Auditioning ideas

It is now the end of a very busy week.

Five days of leading games and crafts at Vacation Bible School gave me lots of train time and sapped a lot of energy.

Of course since morning train time was also commuter time, the very thought of being able to sit was a wild dream.
Even in the "Silver Seats", which are reserved for handicapped, senior citizens, and pregnant women, there was no possibility of sitting ... in fact, one could hardly find enough room for one's feet when standing.
Had it not been so crowded, I would have loved to take a picture of what was happening in those seats. Young women putting on makeup, young men playing games on their smart phones, young people texting like crazy beneath the sigh saying "OFF" with a picture of a phone, and of course ... readers and sleepers with and without ear-buds.
I am always most amazed with those girls using eye-lash curlers or putting on eye-liner on a rocking moving train.

At any rate, I managed to assemble this much of my chatelaine during the week and decided to wear it on Friday so as to see what or where to make changes in my plan.

The glasses pocket is very handy. I used the notebook and pencil more than once. My "Clover" cutting disc was in the scissors pocket but I can wear that around my neck and there are occasions the scissors are of more use. I am thinking of where to tie a cord for scissors ... a ring above the pocket?

My thread is still in my tin and, though not too often, I have to get out the tin to cut another piece.

I put the spool on a large pin that is made for holding knitting stitches. If I add a grommet on each front, I could place that pin across and it would also keep the fronts in line.

They are pretty well balanced in weight but walking in a breeze as I did yesterday sends the sides flying. I have set grommets in leather objects but have not much experience with how they would wear in quilted fabric.

I am also thinking if I do this, I can add a small pin and needle book of felt to the other side of the pin. When I am working while travelling or in meetings, I don't really need a large number of pins or needles, but I do need to have them handier than going back to my tin.

I have not yet designed the pocket for the cool/hot pack at the back of the neck.

I was thinking that pocket could pad the neck and also be used as a pocket to hold the entire chatelaine.

I also noted that when the sides are folded, the neck area goes neatly into the pocket with the notebook.

One more thing I am hunting for with no luck is a six inch ruler. I have one that is broken but so handy. It is one inch wide and has inches on one edge and centimeters on the other. I had thought I might find such a thing here in Japan and stopped off at a lot of craft and DIY stores, but it seems, though I could find rulers in a perfect size in metal, plastic, and bamboo, there were none with inch marks. I guess all my rulers with both have been bought in the states. I have a small template I have made from plastic that I can use temporarily but I may have to visit the other side of the pond to get inches.

While thinking about where to go from here, I worked on a few more four-inch blocks.

While Leia was visiting, she sorted through my one-inch scrap box and arranged these blocks in my take-along baggie. I decided to assemble them as she has arranged them. There are a few more to go.

I have thought of turning these blocks into stars but I am already working with eight-inch star blocks. I think I will set these on point with triangles in each featured color ... maybe solids or fabrics that read "solid" with tone on tone prints. That might make it more possible to make use of the light diagonal blocks when I put the blocks together..

It has been a very hot and humid week. This is what greeted my going and coming for the week.

This volunteer lily came up this year in my bay-leaf tree's pot. I do have a few different types of lilies in the garden strip but nothing like this. The leaves are thin and spiky. At first I thought it was a weed but since it seemed to be growing like a lily, I decided to wait and see. This was the reward.

I hope you all had a few happy rewards in your week too.