A busy day ahead

I'm on the run today. Kindergarten in the morning with class observation day so the mothers will be coming in to watch. The school year only started in April so I haven't taught some of these kids very long. The three year olds can barely sit for 10 minutes straight and most of them seem somewhat bewildered about their new life. Today we'll do things like sing 10 Little Indians and There were Ten in the Bed. I mean that I will sing, and try to get the kids to imitate gestures. Sometimes I feel like a performer, not an English teacher. I hope no one starts crying today. (That usually happens at the beginning of every year. The big, scary foreigner!)

In the afternoon I'm teaching a lovely young woman who just graduated from college. I've taught her off and on since she was in kindergarten! We do a lot of just chatting for the first half of the hour.

Next I go to a friend's house and three ladies come for a couple hours. More chatting over coffee and I usually bring a print-out of some sorts so that I can justify being paid for this lovely time of friendship.

And then it is off to the next city over to teach a group of 2nd graders. All boys and they keep me hopping! They do not much like sitting down and doing things with a pencil so we play tag outside (ask the monster, ME, how she is. "How are you?" There are a variety of answers but when I say "I'm HUNGRY!" I chase them) or do a simple type of square dance. "What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? (clap, clap) "My name is Tanya. My name is Tanya. NICE TO MEET YOU!" Change partners!)

What I'd like to do is quilt. Not today. I'm probably going to be ready for an early bedtime tonight!

Farewell party

Last night, Tetsu and I went to a Farewell party for our good friends Kohei and Marlene Yamada. Gosh, we've known them for over 15 years! When I first arrived in the nearby city someone asked me if I knew Marlene.

"She's American just like you and is married to a Japanese man." Nope. Hadn't met her yet.

A month or so later someone else asks,

"Do you know Marlene? Her kids are about the same age as yours." Nope. Our paths haven't crossed.

And then months later,

"Do you know Marlene? Her husband does judo just like yours." Not yet.

When I finally met Marlene I felt like I knew all about her already!

After getting to know the Yamadas the two husbands started a judo club for children and every Thursday I'd take Takumi and Leiya to judo and then go to Marlene's to chat for a couple hours. All of our children and the two daddies would do judo and Marlene and I would cook dinner together and after judo we'd all eat together and chat until very late at night. I really loved those Thursday nights! It was nice to just talk in English and to compare stories and be assured that what I thought was strange about Japanese life didn't mean I was weird. Marelene more often than not felt the same way! In the past 15 years our two families have celebrated Thanksgiving together (American style!) and consulted each other about raising our families in our unique bicultural atmosphere.

But this month Kohei is heading off for Hong Kong with a change of jobs and when Marlene finishes up her commitments she will be joining him, so an informal farewell party was planned with take out pizza, pot luck dishes, cookies and cakes. It was a great international party with people from Poland and France and America and Japan. Three of the American kids put on an impromptu skit which floored Tetsu to think the kids could be so imaginative and uninhibited in front of all the adults.

Later in the evening we played ping pong and had a great time. No stuffy speeches and ceremony, just old friends and new friends and a lot of laughter.

Well, Marlene isn't planning to leave for a few months (another tanshinfunin wife in the making!) so I'll be seeing her off and on for awhile longer.

More blocks

I think I have a obsessive/compulsive personality or something. When I start something, I can't stop. Yesterday, even though it was Saturday, Tetsu had to work and he even had to stay overnight so that meant that I had a day to myself and I didn't even need to worry about cooking dinner. Sooooo. Up to the sewing room I went to work on a few more blocks for the Australian quilt.

You can't believe all the stuff I can pull out from the drawers! But I had so many lovely hand dyed fabrics (many from Thelma and Liz) that once I started I didn't want to stop! I was continuing along the lines of what animals I knew and so I chose a crocodile and a frog from the original patterns. But some of the others... I was at a loss. Why limit myself to animals? Why not a few flowers in this quilt?

I went to the Internet to check out just WHAT flowers were in Australia and I did find two that I could recognize and seemed tropical and at least in the Australian tourist website there is Bird of Paradise and Plumeria. I designed my flower squares as best I could but I'm not sure they are accurate...

While I was online. I even looked at dragonflies to see what they really looked like (I have dragonflies around here but I never look at them closely when they are in flight.) I think a dragonfly is a good companion for the frog...

Now to get to the applique! All those flower petals may drag me down. I wasn't thinking too far ahead when I designed these!

Australian quilting

Yesterday I played around in the sewing room again all day. I love Fridays! Lorraine, from Australia, had sent our patchwork group just loads and loads of information and tools and kits as an introduction to Australian quilting. But how are we going to use all these wonderful things? At Thursday's patchwork meeting we went through the contents of the packages again and a couple of us took some of the things home to experiment with.

Yesterday morning I followed directions from Helen Stubbings book and kit to make my first "Hug's n Kisses" block from "Neenie's Garden" BOM kit. This is called Faux Applique and basically it uses a technique of coloring inside transfer lines and then embroidering over all the lines. Yesterday I used the pencils that Lorraine had sent and colored my first block.

Well, this part of the block goes quickly. I think it is the stitching that will take quite a while. I will work on the BOM in gradual amounts and see how far along I can get. Tentatively, the plans are for someone else in the group to do the stitching around the lines though.

Another of the treasures from Lorraine's box was this "Aussie Quilt" pattern. Lorraine had showed us her finished full size quilt when she came in January and we all fell in love with it. She sent us the patterns but this is another BIG job. But so cute! I decided to chose 4 or 5 five of the blocks and make a fun wall quilt and so I brought all the patterns home with me and played around yesterday. Which blocks to use? Unfortunately, I've never been to Australia and know nothing about the animals in Australia. Most of the animals featured in this quilt I've never even heard of! Well, I know what a koala is. I know parrots. So I started with those blocks yesterday. So much fun!

Hah! Tanya, the hard part comes from now! You've got to applique all those pieces down!

I figure once it gets too hot to quilt I can do applique this summer so I'm going to go ahead and make a couple more blocks today.

Bazaar quilt sandwiched

Yesterday I had a great day with patchwork friends at Mrs. Furui's house. There is always a lot of teasing and chatting and catching up to be done not to mention sewing.

Our group of 7 or 8 ladies has always gathered at Mrs. Furui's house. She is central to everyone and two other of the ladies live in the same neighborhood. It is on the way back from the city so a couple of the ladies can run their errands or do their jobs in the morning and stop in on their way home. I live too far away. No one ever comes out here. Mrs. Harada moved four hours away last year and we never expected her to continue coming to patchwork but she faithfully makes the trip each month leaving her home at 6:00 in the morning and arriving by 10:00. Yesterday she picked up Mrs. Okutomi, another long time patchwork friend who also had moved away years ago. Actually Mrs. Harada and Mrs. Okutomi only met at our January patchwork gathering but patchwork and quilting people just seem to be able to become friends and so yesterday the two of them drove the distance together to do patchwork with the original group!

The goal for yesterday was to put the bazaar quilt's applique borders together, make it into a flimsy and get it sandwiched for quilting. A few snags (one side of the applique hadn't been finished yet!) and a few additions, ("Let's put piping around the whole quilt!") but I had brought my Feathered Star quilt and a couple of us basted that while others appliqued, ironed, sewed and joined batting for the bazaar quilt. Busy house!

A quick lunch and with many hands both quilts were sandwiched, new projects were considered, and a lot of laughter filled our hearts.

This year's bazaar quilt surpasses our expectations! (I think the addition of that border was a stroke of genius!)

"THIS YEAR I WANT TO WIN THIS!!!!"

"How many raffle tickets should I buy to clinch it?"

"This is our best quilt ever!"

We say that every year.

Cat spot

Now, what do you suppose this is? This is my kitties' drinking bowl. With four cats the water goes away quickly. (Vel has his own upstairs.) I don't know why I had all these marbles but it makes for a pretty decoration in the window especially in the summer.

The cats sit in the window and scare the birds that come to visit. From their perch they can see me drive in or watch people walking down the street.

And next to it are more kitties. Kat Rocks that I bought in the States years ago.

I'm off to a day of patchwork with friends. I hope we can get a few flimsys sandwiched!

Takumi

Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm really busy today so no time to write. Takumi sent me a Mother's Day e-mail with a picture and since we haven't "seen" him (he no longer seems to have a camera) this was a welcome gift. So I'm posting him today. Some of my blog visitors who know him will be happy to see that he is alive and well. He's the one who smashed his face in when he was in jr. high. He looks pretty good these days! (Loving mother's eyes!)

Hi Takumi! Thank you! Who's your friend there?

Quilting motif

On the quilting front, I spent most of yesterday making and then stenciling a quilting pattern only my Feathered Star quilt. I hope what I've chosen isn't too busy. I need to get it all traced before Thursday when I'll ask my friends to help me baste it. This will be a hand quilted quilt and already I'm wondering if it will be the last that I ever do! You know... like "how many years is this going to take me?" I know I've said that before and sometimes the quilting goes quickly but what with summer coming up (I'm NOT quilting in the summer months!) and the bazaar quilt which hopefully will get sandwiched on Thursday too, what with this being a good sized quilt and the quilting pattern I chose is NOT a continuous line pattern... this Feathered Star quilt may be my companion for a long time.

When I get a quilt ready for hand quilting I always think, "Well, if I break my leg at least I'll have something to keep my hands busy."

So this is the quilting pattern I decided on. I traced it out of some book on filing plastic and then with my exacto knife I cut it out so that is would be easier to trace/stencil. I get frustrated trying to see a quilt pattern through the fabric (no light box) and I'd rather go to the work of making a stencil for most of my hand quilt patterns.

I put the quilting motif in all the corners of all the stars and in the triangles and also around the border. I did leave some spaces in the border because I thought I was getting too much of a good thing. On today's to do list is to join some batting and sew up the backing!

My ironing board

Happy Mother's Day! Well, I'm not his mother but yesterday Tetsu gave me a mother's day present. An ironing board!

I've been wanting an ironing board for ages and ages. In fact, it has been something that I have coveted ever since I got married. And I don't even iron! Well, I don't iron clothes. I only iron quilts and quilt blocks.

It's not like I didn't have an ironing board. I've written about my ironing board before. It is only 20 inches long and after putting the iron on it, that only gave me about 10 inches of ironing space. It was impossible to iron long seams or flimsys and I often used the carpet to iron things.

A couple of months ago I specifically took one of my quilts to Mrs. Furui's because she had a wonderful stand up/fold away, LONG ironing board. (She acquired it when she lived in Germany.)

"Mrs. Furui, I need to use your ironing board to iron my flimsy. I messed up my carpet when I ironed on it the last time."

"Tanya, my ironing board broke! Now I can only use the board part and iron off of the floor."

Mrs. Furui is in worse shape than I am! How can two of us rather prolific quilters live without an ironing board? I took a picture of Mrs. Ochiai trying to iron bias off of the floor that day.

It is possible to order a stand up/fold away, long ironing board in Japan. Mrs. Furui and I have both priced them and both of us have come to the conclusion that $130 for an ironing board is too much!!! So I use my minuscule ironing space and Mrs. Furui irons off the floor.

When Tetsu was rearranging my sewing room for me last month he noticed the melted marks from where I had ironed on the carpet.

"Tetsu, I really need an ironing board and even if it costs a lot I think I'll go ahead and buy one."

He wanted to know how long and how high it needed to be and declared that he would MAKE me one.

Hmm.. I don't really think that will work. How do you make the board part? Do I really want another piece of furniture in that room? But much like I like to make quilts by hand for people, Tetsu wanted to give me a hand made ironing board so there went my dreams of a convenient, pull out when you need it, expensive ironing board.

Tetsu came home early from work yesterday and set up his carpentry area in the yard. And THIS is the result of 4 hours of carpentry, two store bought ironing boards (no legs, just boards), a hand saw, two-by-four planks, and no measure. Tetsu is a WONKY carpenter. Cut off when too long, nail on extra when too short.

"Tetsu, this is WONDERFUL! It is sturdy, and long, and I can put stuff under it!"

A treasure and one I will use daily! Who needs modern ironing boards when I have a gift of love!

I'm sorry Mrs. Furui, as much as Tetsu admires you I don't think he'd be willing to do this again.

My forest

Yesterday I started to write about how we ended up in out house in Nikko. I wanted to show you pictures Choco and I took of the forest behind us.


When I was choosing colleges way back when, I absolutely fell in love with the Lewis and Clark campus in Portland, Oregon. There were other reasons why I chose that college but I must admit I loved the beauty surrounding the dorms and walking through the forest to get to classes. I would get all choked up flying BACK to school and looking from the airplane window down on the lush greenery below.


When Tetsu and I were thinking of buying a house we had to look in the outlying farming areas just because it was too expensive to buy anything in the city. That was fine with me since I would rather look out on a tree than on another building. The house we found is beside a forest and I loved it! I worried for the first few years that some developer might cut down the forest to build more homes but it doesn't look like it is going to happen in my lifetime. Without the forest I don't think our house has that much appeal and to some people, what with the bugs and the snakes and the shade and the nothingness behind us, they probably wouldn't want to live here even if someone paid them. Tetsu's mother and sister do not like our house at all. Too dark. Too far away from everything. No stores or buses or any other conveniences. Tetsu even finds the month when I am in the States and he is alone here, very... lonely. I don't understand that at all. We have a whole neighborhood on one side of us! Why would a forest make you feel lonely?

The first time I went walking through the forest I choked up just like when I would fly back to Portland!


"A fairy land! Look at all the ferns and the green! Smell the trees and the dirt! Listen to all the birds and the frogs!"

I love my forest. In this season the trees seem like they are wearing Charleston dresses with their tiers of leaves.


There are tiny wildflowers poking up from under tree stumps and large almost tropical plants that shoot up tall and proud.


I am entranced with my forest probably like no one else in my neighborhood (except for maybe Choco) and so I really do consider it mine!

Early family life

Tetsu and I lived in little two room apartments for years and years before we bought our now home. For the first years of marriage Tetsu was transferred around a lot and so we'd live in one city for a year and then be transferred to another city for a year. When Takumi was born I just decided I didn't want to do that any more. It was fun for the first 5 years but I wanted to live in one place for awhile. So when Tetsu was transferred to Tokyo I said,

"Bye, have a nice time. I don't want to live in Tokyo."

Doesn't that sound awful?! No, we were not considering separation. This is a rather common practice in Japan. It is called tanshinfunin, and in the dictionary it is translated as a Business Bachelor. Companies will transfer their businessmen and the husbands leave their families and go off to live alone in a mini-apartment until the next transfer. Many (many!) times, the company will send their businessman on an overseas post and for 4 or 5 years the family will live apart if they choose not to uproot the whole family. In some ways it makes sense. The children don't have to change schools all the time, the wife can keep her job if she has one, if the family is living with the husband's parents (another very common custom) then the wife and grandparents can care for the children together. Sometimes the wife cares for the in-laws which can also be very convenient (for the husband).

I thought tanshinfunin a horrid example of how little Japan thinks of husband and wife relationships.

"I would never think of such a thing! What is the point of being married if the husband and wife never see each other? Where do the children get father influence if the father only comes home once every six months or so? Where does love and understanding and building a life together take place in a situation like this?"

Actually I have many friends whose families have chosen the tanshinfunin route yet the husband and wife obviously have a loving relationship, the children are proud of their father and his work and the whole family considers the absent father to be a huge presence in their lives.

Back to 23 years ago. Tetsu wasn't really happy in his job anyway and didn't think he was going to make it his life's work so we decided that he would go to Tokyo alone for a few months, quit, and then return to the city where we were then living. Baby Takumi and I lived in our apartment with Tetsu coming home on weekends and a month or two before Tetsu quit his job Takumi and I went to California. After leaving his job, Tetsu joined us in California and the three of us spent a month together, the longest Tetsu has ever lived in the States.

(Before cats and dogs we used to keep birds! Notice Takumi sitting on the tatami mats in our apartment.)

After returning to Japan, and a few false starts, Tetsu found his place in convalescent care and we settled down enough to consider buying a house. When Takumi was 7 and Leiya 3 we purchased our house in Nikko and I have been happy here ever since.

(Takumi at our old apartment on his skateboard visit last summer.)

I love having nature at my doorstep. I love having more than two rooms. I love being able to keep animals. And I love walking with Tetsu in the morning and having him come home every night.

Bright quilting

Yesterday was an all day quilting day. Remember that Bright fabrics quilt I was making for a Prayer and Square quilt? The one I wondered if it was too bright for Japanese tastes? It seemed silly to be making a quilt that might be too bright for a Japanese prayer quilt but at the same time to be thinking that my fabric stash wasn't bright enough to make a Thousand Colors quilts. Sooo, I changed my plans and added a few more blocks to make the Bright quilt the right size and I have dubbed it another Thousand Colors quilt for Italy.

I had trouble finding matching border fabric in my stash, the colors were just a little off, but it isn't an impossible fit. Then to quilt. The previous quilt was done with a walking foot and just straight stitch in the ditch. Okay, this will be my machine quilting practice quilt. I checked Patsy Thompson's website and Elaine's blog. Elaine has done some wonderful things on her domestic machine and I knew she considered herself an as yet amateur machine quilter. She insists that the most important thing is PRACTICE. I wanted to try doing overall quilting on a quilt of this size and chose a flowery feather pattern. Then, I spent a few minutes trying to burn the pattern into my brain by drawing it over and over on an white board. Okay. Can I do this? I'm as ready as I'll ever get!

A few adjustments on tension and I took the plunge! Not bad, not bad. Before I'd known it I'd spent three hours at the machine and was afraid to stop!

"If I stop now I might get out of the mode and not be able to go back to the uniform swirls and curves! Better to just keep on going!"

Probably not good for the shoulders but by late lunchtime I'd done the overall quilting design.

Back at the sewing machine after a peanut butter sandwich and a long walk with Choco and I started in on the border. Hey, this is fun! I had the whole quilt finished by 4:00 but that still means I must have put nearly 8 hours into quilting this yesterday!

Last night I put the binding on noticing that there are a couple small puckers in the border area backing. I must have pulled a bit too much when quilting the border, and the pins were in my way for quilting this area so I'd already taken them out. Well, I'm not going to repair this. It was an excellent quilt for practicing and I'm quite happy with my beginning attempts! Elaine's right! Just get in there and decide to do it and practice!