End of vacation

Pre-school and kindergarten (and school in general) start from this week so I will be back to my regular busy schedule... I am looking longingly at some of the projects that got started during the days after the earthquake but I guess the going will be slow from now on. Blogging too?

I spent quite a bit of time the past month making up 48 string blocks for a donation quilt. And then I took the blocks over to Mrs. Furui's and she helped me put them together and add a very pretty border. We both spent a lot of time trying to decide how donation quilts should be quilted. Hand quilting is very nice but so time consuming... And for the string quilts, I think there is too much thickness. In the end I guess I will quilt two halves on the machine and then do some time consuming connecting on the back. That system is working out fairly well on the Alphabet Soup quilt I've been making but have yet to show connected...

Mrs. Furui has a top made for a donation quilt (doesn't she do lovely soft colors) but since she doesn't do machine quilting she will go at this by hand. I'm not offering to machine quilt it for her because I don't do so well myself (and I don't want to take responsibility for messing up her pretty quilt) and I have enough in my own piles that aren't getting done.

And mentioning machine quilting, Shasta wanted to know how I go from flower to flower on the Alphabet quilt. I don't! I just jump around from motif to motif leaving long threads behind me to clip and hide into the batting later. This jumping technique was one shown in the Happy Village book and it was eye-opening.

"Just jump to a new place? What about thread ends later? How about the quilting coming undone?"

If you do a few stitches in the same area when starting and ending a motif (or whatever it is you are quilting) then it serves as a knot. The hiding of the threads come when the quilt is taken off the machine and I'm sitting in front of the TV. This is another time consuming task but fairly relaxing. I love my "cheater needle" where the threads can just slip in from the top!

Off to the pre-school I go!

Anne of Green Gables

Margaret asked me, pretty please to show pictures of Mrs. Furui's Anne of Green Gables quilt kit that she bought so while I was visiting yesterday I took pictures... I guess this post is for Margaret.

Mrs. Furui has been working on redwork for a quilt to be donated to the hospital where she volunteers. There is a group of ladies whom I've never met, that she is guiding towards making things for the hospital. Their first project has been a redwork Anne of Green Gables.

Actually this was also a kit of stamped embroidery patterns that have sat in Mrs. Furui's closet for years and so she pulled it out and divied it up between the ladies (and me). There were 9 patterns in the first kit and most of us have finished the redwork. (I did the church.)

But somewhere along the line Mrs. Furui decided she wanted to make a bigger quilt with stars in every other block so she really needs 12 redwork designs... And there she was at a stand still until we went together to the quilt shop last week... and found a different Anne of Green Gables quilt kit, this one also red work but with the fabrics and batting and backing included. Different redwork designs so you can see Mrs. Furui's brain turning and figuring out how she could choose three more designs and incorporate them in the original project and also make a complementary quilt with this kit.


Mrs. Furui doesn't like the tipsy topsy setting in this kit but here is a picture of what the finished product is supposed to look like if she did it this way...

We laughed (Mrs. Furui noticed it before me) that the new kit has a block called "Red Hair Anne". That is surely a literal translation if ever there was one! In Japanese, the book is called Akage no Anne, (akage means red-hair), and Green Gables never gets near the title. So I guess this is an original Japanese quilt block. Red-hair Anne? I think Mrs. Furui will leave the words off of that block. Even "Anne's Country Life" in the first kit is better than that!

One of the nicest things about this kit was the backing provided... a half yard of scenic fabric depicting Prince Edward Island, the home of Anne. Unfortunately the quilt shop no longer has anymore of this fabric (just this swatch in the kit) because it was extremely popular with Green Gable fans. Can you see Anne in the buggy in the first picture?

I hope that whets your appetite for Red-Hair Anne... as they say in Japan.

Cleaning

Yesterday, two of my close friends and I got together for lunch and talked about how our lives are changing. Children grow up, husbands change jobs, parents move into convalescent homes. We first became friends when we were wandering around with big bellies and thumb sucking toddlers and now we're talking about retirement and the change of life!

Mrs. Kaneko mentioned in passing that her mother-in-law has started life in a convalescent home and it falls to her the job of cleaning out the mother-in-law's home. What a job! Eventually the house will be torn down so EVERYTHING has to go!

"Are either of you interested in some old kimonos? Tanya, you could cut them up for patchwork..."

Some people make gorgeous patchwork pieces of artwork with old kimonos. But most kimonos are silk so it is hard to use them with cottons. And kimonos have a strikingly oriental feel to them (duh!) and they don't really blend in with calicoes and homespun nor even batiks. People have given me kimonos but I never really know what to do with them. Tetsu's mother's kimonos I've turned into a couple blouses and shirts but people, while admiring them, are often horrified that I actually cut up a valuable kimono and sewed it into a vest to wear with my jeans. ARE YOU CRAZY?! Well, better than sitting in a box for decades.

So the question of whether I was interested or not is difficult to answer... but yes, let's go look at the mother-in-law's kimonos.

Mrs. Kaneko is at her wit's end just thinking about the horrendous job of gutting a two story home that the mother-in-law has lived in for 40 some years. The bedroom was lined with the old style Japanese wardrobes made just for holding kimonos. The shallow trays in the upper part are the exact size of a kimono that has been folded properly and wrapped in special kimono paper.

Mrs. Kaneko may have been overwhelmed, but Mrs. Kamiyama and I had a great time. We pulled kimono after kimono out of the drawers and laid them all on the floor and then spent quite awhile deciding what could be thrown out and what could be used.

Used? No one is going to use these kimonos. They are of the old style... nowadays the young girls, if they wear kimono at all, (to go to a wedding or a party or something), go for the flashy, cute types of kimono. And people my age hardly ever wear kimono at all. So the three of us looked sadly at the unusable kimonos and reluctantly started stuffing the ones that were stained or impractical (the pure black ones) into garbage bags.

But there were so many beauties, so many that I know were worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars! To just be tossing them out? No matter how unusable they are? I started collecting a pile of particularly pretty ones, or ones that might be resewn into something someday.

Next we got to the obi drawers. Obis are the heavy, often brocaded wide belt worn with a kimono. They do not go well in patchwork because they are so stiff and heavy (and often use metallic threads). These are in a whole class by themselves in terms of monetary worth and Mrs. Kaneko's mother had such a gorgeous collection. At one time she must have been a very fashion conscious, fairly wealthy woman to have had all these beautiful things, some of them completely untouched and still in their wrappers. And here her daughter-in-law's friends are just tossing them! Treasures are treasures to the person who values them, but to others they turn out to be excess baggage.

In the end I couldn't bear to throw away the obis. I brought them home with me!

Okay... Anyway, Mrs. Kaneko and Mrs. Kamiyama and I spent about 4 hours going through drawers and closets and cupboards tossing things right and left. All western clothes, unless they still had tags on them got tossed. (The ones with tags will go to the church.) Towels still in boxes, handkerchiefs, father-in-law's old suits (he's been gone for 18 years). Sheets, soap, costume jewelry, hand made sweaters (the mother-in-law's hobby was knitting.) So many things, and so many put away for someday use never to be released from their boxes but still stained from age. Some things there were just too many.

"How many hand towels shall we save?"

"Well since we can choose from at least 60 here I guess I'll take home these three... Take the rest to church?" (Remember we have small churches. The church may have problems figuring out what to do with them too!)

Mrs. Kaneko kept apologizing for dragging us into her cleaning job but Mrs. Kamiyama and I had a great time!

"Why is it that it is so much fun to clean someone else's house but such a drag to clean your own?"

And at the end of 4 hours, this is what our closet and drawers garbage looked like.

And this is the mountain of boxes from the extra towels and suits and handkerchiefs.

"I don't suppose you'd like to come back again and help me with the upstairs next?"

"Count us in!"

Mrs. Kamiyama is good at this. She can ruthlessly throw things away and she brought home very little.

I... on the other hand... felt I had to rescue things.... I brought home two huge bags of kimono and obi. With no plans for using them... How I wish I could find someone who would love them or at least have a way to use them... Mrs. Kaneko suggested I hide the bags from Tetsu... He would NOT be pleased that I was bringing junk home. But actually he thought it good of me to realize their beauty and want to use them. And they really are worth a fortune...

So here is the contents of the obi bag. I'm not even going to try to show all the kimonos I brought home.

Aren't some of these gorgeous? Now what should I do with them?

Pink!

Yes, more aftershocks for us in Japan last night. I got on the computer this morning and some of you had already heard about them! We have had daily aftershocks ever since March 11, but last night's sent people scrambling all over again.

At nearly 12:00 pm, I was of course, already asleep when the shaking started. A couple cats bolted from under the blankets and with whiskers quivering stood in the hallway trying to figure out where might be safe. Safe is under the covers with me! Standing in the middle of the hallway with books raining down on you (or worse) is not safe! I fumbled around for my glasses in the dark but decided that it really was safer to stay where I was. I could imagine a tree from the forest crashing through the window but otherwise we've taken most things off the shelves (except for the books which we'd put back) so there was little to fall on me. Trying to go downstairs like the cats could entail a tumble or coming into contact with furniture so I hunkered down in bed again (with glasses on). Tetsu finally came up annoyed at me because I wasn't even going to look terrified.

"Aren't you even going to get up?"

Nope. And pretty soon the cats came back to cuddle up beside me.

Tetsu stayed in front of the TV again most of the night watching the updates and all TV was back on emergency programing. For many people along the eastern coastline, their night's sleep was interrupted by a flee to higher ground for an hour. This morning all seems normal again.

********

I have a close high school friend whom I see every summer and though she is not a bit interested in quilting, in the past she has dropped me off at her neighborhood quilt shop so that I could enjoy myself. Jane was one of the first people to e-mail me and find out if we were alright.



Tuesday, the mailman delivered a box from Jane, and what do you think was inside? White thread! Jane must have read my post about being a quilter without white thread during an earthquake disaster and gone to the quilting store for me. And not only was there thread, look at all the beautiful fabric Jane sent! I think those colors could be described as SCRUMPTIOUS!

Last week someone told me that the children in the evacuation centers tend not to use pink crayons yet because pink is a happy color. Well, my next donation quilt is going to be made from this beautiful fabric and it is going to have a lot of pink in it!!! I just love the lacy watermelons!!!

Jane sure knows how to brighten a stranded quilter's life!

Shopping

I was out and about early yesterday morning and needed to stop at the department store. I got there just as it was opening and we customers filed in and scattered down different aisles and into different departments. I wish I had the courage to whip out my camera and right out take pictures but I have a feeling the department store wouldn't like that... Anyway, on the sly I got a quick shot of one of the clerks standing at attention and bowing deeply to customers as they walked past her. (Can you see her there on the right?) Clerks were lined up on both sides of the aisle (throughout the whole store) and bowing to me as if I were the Queen of England or something.

"Thank you... Thank you. Yes, good servants, I will deign you with my presence in your department store. Too bad I don't have a lot of money in my handbag."

I bought a couple graduation presents and some cakes.

Isn't this the cutest thing? I was invited to lunch at the graduating student's house and I thought I should at least bring dessert, thus the cake. I bought enough for a group of us and the dining room table was infested with ladybugs!

This I did NOT see at the department store (but if I'd looked I probably could have found it.) I saw this advertisement on TV the other day and took a picture of the TV screen. I find this hilarious. How about this for the latest outdoor fashion?!

Up until last year, the deep hat and a full face visor was popular. This is to protect delicate skin from UV rays. I have actually seen people walking around with the full face visor and they look like something out of Star Wars. This year's fashion is complete with sun glasses and a face guard... Now I understand that in some countries the women wear similar arrangements for religious reasons... But this is Japan! And I think the new fashion, although still promoting skin care, is actually the fashionable way to deal with possible radiation fallout... If you want to be that careful.

Black or white? Can you see yourself garbed in such for a walk in the park?

Hawaiian quilt block

Yesterday was my Tuesday ladies' first English class. As usual we did more talking that "studying". These ladies have been coming to my house each week for years and years and we drink lots of coffee, I make cookies or cake and they bring chocolates and crackers. Occasionally we open a book and actually study.

Yesterday the conversation was about where we were during the earthquake and what we have been thinking and doing since then. Eiko-san's son's family lives in Sendai so she's been up there once bringing necessities to them. The people up north, even the ones who have returned to their homes, are still living on the edge... no gas, not enough gasoline, some food products unavailable.

So, we five ladies talked about how we've been feeling and what we can do to make things better. Most of us figure that we're all old enough that the radiation scare doesn't affect us... though we all know people who have left the area for "safer" places.

As to what one can do... well, we can donate money. Money is what is needed most of all right now and on the weekend there have been volunteers from Red Cross standing at strategic places in the city and at department store entrances asking for donations. I think this is a good time to keep my wallet free from change. Whatever I've bought the change just goes directly into the donation box.

The most interesting suggestion was:

"Go about life as normal. Go shopping and buy lots. Go out to eat for lunch."

On the surface, this seems contrary to solving the problem of need. When I stopped at Starbucks the other day I felt GUILTY!

"I should not be spending this money. I should have tossed more money in a donation box and skipped coffee." (which still may be true...)

I've felt that way about a lot of things recently. I shouldn't spend this much money on fabric. Nice pair of pants? No. Don't buy unnecessary things when there are 10s of thousands of people going without. So the suggestion to "go shopping and buy lots." threw me off guard.

Yet, it is true, the economic situation in Japan is definitely in a downhill spiral. People can't/don't buy from farmers... Things made in other parts of Japan can't be manufactured because parts were supplied from northern Japan. Stores have less people, the movement of money is slow. (I hated my economics class in college so I'm not trying to understand all this.) But the idea to buy makes sense. Buy and help the shopkeeper who can help the suppliers who can help someone else higher up in the chain.

And since so many places have signs up saying that they are donating a certain percent of their profits to Japan's relief fund, patronizing those places give Japan a double boost of energy.

My resolve for the week is not to feel guilty and go around counting pennies (yen)!

********

And in yesterday's class, Kaoru-san had something beautiful to show for three weeks closed up in her home. Because the news was depressing she turned off the TV and concentrated on hand quilting her Hawaiian quilt block!!!

I imagine I have made Kaoru-san feel guilty every time I asked about what happened to that Hawaiian quilt block that she started three years ago. Kaoru-san did not own a needle nor thread when she first started patchwork and I know it is not a great love of hers. (I think she does patchwork to make me happy.) But over the many years she has completed two or three large wall hangings and has helped me on projects at church.

Now wouldn't you agree that Kaoru-san's quilting is stunning and that the Hawaiian quilt block is gorgeous!!!?!

YEAH, KAORU-SAN!!!!

A trip to the vet

Choco and Vel went to the vets this weekend. Both for routine vaccines. Oh, how they hate the vet! (and he's such a nice man too.) The minute I got Vel into the car he started up a racket that continued the 30 minutes to the next town. Remember the post about evacuating with your animals? I can not image trying to live with ONE cat in a car for weeks on end let alone 6! ONE cat's racket has me batty after the 30 minute drive.

Choco on the other hand enjoys the drive. TOO MUCH! She jumps around the car until it is dangerous to drive with her so I tied her into the back luggage area... There she is with her 15 pound bag of dog food (and a bag of recyclable milk cartons). Drivers behind us waved to her which she acknowledged by licking the back window. I've tried dog seat belts and barriers but she just moves around and paws at me too much. What she'd really like is to stick her head out of the window and let her ears flap (like Rose on the Titanic) but it's too cold for that. I'm not freezing my fingers off so that my dog can pretend she's a sea captain.

So a quick trip to the vet and back. 5 more animals to go. Their vaccines are due later in the year.

Convalescent home

This weekend I stopped at Tetsu's convalescent home (and took him a Starbuck's coffee). He wanted to show me the new bath area that the convalescent home has just put in. Japanese baths are not a thrilling topic for today's post but Tetsu is proud of the area and thought I should take pictures.

The convalescent home where Tetsu works is rather stark and institutional... It is a fairly old building and subsidized by the prefecture but they are trying to make it more pleasant and the management started with the bathing area.

Some specialist spent years researching how to care for the elderly and handicapped and allow them to enjoy Japanese bathing without all the machines and lifts and mechanics that in the past have been involved.

This LOOKS like a simple bathtub etc. but actually the HEIGHT of the tub and chair and knobs, the PLACEMENT of hand rails, the SHAPE of the hand rails, the SLANT of the floor, the SMELL of the wood, the AIR FLOW have all been analyzed and adjusted for maximum ease and safety for the residents. And of course the staff have been trained and led through a choreograph of movements and positions that allows them to safely bathe residents and ease them into and lift them out of the deep wooden tubs without harming their own backs.

Three years went into developing the three bathing rooms (two single tubs and one large tub for two or three people to use at once... a Japanese custom). The whole thing is designed so that the people taking a bath won't feel like they are in an institution but rather visiting a relaxing hot spa someplace.


There is a waiting room where the waiting residents in their wheelchairs are served tea (a flat TV on the opposite wall) and a changing room. One of the next steps is going to be having the outside area landscaped.

And on the other side of the building is an area for video viewing and even an esthetician's chair. (And there is an esthetician on the staff!)

Slowly convalescent homes are changing in Japan for the better and I think it shows in Tetsu's pride.

Alabama Beauty blocks

Oh dear... Today's going to be short. Tetsu and I have "chatted" with Leiya for the last two hours on the computer and now we've got to get our day started. It is so nice to be able to just sit down with a cup of coffee (on this side of the world) and me sew while Tetsu gives fatherly advice to Leiya about looking for jobs or telling her how the Japanese work force is organized. A little father-daughter time.

I spent at least two hours sewing backing and basting the last quarter of my Alphabet Soup quilt (I wish I'd find a different name). You'd think that basting a quilt wouldn't take so long but what with sewing together backing scraps (yes, it is going to be a patchwork back too. Not planned that way but that's how it is working out) and trying to gather up enough safety pins, and where there wasn't enough getting down with good ol' basting thread. So THAT took a lot of the afternoon with nothing to show for it.

When I'm downstairs and in the kotatsu (and chatting with Leiya), I'm doing hand sewing on the Alabama Beauty blocks. I started this last spring and did quite a few blocks when I was in the States over the summer. Gradually this has been forgotten while I've been machine piecing and quilting but what with the earthquake and being housebound, I managed to piece these five blocks during the quiet hours.

I have 23 blocks done with no plans for putting them together. You'd think a person would do things with more purpose...

It's Sunday. Off to church we go!

Donation quilts

I've had questions again about donation quilts coming to Japan.

Wow, I never knew so many issues and opinions could come up over a simple wish to do good.

Many quilters (and knitters and sewers) are making items to send to Japan... I'm going to group these all together and call these donation quilts (though not all are quilts). The problem is, and always is, how to get the quilts where they are needed. The next problem is the cost of transporting the quilts from the quilters to the people they are intended for.

This may make people sad, but a quilt right now is not really "needed" in the sense that food and warmth and money is needed for evacuees' survival. Quilts are beautiful, comforting, and cheering but for northern Japan's weather, not particularly warm. Still, we all know that a quilt will encourage a child who has lost everything else, and give strength to a mother who takes comfort in knowing that someone cares about her and her baby. So quilts are important!

I'm afraid that just making quilts is not enough. It costs money to send the quilts and this is where a lot of us draw a line.

"The making of the quilts should be enough. Someone else, the government, the freight company, the Red Cross, should assume the shipping costs."

Maybe it should be that way but it isn't and when you think about it the government doesn't have money to get the country running again let alone assume shipping costs. Maybe the Red Cross too... I don't know about freight companies.

Quilt Tsushin, the magazine that is the Japanese door for quilters to send their donation quilts to, is asking quilters to assume shipping fees... which aren't too much if you live in the country and are donating one or two or five quilts. If you live outside of Japan and are planning to donate 100 quilts or more than this is going to be a tremendous cost... and some of you are having trouble getting your quilts to Japan.

I wrote to Quilt Tsushin yesterday and this morning received a nice e-mail from them. They are grateful for all the support of quilters all over the world. They, however can not assume shipping fees for quilts being sent to Japan. They suggest that American quilters send their quilts to Quilt Newsletter which seems to be collecting quilts and will send them to Quilt Tsushin. The only other suggestion would be to "mail" quilts to the Japanese government or the Japanese Self Defense Force as relief supplies. How you do that, I don't know... Quilts sent as relief supplies might not need shipping fees. But remember, quilts sent to the government might not ever get anywhere beyond boxes in storage. Not too many of the Self Defense Force units are going to appreciate the quilts or know how or who should get them... They would probably never get into Quilt Tsushin's hands.

Quilt Tsushin will take care that quilts they receive are used appropriately... babies would get baby quilts, children would get children's quilts, in evacuation centers no child would get left out etc... They can assure that the giving of quilts would be fair, so they still recommend sending the quilts directly to them or to the American Quilt Newsletter magazine.

That was what their nice letter said.

On the Quilt Tsushin website (again in Japanese) they ask for understanding that donation quilts will be used to provide comfort and support to evacuees. Over long term this may mean that money will be raised using the quilts.

Does everybody understand that? It means Quilt Tsushin has two goals. One, to give evacuees quilts that will provide comfort and, two, to raise money to help evacuees. So your quilt might be appreciated by a wanting Japanese child, (which I think is what we all imagine) or your quilt might be auctioned off at a charity rally (they didn't really say that but that's what I'm thinking) and money raised would be given to relief work.

For me it doesn't really matter. If a child would use my quilt then I am happy. If in an auction somebody bought my quilt for $30 or $40 then I would be happy too.

I finished making my first donation quilt for Japan yesterday. It is not very large... I decided I want to make others rather than work on a big one. Although my meandering stitch isn't great, it is passable. I used Sew Create It's idea and quilted in butterflies.

I will be sending it to Quilt Tsushin.

Government

A few people have asked about what the Japanese people think of the way the Japanese government is handling the nuclear situation. Remember... talking politics is treading dangerous waters. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me but here goes.

The Japanese government is normally in a state of flux. The Prime Minister changes so often that it is hard to keep up with who is now in charge... or rather which party is now in charge. The two major parties are constantly bickering, constantly trying to drag the other party off the pole and then there is more bickering and splitting into sanctions within the parties so that I can't keep it all straight. Whenever a Prime Minister changes (after a few months they give up or are crushed by scandals... scandals suddenly discovered by the opposing party) then the whole cabinet changes. Ministers get moved around. Last month's Welfare Minister is this month's Commerce Minister. What I'm saying is, that from my dumb foreigner position it seems like there is no professional in charge of anything. They haven't had time to learn the ropes let alone put their specialty (if they have one) into action.

So. Right now Japan is in a state of emergency. There are a couple of new ministers that I hadn't been aware of that are now playing center stage. The Prime Minister has spoken to the people asking for patience and trust and cooperation. Sort of the normal leadership speech. But the current Prime Minister is criticized for his poor leadership abilities (so were the last 4 prime ministers). Anyway, the reports from the government about the nuclear situation in Fukushima is that things are bad, the radiation levels are high, but outside of the 20 kilometer zone, that the rest of the population is not in danger.

Do the Japanese people trust their government? That is the question.

Okay, I know what I think. I've asked Tetsu his opinion. I've talked with a few housewives and English students. By far the most interesting opinion was Mr. Furui's (he's a physicist). But remember... all of us are the people who have chosen to stay in the immediate area... which means we trust the government. Those people who have left for other parts of Japan obviously do not trust the reports given by the Japanese government.

So all of us (including Mr. Furui) think that while the Japanese government is somewhat ineffectual, extremely slow to made decisions, and doesn't have a lot of power to get things in motion; we do NOT think that it is dishonest.

So, the answer is that yes, the people residing in Japan basically trust the government. We do not think dangers are being hidden from us. In this day and age, there are too many ways for the public to get live information from the Internet and that there are too many scientists and experts that are on the TV analyzing information and applying it, to make it possible for the wool to be pulled over our eyes. There is a government subsidised broadcasting station (NHK) that specializes in news but there are other private TV broadcasting stations that freely criticize the way things are being handled. We do not believe that our news is being filtered as we have heard it is done in China and North Korea.

However, trusting the government and having confidence in it are two different things.

...In my humble opinion. (I've never been too interested in the way the Japanese government works.)

(Picture from the Internet.)