I recently purchased (or had purchased for me, for my birthday! ) this amazing Japanese stitch dictionary from Amazon Japan:
I’d wanted it for quite some time and it is the most perfect gift ever. With a little research I discovered it is a fraction of the price to buy it online directly from Japan, even with the shipping, and then to make matters even more thrilling, I now get regular emails from Japanese Amazon with knitting book suggestions!
Check out these new tempting beauties I’ve just seen:
Apparently there is a a new Isager book coming out soon featuring some interesting entrelac projects!
And taking it back to the home country:
This one once again makes me bemoan that I’d can’t make heads or tails of the Japanese sewing book and patterns I already have:
I could spend hours just going through the ‘people who bought this product also bought‘ suggestions and through the ‘look inside’ pages!
Look at what is inside the new Fall No.163 DAMA issue!
Azayakana! (brilliant!) ;-D
From the Purl Side 
It’s really cheaper to buy from Amazon Japan? Even to the UK? Even with shipping and customs charges?!
I’m a student of the Japanese language and you know what, I’d never considered to attempt to buy from Amazon Japan. I think I will consider it now! Those look like amazing books, and I love the simple elegance of Japanese fashion. 🙂
Anyhow if you need help figuring anything out, maybe I could be of assistance. Any excuse for a bit of vocab building!
Aw, thank you! That is so sweet of you!
For me it is more a fact of the pattern bit at the back and that they are all overlapping. My brain can’t seem to make head or tails of which bit belongs to what, but maybe I was just freaking out a bit when I first saw it. I should just try tracing the bits and see what happens instead of having a melt down. ;-D
It is cheaper. I couldn’t believe it myself. I had seen the book in London for £85 and thought I would check amazon.jp on a whim. Ended up costing £45 or so with shipping and conversion. And Chrome will translate the Japanese automatically anyway, so it is quite easy to navigate! Almost TOO easy, if you know what I mean. Ahem. Heh.
I would check it out. You can find all the dictionaries on there 100- 300 – 500 and the amazon suggester thing will show them below as you are looking at the 1000! BRILLIANT.