Quilting the "Fire"

I have been quilting on the Fiery Starr quilt when I get a chance to go up to the sewing room.  Let's see... I have 48 squares that will need to be quilted...  I think I have 14 done.  This is going to be a L~O~N~G~~~  process...

Yesterday (and today) I find Chip upstairs holding my quilt down.  Is this just a warm place for her to sit in the mornings or is she expecting me to sit down to some quilting?

The flower quilting is going along smoothly...

The wedge-shaped areas are giving me a challenge.  I'm back to feathers but I wanted the spine of the feathers to go in a different direction so I ripped out my first try and now am happy with the placement.  But MAKING those feathers are a dilly.  It goes without saying that when I think I will make a certain shaped feather, that my hands don't go the way I want.  I THOUGHT I was going to get 9 feathers to a wedge but some of my wedges have 8 feathers, some have 10.  THIS SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD!

 

And do you realize that there are 4 directions that I can quilt a wedge?  I can start from the small triangle at the BOTTOM and work up with the feather pointing towards me...

 

Or I can start from the small triangle at the TOP and work down with the feather pointing away from me....

Or... I can start from the wide part of the wedge at the TOP and work up with the feathers pointing away from me... or I can start from the wide part of the wedge at the BOTTOM and work up with the feathers pointing towards me.  (That DIDN'T work out so well, so no pictures of those two attempts.)

There is probably a correct way to do this...  But as far as I've gotten, I get less confused if I start at the small end of the wedge and work either down or up...  ARGHH!!! 

 

And I am afraid to stop when I get started because I get in a rhythm... but the next time I sit down I'm lost all over again...

To post or not to post...

Am I going to post today or not...?  Hmmm..  That is the question...

Last weekend, Tetsu and I went downtown.  We wandered around the main street for awhile looking for a place to enjoy a coffee or ice cream (we opted for ice cream).  We found an ice cream stand and then took our ice creams to a nearby stage area near the town square.  Some group of young girls were singing and dancing on stage and there were quite a few people listening and enjoying the music.  I looked around us and noticed a few booths selling things like drinks and pop corn, hand made crafts and... gulp... cond-ms.

"WHAT?!"

A closer look (from afar) and I noticed a giant cond-m object next to the booth.  I nudged Tetsu.

"Look over there.  Is that what I think it is?"

 

Actually it really wasn't as out of place as I thought.  The program this day in the town square was STOP AIDS sponsored by the Rotary Club.  And a very reserved looking lady was manning the cond-m booth while a few proper looking gentlemen sat around and chatted.  Tetsu laughed and dared me to take a picture... So I did.

"It doesn't look like the booth is getting much action does it?"

But a few minutes later we watched as a older man spent a lot of time looking at the box labels and asking for information.  The reserved looking lady politely sold her wares...

The next day, I was telling my friend (my age) about my find at the town square and she remarked that she and her husband had passed the same place earlier in the day...  And the Rotary people were PASSING OUT cond-ms!

"...But no one offered us any..."

(I'm sorry... I'm being really crass... Will you look at the name of the tent in the blue corner...  Someone might have used a tent with a different name...)

Late afternoon

I would rather be taking a walk like I did earlier this week... But I'm off for a day of work.

Autumn quilts

I changed the quilts in my house yesterday.  I don't remember when I put up the last batch but they must have been there since before summer.  I've shown all these quilts at one time or another on my blog but I guess I'll give you a review.

 

This beauty was not made by me.  I won it in a quilt raffle at a quilt show in my mother's hometown. It is all hand quilted.  Over the years though I notice that the fabrics are bleeding a bit into the background.  Maybe the hand dyed fabrics weren't washed first?  I'll have to see if I can get some dye remover again...

 

The applique is exquisite on this quilt.  There are absolutely no stitches visible at all.  Mrs. Ochiai has suggested I tear out a bit just to see if we can figure out how the stitches were hidden...

  

I made this Wheel of Mystery a few years ago and enjoyed the process of designing the piece placement and bringing the circles into the border.  This was made of batiks from my stash and though it doesn't show the usual contrast in piece placement, I was really going for a mysterious look.  I quilted this on the machine using a walking foot...  I'll probably never do that again!  Too much shifting of the fabrics and they tended to bunch.
 

 

This piece was designed by my friend Mrs. Okutomi.  She was making lots of stained glass type quilts and I wanted to try my hand at it.  Mrs. Okutomi sent me all her fabric and the pattern and I hand stitched the black bias tape to the pieces.  I hadn't started doing machine quilting yet either, so I stitched in the ditch and randomly in the open spaces.

 

And my Halloween quilt pattern was also sent to me by Mrs. Okutomi.  This was a paper piece pattern, BUT I DIDN'T PAPER PIECE IT!  Oh, I TRIED!  But even though Mrs. Okutomi had shown me the process, my brain couldn't figure it out when I was on my own...  I DESTROYED that paper pattern!  Finally I retraced the pattern on cardboard and cut out all the tiny triangles and hand pieced the quilt.  It was headache but I had to congratulate myself on not chucking the whole thing out the window!  (Can't waste fabric you know.)  Many years later, I HAVE learned how to paper piece.

My house has a bit of an autumn feel to it now!

Swimming

As some of you may remember... I joined the "gym" last March.  It isn't really a gym.  It is a very nice, 25 meter length, indoor swimming pool made for walkers, not really for lap swimming or for children playing.  I don't say much about my swimming because I was taught that if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all.  I decided not to complain about my swimming but I really don't much like it... The pool is nice, it isn't far away, but I guess I just don't like doing exercise in general.

"Grumble, grumble, complain, complain.  Am I going to the swimming pool today?  I guess I am... I don't have a great excuse not to."

Happily, I can only fit one or two swimming sessions into my week.  Well, better than nothing!  But still... I felt like a hamster going back and forth doing lap after lap, wearing myself out just splashing away.

"Oh good.  I've done 30 laps.  I am out of here!"

There must be some way to get more enjoyment out of swimming than the way I'm doing it.

I went to the Internet hoping to find a swimming schedule or motivating lap log or something.  Instead I found a website called Total Immersion.  Hmm.  Interesting.  It talked about a whole new way of swimming... without wearing yourself out... without worrying about counting laps.

"Swim like a fish... Gracefully, effortlessly, beautifully."

I downloaded the website book on my Kindle and have been reading about swimming, studying illustrations, going to the pool and doing the recommended drills.  It gives me something to focus on rather than how many laps...

Swim gracefully.

Yes?  Well, I've always known how to swim.  (Southern California girl with a swimming pool in her family's backyard.)  And remember, I HAD been swimming about 30 laps each time I went to the pool.

But since I've been reading my book, I've gone back to level one and am trying to learn to "Balance in the water" and "Lie on your lungs".  New phrases and new techniques.  I swim on my side trying to "Pierce the water".  More often I sink.

Swim effortlessly.

As the drills progress, other techniques are added.  "Core propulsion"  "Two beat kick".  I sputter and get confused and come up coughing.  

The other day a man stopped me and asked me WHAT I was doing?

"You are obviously trying to do something.  I've been watching you."

I explained the theory as well as I could... remember though, I am a bit confused myself.

Swim beautifully.

And last week when I was trying to coordinate the timing of breathing and arm recovery, someone else stopped me too.

"Did you hurt your shoulder?  You've been swimming here quite awhile but recently you seem  a bit awkward and jerky."

I explained again.

Obviously I haven't mastered the swimming beautifully part yet.   One of these days the life guard may have to save me.

Paper Artist

Yesterday, Tetsu took me to an exhibit being held at one of the department stores in the next city over.  Often the better Japanese department stores will have event rooms where different exhibits will be displayed for a couple of weeks throughout the year.  Yesterday's diorama exhibit (tickets are sold at the door) was held by the paper artist, Takashi Ota.  SPECTACULAR!!!  I can't say when I've enjoyed looking at something so much!  And we were allowed to take photos!!!  A double enjoyment!

 

I got up close for most of my photos just because I wanted to capture the DETAIL given.  Some of the dioramas were in acrylic boxes, which were a bit harder to photograph, but some were really within reaching distance (but NO TOUCHING) and I could get practically into the scene itself.  But still, photos do not convey the detail in each work of art.  Every little thing in the dioramas are made of paper.  I mean, the lettering on the t-shirts, the background.  Everything!  There is nothing drawn! And the dimension is amazing!

 

You can see, that the top photo is just a small clip of the larger diorama.  Maybe the story is supposed to be of tourists in their modern sports car stopping to take a cell phone picture in front of an old traditional hot spa.  Children and their father are hurrying to go take a bath, a young couple are double riding a bicycle, people are sitting at the curb chatting, a delivery boy is making the rounds delivering bottles of beer on his bicycle.  Old and new mixed together.

 

This gives you an idea of the size of the dioramas...  I could hardly show how beautiful each of them were if I were to try to get the whole scene into one picture.  So all the rest of the pictures I took are close-ups... one tiny part of the story taking place in each diorama.  If you feel inclined, click on my photos and you can get even closer into the scenes.

Even those stones in the wall are each made of paper.

 

The artist did a lot of scenes from nostalgic Japan, but he has traveled the world and put famous cities and scenery to paper too.  I think this is supposed to be from somewhere in Italy...  I wanted to show how each of the letters on that sign is cut out of paper also.

I think the artist started out making paper car dioramas and most of the ones we saw yesterday had a car or vehicle of some sort in the scene.  And almost every scene had a dog or two in it also.

 

 And it really was amazing to see the expression on each figure's face.  Remember... these are all TINY!!!

 

I liked shot of the high school baseball player (talking to a high school girl in uniform) because the figure has his name, Watanabe, on his baseball uniform.  (Our last name is Watanabe.  This might have been Tetsu in his baseball playing days.)

 

So many dogs in all the dioramas, but this sweetheart was the closest to Choco that I could find.  Yeah.. that looks a bit like a Dalmation (and Choco isn't a true Dalmation anyway.)

 

And this scene made me laugh out loud!  Now those are obviously American children on an American school bus!

And I found this video on the Internet.  Check out how a photographer uses lighting to change the mood of each of the scenes.

What's this?

Do you know what this is?

Last night Y-kun brought me pumpkins, eggplant, chili peppers, cucumbers, beans, chestnuts and THIS!  

 

He was so happy with himself.

   

 Y-kun still brings me things weekly.  In the summer months it has been vegetables and let me tell you, Tetsu and I are eating well!  I think Y-kun must go out to his grandfather's field and pull up vegetables himself because he always arrives at my house sprinkling dirt here and there and his hands are FILTHY!  He has definitely learned the English phrase,

"Please wash your hands!"

This is ginger.  Wow, I have bought ginger but hadn't realized how these little nubs can be used.  Y-kun claimed that his grandparents eat the nubs raw with miso (fermented bean paste) spread on them.  

"Okay...  Let's try it."

And we did.  

"Wow!  That ginger packs a strong punch!!!"

Y-kun gasped and asked for a drink of water.  

"How can my grandparents eat this stuff?"

I don't think I'm going to eat raw ginger much either.  This ginger will find its way into my cooking.

 

I gave Y-kun my camera (a teacher has to trust her student... even if he is a hyper) and he took some pictures, including the top photo by holding the ginger up with one hand.  Pretty good picture, huh!  (And I took this picture of Y-kun with my little Sony that is slowly giving out...)

Practicing

In the evenings I am hand quilting.  So that means that during the day I am machine quilting.... or at least I felt I should be.

But if I don't know what I'm quilting then I can't do very much, can I?    I need a PLAN~!

Okay... I have a 4 1/2 inch square. What am I going to quilt in it?

I checked out my old quilting books...  I checked out machine quilting on the Internet.  But it seems like most of the design and motif quilting is done by long arm machine and I'm using a domestic machine.  I checked out the famous domestic machine quilters and got some ideas... but I don't really want to do filler quilting.

I played around on the white board.  What is that?  Can I do that?  Well, I'd better try.

I always have a practice sandwich ready for auditioning patterns and threads.  I drew in a 4 1/2 inch square and tried my hand. 

No...  Some of that is too detailed... And I get confused with the number of loops and petals.

Try again... Simple designs?  Boring. 

Enclosed in a circle?  No.  Just one more place to make errors obvious. 

I marked the square with more lines to keep me focused and came up with a fair "flower".  Did I really want flowers on this quilt?  But it works out... 

I also auditioned threads and though I have always had good results with the Japanese Miro prism threads, I did buy an expensive spool of variegated yellow Superior thread at the Long Beach quilt show this summer.  I think I'll use the yellow...  The feathers won't show up much in the colored wedges but it sure will make the center flower pop!  (Good or bad...)

And I hate to admit this but I didn't like the feathers I was making so I've taken them all out and will try again today...

Maybe I should concentrate on the center squares for awhile...

Unconnected pictures

Miscellaneous pictures today.

 

This morning I was walking by a small lumber yard and found pumpkins!  I think the owner also has a small farm and he must have brought in his pumpkin harvest.  Japanese pumpkins are not very large and come in all colors but they make great pumpkin soup!

 

And I took my camera to the crosswalk this morning to snap a couple of pictures, of course before the kids showed up.  There is a cigarette vending machine at the corner and because of the weekend's typhoon, the TOBACCO sign is barely hanging on.  On the faded and very dirty awning it says "Thank you very much".  The sign and the awning makes me think of another era.

I wonder how long this vending machine is going to be around right here in front of the elementary school and with no-smoking laws becoming stricter in Japan as well.  But I have a feeling the vending machine made a lot of business during Saturday's Sports Day.  There are No Smoking signs on school grounds and the smoking parents obediently walked the three steps to the other side of the school gate and puffed away there.  Men and women squatted on their haunches around the gate and around the school supplied ashtrays.  At least I didn't have to pick up cigarette butts on Monday morning. 

 

And my sweet shop owner friend recently adopted another kitty.  She is a beautiful creature but as with the sweet shop's two previous cats, seems to want to go outside.  This is how my friend lost her other kitties (and I found the one... now I'm traumatized.)  There are just too many cars going by this corner...  While I'm at the crosswalk, I blast my whistle at this kitty every time she tries to step through the door and so far she is cautious about running outside at least while the crosswalk guard is there.  I've made an enemy but maybe it will save her life.

 

And my own Cleo who has very little interest in going outside, is extremely happy that I have started another hand quilting project.  Cleo loves sleeping on a Work-in-Progress quilt, or under it.  He especially likes the halo effect a quilting hoop makes.

Star Within a Star

A couple of people asked me about this year's kindergarten bazaar quilt and wanted to know if it was from a pattern.

Mrs. Furui and I had seen something "similar" in one of the Japanese patchwork magazines but the instructions were very iffy.

"Here is one house pattern.  Make others to the same dimensions."

I'm sorry, I don't have the magazine at my house so I can't even take a picture of the picture.  There was a "river" crossing the quilt in one place, and there was a hint of a rainbow, but not in rainbow colors.  We couldn't figure out if it was trying to be a rainbow or a mountain.  There were scallop squares too, maybe trying to be far off forests... but none of us wanted to try those blocks.  I think the trees are almost the same styles but we drew the patterns ourselves.  (Mrs. Furui drew all the patterns.)  And we brought out books with house patterns in them and re-sized them to a standard size...

As for the placement of the blocks, that was an all day auditioning process with the main concern being the river... that kept getting longer and longer and winding around the quilt...  Looking at the whole thing now... well, I wonder why we chose to put that house there or this part of the river here.... But I guess that is true for any quilt that is an original.

"Why did we decide on THIS layout?"

It's done!  It's colorful!  It has its own charm.  I hope the person who wins it will enjoy it.

**********************************

Yesterday was a sunny day and I aired my futon again!  You know what that means!  Twice in less than a week!

I have been letting my Star Within a Star flimsy sit around for a few months now with no headway.  Am I going to machine quilt this or hand quilt this?  Since I have my niece's Starr Fire to machine quilt (haven't started that yet either) I decided to go ahead and hand quilt this.  So what if it takes months (or years)!  It will give me handwork to do in the cold evenings of winter.

I drew in quilting lines and then spent a couple of hours basting again (with Chip's help as usual.)

This will now reside by my armchair in the living room.  There won't be a whole lot of obvious progress as the hoop moves around the quilt but I'll show it from time to time.   October 1, 2012...  quilting started on Star Within a Star!

After a typhoon

Yesterday Japan was visited by a typhoon.  I started battening down the patio furniture and the potted plants in the afternoon and by 5 the sky was dark and the wind was roaring. Choco came in early and I brought Patora and Toi into my sewing room for the night (and Patora promptly ate one of my patchwork patterns and ripped up my embroidery thread bag...She has stress issues.) All the animals stayed warm and dry.

Our part of Japan doesn't get too much damage from typhoons... I don't know why... the layout of the land or the surrounding mountains protect us... but still I always think about my pear farmer friends and hope that their crop of pears has held on.  We live in apple country too and I know the apple farmers are worried when a typhoon strikes.

Tetsu and Choco and I got an early start this morning and found a full moon hanging over the fields greeting us.  Is this too dark to post (it was pretty dark when we started our walk!)

 

The Higanbana were dripping and all tipped to the side from fighting the strong winds.  

 

By the time we walked to look out at Mt. Nantai the sky was a little brighter.

 

In the other direction, the remaining typhoon clouds were lovely in the early morning light.

And today, in front of our house, the yard and road is littered with dropped chestnuts and leaves.