Earlier this year we announced a search for employees for our web site in New Spaces and New Faces.  Now we're happy to introduce our new friend Mari Kirsten, who responded to the post and quickly joined Jen at the website!  We asked Mari to tell us more about her craft experiences, which are highly influenced by her Japanese heritage.  She'll be sharing some of her favorite Japanese crafts with us here on The Purl Bee, beginning with Mari's Bias Tape Purse with Zipper!

Here's a note from Mari:

My love of crafting has come relatively later in life than other members of my family but I continue a long and proud tradition of Japanese crafting.  My grandmother went to knitting and crocheting school as a teen; one of my cousins makes natural-dyed fabric; another cousin is a jewelry designer; and my mom does a little bit of everything: sewing, crocheting, knitting, and graphic design. 

My mother's family all live in Japan, and as I've gotten older, I try to go as often as I can.  I've been there three times in the last seven years, the most recent trip back in May. My parents were both born in Japan but my father is half Russian and half Japanese.  My sisters and I were all born in California and grew up speaking Japanese.  

We also went to Japanese school on Saturdays through high school.  Although we hated going (we never got to watch Saturday morning cartoons!) we've learned to appreciate the fact that we can read and write some Japanese.  Japanese has a very complicated writing system with two alphabets. To read a newspaper, one must know over 2000 Chinese characters (each character usually has two pronunciations and/or meanings on top of that!).  I probably only have a third grade reading level; however, I manage to get through a Japanese craft book with very little struggle, mainly because of wonderful graphic instructions they have.

As I've become more adept at crafting, I've started to really admire and respect the characteristics of Japanese craft.  To me, Japanese craft is characterized by meticulous detail, thoughtful design, and "cuteness"!  The most important lesson I've learned from Japanese crafting is to take my time, and to enjoy the process just as much as the product.

I've learned many techniques and, through my posts,  I hope to inspire some of you to take a minute to enjoy crafting the Japanese way.  You might think that bias tape is a strange subject for my first tutorial, but it is used in so many different ways in Japanese crafting that I have two or three more bias tape projects that I am planning to share you in the future.  I hope you enjoy my first project journal, Mari's Bias Tape Purse with Zipper!