The Japanese Festival 2016

The Japanese Festival. This year it was different, still amazingly fun, but different.
The night before we didn't stay up past midnight finishing costumes, but Erentry, my little sister, and I had costumes all the same. (Tori decided to forgo dressing up the year.)

Myself as Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, My sister as Totoro from My Neighbour Totoro, Erentry as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service.

How did we manage to finish these fabulous costumes without pulling an all nighter? We got smart this year. Once a week, every week, Erentry and I got together to sew. She got most of her dress done this way. She worked on her accessories in her spare time.

The morning of the Japanese Festival she attached the cat, Gigi, to the shoulder of her dress with magnets and her costume was good to go! Being the excellent friend that she is, Erentry even finished the ears for my little sister's Totoro costume before we left that morning.

Thanks to these weekly sewing get togethers I got my hat finished over a week in advance.

It started out as a straw hat I wore for the Anne of Green Gables play I was a part of in high school.

I de-trimmed it, soaked it in water to reshape it, and fixed any holes I found with a zig-zag stitch.

Then, armed with a hot glue gun, I re-trimmed it with red ribbon and "berries" made out of Model Magic.

Hat done over a week in advance, dress done before midnight the night before, there was only one thing left to throw together the morning of the festival.

 I needed something attach my water bottle and parasol to. So, I quickly sewed up a belt out of my dress fabric. It did it's job well.

We were off to the Japanese Festival, much less sleep deprived than normal! We had a smaller group this year. my family came for the afternoon, but neither Tori's nor Erentry's family joined us like they usually do. It was strange to have such a small group, but we still had fun. 

We got to see Japanese storytelling, a fancy drum show, and Bon Odori dancing.

The Bon Odori Dancers. This is always a fun thing to see, because after watching a few dances the audience is invited to join in!

Since Erentry's mom, our unofficial photographer, wasn't with us this year Erentry took over as Camera person.

After the activities we wandered around the gardens for a while then ended the day by watching paper lanterns get released onto the lake. (absolutely beautiful, but very hard to get good pictures of.)

So that was it, our 7th Japanese Festival. Different than past years but no less enjoyable.