Quilting stage

Our bazaar quilt is at the quilting stage!!!

It is all in one piece and it looks great! Today six of us gathered at Mrs. Furui's house and we laid out the quilt in her tatami room and basted it down. Six pairs of hands make for fast work! Two ladies threaded basting needles and four ladies crawled around on the floor basting. Some quilts we've made we had a lot of decorative quilting to do, but this one is busy enough that we will just stitch-in-the-ditch and do a small heart within the hearts. There are 24 blocks so by our calculations, if each one of us takes the quilt for a week and quilts four blocks a week, we'll have the main part quilted by the beginning of July (such positive thinking!) We tend to put our quilts away during the summer and bring them out again in September but I think we shouldn't be too pressured this year. Mrs. Ochiai has the quilt this week. I get it next week.

What else to tell you about? Mrs. Ide came yesterday and showed us some lovely little cafe aprons she'd made from kimono fabric. So of course I decided I'd like to do that (still have some of Mrs. Yano's kimono fabric) and today she brought me some brightly colored kimono fabric to use with the drab green I have. Don't let me start another project! But doesn't this look tempting? I think I could do that without too much trouble...

It is getting hot around here and so Choco doesn't get to go riding in the car very much anymore. I feel bad leaving her in the yard alone for most of the day but she has a nice cool place to view the world. I wouldn't mind sitting in the shade and not running around like a crazy woman!