This week­end we’re going to see the cher­ry blos­soms at High Park! I just found out that cher­ry-blos­som-view­ing is called hana­mi in Japan­ese. I also heard that part of the cus­tom is eat­ing saku­ra mochi, and my wasashi chron­i­cles has a recipe for it (that’s where I got this love­ly pic­ture too!). The rice is pink and it’s filled with red bean paste and it’s so cute-look­ing! I’d love to try one if I have a chance!

If I were more culi­nar­i­ly skilled I would hap­pi­ly pack a pic­nic with saku­ra mochi and oni­giri and oth­er cute-look­ing ben­to items (this blog post has some great exam­ples, and bizarre ones as well…) for this week­end. But I have much more patience for cro­chet­ing than cook­ing, so I decid­ed to make a saku­ra mochi pin to wear to the hanami!

TA-DA!

Saku­ra mochi is extra spe­cial because in the process of mak­ing it I actu­al­ly took the time to write down the pat­tern. SO! This will be the first time I write up a pat­tern and share it (by post­ing it here and on Rav­el­ry). I haven’t had time to type it out prop­er­ly yet (right now it’s all scrib­bles and made-up charts that only I can under­stand), but I’m very excit­ed! Mind you, it’s a super sim­ple straight­for­ward pat­tern. If you know how to cro­chet you would prob­a­bly fig­ure it out just by look­ing at the pic­ture. But still, it’s a step for­ward — who knows what it will lead to?

That reminds me, I recent­ly came across this web­site called Puri­cute via MEOMI (the bril­liant peo­ple who cre­at­ed the Olympic mas­cots!). It’s like mak­ing stick­er pic­tures with­out hav­ing to go to Pacif­ic Mall! I even found a hana­mi-themed back­ground! And there are stamps! The ran­dom sparkles and small oni­giri are stamps. I know, the pic­ture is sooo over­done — but the stamps are far too much fun, I could­n’t help myself!

Pray­ing for good weath­er this week­end! The weath­er net­work said there’s 60% chance of rain :( But they’re hard­ly ever accu­rate, aren’t they? Enjoy the cher­ry blos­soms or oth­er bloom­ing trees wher­ev­er you are! :D