Taking a bit of "down time"

It's cold out here, Mom, could you step out and remove the ice from my drink? Pretty please?

A few years ago, our choir-room chairs were changed from folding ones to some rigid stacking ones.

At that time, the shape of the raised ridge along the front, hit my legs at a place that made it hard for me to sit longer than five or so minutes. To fix the problem, I made a cushion for my chair.

Ever since then, the choir president has been asking, "Where is my cushion?"

Finally I asked her what colors she wanted, and I have to say, fuchsia and yellow were not easy to find among music prints.

Last Wednesday I finished the assembling and embroidered her initial in the center, and passed the cushion to her during the Thursday evening practice.

As she and her husband are both string players, I thought this bit of fabric worked well for the backing.


I think she took it home rather than placed it on her choir chair, but she was happy and said she was only joking about getting one.


This sixteen inch "Swoon" block I found on several blogs long ago and made a sketch on graph paper so the pattern was easy to draft.

There are a lot of set-in seams which take time and patience and the zipper was set in by hand.

The weekend included the Women's Conference, and with snow still falling on Friday morning, we took the train instead of driving. Too bad I had not prepared handwork for the train because the ride was long. Unfortunately, my sore throat turned into a cough and my voice was rather shot.

I started my regular week with onigiri delivery and school but now I am taking some down time, hoping my voice will recover in time for the Saturday valentine concert. I tried singing along with yutube and can get all my notes but the trick will be not to break into coughing.

I have yet to post on the Tokyo Dome show but both Tanya and Carin have made a number of lovely posts. I am thinking of going to their posts and eliminating duplicate pictures from my camera to see what I might have beyond what they have shown. For me, there is still the challenge of giving credit to those creative quilters whose names were printed only in Kanji. Only the "Teacher's" quilts had Roman letters included. This year I did not bother to fill out a questionnaire, as it appears  it is never read other than to get your address for sending you advertisements.

Home in the choir room

Last night the cushion  went with me to choir practice.

It passed the sit test.
Yes, I could actually sit during the practice and concentrate on my singing rather than my sitting.


The choir librarian laughed at the 21 quilted into the center square. Before she passes out the music, she pulls out the 21 and hands it to me.

The sopranos just couldn't figure out why I am so fixated on #21. I showed them a copy of my music with the tenor part highlighted with side notes ... turn quickly  ... and watch here.

And, here is a view of the back side. The zipper is installed just above the keyboard print.

Behind the chair is another family member.

I am not a pianist, but the very first thing I saved for after coming to Japan was a used piano, setting aside one thousand yen from my English teaching each week.

That piano lasted a long time including a trip to the states and back.  When it began to have issues, I traded it in on another piano ... a bit newer, German but assembled in Japan.

When we moved back to our small house, there was no wall space for it to live. I decided rather than trying to sell it, I would donate it to the church. The lady who kept the piano tuned twice a year, went to our church and tested all the pianos they had. It was determined this was better than all the others and it went to the choir room. Now I get to see and hear it twice a week. I miss having a piano at home but I am happy that it is appreciated and used more than I ever would have. I wonder if the cushion and piano are comparing notes when no one is around....

Tonight Cub Pack 51 meets to start our new season. Games are ready to go. am I??? That is to be seen.

Drip, drip, drip!

I guess with all the problems others are having with the typhoons swirling over Japan, I have no right to complain.

Tokyo is on the Kanto plain and fairly flat.

Nerima, where I live, is far from the rising ocean tides.

The nearest river, the Shakuji-gawa, passes several blocks away and in the past few years they have built over-flow underground water storage so we are relatively safe from the river.

And, now that my toe has no more bandages, the boots fit.

Yes, there are problems in an old house with leaky places but compared to floods and landslides, we are safe ... maybe damp, but more dry than not.

When I wrote in a post about a TV dumped in the street, I mentioned the "Ku" or ward, would not
remove it as our little street is not considered part of the Ku. (Forget that our house has the address of Nerima-ku, since our little road is to small for cars, we are in no-man's land.

Here is the view of our little street. The sign says basically, no cars beyond here ... but, does that mean they are not going to try? Oh no. Even trucks give it a try, scraping along the wall and ripping branches off the plum tree at the corner (showing just above the wall) My neighbor has a tiny car and parks it just beyond the sign on the power pole.

When we came here over 50 years ago, this was a dirt ally.

Real roads had open gutters along the sides to catch the rain.
Gradually they were covered, first by concrete slabs, and then turned into real sewers. The new house across the street from ours has a real gutter and drain (at the far corner). This has helped to relieve the small lake at out doorstep. If someone were to dump an un-wanted TV there, I  am not sure the ward would remove it. Does having a drainage system put you in the ward? How about half a drainage system" (on the other side of the road?)

Here is the alternative drainage system for those in the "no-man's-land. Under these man-hole covers is a sewer.  See that tiny hole?
Well, the rain water can drain down that hole ... so when I go out to sweep the street, I always un-plug those holes from rocks and leaves and other debris.  Trouble is, those little drains are usually in the highest part of the street and not where the water tends to collect. (you can see the drain in the first picture sitting high and dry above the gathering puddle.)

The sewer seems to end here just beyond our house.

There is a manhole cover along the wall but it has no hole.

If you have good balance you can walk along that wall to avoid the deepest part of the puddle but you need a good leap when you reach the end.

I guess I should be glad it is not mud as in the "old days" but in order for this to become a "real" road, all the houses on both sides will have to be re-built so the city can grab a meter on each side. I really can't see this happening in my lifetime.

Of course if I live to be 200 in order to use up all my stash...



So, that being the case, I am taking advantage of the rainy days to get something done.

Yesterday, on the way home from school, I stopped off and bought a zipper at the next train station shopping area.


Now it is installed and here is my cushion sitting on the desk chair,

Tonight it will go to it's new home in the choir room.

Considering I didn't know what I was doing, I think it looks pretty good ... and the pillow fit inside and the zipper closed.

Maybe I can get a picture of it in the new location.
I had cool fabric to use on the back ... and it was just the right size. Maybe I can show it off too.


Go visit Tanya and sympathize with her. maybe one quiet shedding dog is not such a big problem.

Something for me.

This may sound like a funny story, but recently the church decided to replace all the old chairs with new ones.

Yes, the old ones were showing wear after about 30 years of use and they were a bit heavy for stacking and putting away.

Well, the new chairs came. They are certainly prettier and much lighter and stack nicely. The seat is also much larger and the choir is happy with the change ... all except me.

Now why is it that a person of my size and degree of padding can not sit for more than ten minutes in one of those chairs? I might blame my ADHD, but I never had a problem with the old chairs.  On the new ones the seat is not flat but is raised toward the front edge and the pressure on the lower side of my upper legs is so painful. I tried sitting on the front edge and sitting sideways but to tell the truth, standing or sitting on the floor would be better.

Last week I brought a small pillow and that helps a bit so I decided to make a pillow to leave on my choir chair.

Several times I have been attracted to "Swoon" blocks I have seen on other blogs. I made a sketch a few years ago in my graph-paper notebook and I decided to draft that pattern to fit a 16 inch pillow I have on hand that could be put to that purpose.

I dug out some musical prints and cut them up for take-along work. Above is what I came up with. The number on my choir robe and music is 21. It is kind of a joke because no one else minds which piece of music they get, but I have been singing these pieces for many years and have highlighted the tenor part and made notes where I need to pay extra attention. The other three parts may not care because the sopranos and altos are always written in the treble clef, and the bases always get the bass clef, but the tenors are forced to jump from one to the other at the convenience of the publisher... and often at very inconvenient parts when singing. Often when music is passed out, I begin calling out to see if anyone has #21 and it gets a lot of laughter. I am thinking I might applique or quilt a big 21 in the center of the cover. Good idea?

I brought three prints down to decide the outer light patches and this one is what my husband thought worked best. He usually doesn't pay much attention to what I am making but liked this fabric best when I told him I couldn't decide. I have another black music print with a keyboard and scattering of white notes that I plan to put on the under side of the cover, once I quilt the top. I am thinking of quilting this a quarter inch on each side of the seam line. The center square is four inches square and the largest piece. Should I applique the 21 or quilt it in ... well, even if I applique it, I would quilt around the edge.

I cut the templates out of green construction paper because I only planned to use them once but now that I see how fun it was to put this block together ... I might have to save them. A whole quilt of 16 inch blocks would go together much faster than all those one-inch pieces I just spent over a year on!