A new challenge

A while ago, my good quilting friend, Kuraishi-sensei, Told me she would be holding a quilt show at a garden gallery in the town of Ichikawa, where she lives.

She said the gallery was large and asked if she could hang my "Lucy Boston" quilts there.

I quickly added a hanging sleeve and sent the quilts off to her. Her next request was for me to give a gallery talk.  Hmmmm. I'm not very fond of talking in front of groups, but I agreed to take on the challenge.

This past weekend, Friday and Saturday afternoons, I went to this lovely place. I was joined by lovely people, and the talk was far from scary. After all, quilters are a class above.

This is a view from the lobby with friends arriving.

Isn't that a beautiful garden!

Though early Saturday morning I was awakened by the sound of rain, (and a scout hike had been cancelled because of a forecast of rain), by the time I arrived around lunch time, the sun was out and the day was not too hot or humid.

The trees are not yet in autumn color, but I think with a year of strange weather, they are a bit confused. Maple leaves are dropping without bothering to turn color.

My talk was about my quilting history...

How I first met up with the Lucy Boston "Patchwork of Crosses" at the Festival UK '98
while piping to attract customers, and sketched notes on the pattern, wanting to try it out.

At Saturday's show, I was honored to meet the quilt reporter who had gone to the UK, and met with Lucy Boston in her Manor house, and arranged for the quilts in that show.

I talked about my first meetings of Lucy Boston through her children's books, as a children's librarian. Then details I had learned since about her life.

I could talk about the pattern and the way hexagons can be fussy-cut without having to worry about the grain of the fabric... and the variety that can be used when cutting stripes. I had some left-over blocks I could pass around for them to see and I could show the tenugui on the back of the small quilt.

On Saturday, I was joined by my daughter, Norie, and Leia, plus Leia's other grandmother and a lovely neighbor.

We are standing next to a display of some vintage quilts that Kuraishi-sensei had brought back from her time in the states.

I am wearing a coat I had made at one of my friend's classes.
It is reversible black with a brown owl on the inside and Ainu pattern on the brown side.

With family in front of the vintage quilts....

Here with Kurishi-sensei, who also put my talk into more understandable Japanese...
standing to the right, and two of her friends.

and here I am with my little cameraman, standing outside the garden gates.

It was quite a busy week, and finished off with visitors to our church ... the participants of Asian Rural Institute, who spent the weekend and shared their life of training with us on Sunday, ending in a pot-luck lunch.

The evening held a birthday party at a charming Indian restaurant in my neighborhood with my wonderful SIL and a "Son on loan" added to the family.

Monday am: rolled around as usual with onigiri delivery and school. A lovely orange canary is now getting used to the old cage in the window. 

And, as of today, the super busy month of October has reached an end ... and I am now celebrating my 18th birthday. Going back to my childhood from 50, this time I'm going to get it right!
The first of the black and white quilts is in the hoop and testing the pattern for quilting. The November calendar page is beginning to fill up ... but not so crazy as October, so the quilt may make progress. (and I might have something to show).