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.