A Birthday Celebration

 I have to admit that Halloween has never been the best choice for a birthday.

When I was a kid, we could never sit through a whole meal without jumping up to answer the doorbell many times over.

It also meant all kinds of nicknames like Witchy, Batty, and Bones.

In Tokyo we used to live in a small community with about 30 houses built for foreigners and the neighborhood kids came trick-or-treating and often were joined by Japanese kids who knew about the possibilities of getting candy ... but basically that custom is not well known and Halloween is a time for dressing up in costumes and walking in parades.

I think many stores take advantage of the holiday. Sales people could be found in costume ... even in the fabric store where they had Halloween fabrics and items for sale. Flower shops ... grocery stores with American style pumpkins (Japanese ones are not for carving but sweet to eat and the color is a dark green) There are gourds like mini-pumpkins, toys and costumes and of course sweets.

Norie, Hiro, and Leia came for dinner and to spend the night. Leia and I had a cookie date for Saturday all set up.

I had seen one of Leia's school projects where she had arranged color tiles in an interesting pattern, so I pulled out my cut fabric tins ... the 2x2, 4x4, and 1x2 and 1x4. I thought Leia might enjoy arranging them in patches of 4 two inch and 1 4 inch blocks. Oh, nothing that simple ... this was a great math problem and after it was all laid out, she began to sew the pieces together.

You would never to know to look at the finished piece that it was done by a seven-year-old, The stitches were straight along the marked lines, about six or seven to the inch, and the corners met with precision.
I helped her join the rows together and she decided on a white cotton backing. She did not want the back turned to make a binding so we sewed the piece along the border and then turned it right-side-out.

Her plan is to use it for a luncheon mat and it needs to be thin enough to fold up in her lunch bag so no batting or quilting was needed.

While she was putting the finishing touches on the cookies, I hand stitched around the edge just inside of the border.

Here she is with the finished product.
I would like to be a mouse in the corner when she shows up at school with that.

And here is the cookie master with one tray left to decorate.

Lots of pumpkins, cats, witches, ghosts, owls, and moons.
Some of those cookie cutters I made from tuna cans back when her mother was into cookie decorating.

Now all is packed up and ready to take for sharing.

What a nice way to spend a birthday.... and as you may notice, I have learned a trick to get to my pictures. It is still not as convenient as my old laptop but I am happy ...

and even happier because my Daughter and family brought me a CD player that I can plug into my laptop and use to read my mother's diary which my brother had scanned and sent to me over a year ago.

Nothing like a distraction or two to set my quilting on hold....


I hope your Halloween is just as much fun.