The Party runner is finished

The party runner is finished! Not in time to reach Marie on her birthday but in time to send her a picture. This is the last in the series of runners I made for my #2 daughter. The other four were seasonal runners for her small table but when she has guests she puts two cubes together to make the table bigger, thus, the longer runner. She, after some prodding, suggested Japanese indigo fabrics would be nice.

In the early '90s I had gone to the fabric outlet area of Tokyo looking for Japanese fabric and
stopped in a kimono shop to see if they had any sample books to sell cheaply. The books are made up of pieces of fabric from the end of the roll, the width of the fabric (about 13-14 inches) and about the same in length. They are sewed into a pile with one large stitch, maybe 20 or so in a "book".

The store did not have any for sale but took my name and address and telephone number and said they might let me know if they did.

Much much later, a package arrived in the post from that shop and in it were some assorted fabrics and fabric sample books. Now, on many of the samples, as you might see in a wall paper sample book, were scribbled notes with black marker. Many of the prettiest fabrics were so marked but I saved the lot and have found ways those fabrics can be cut around the ink and used in projects. These are what I dug out for this runner.

I drafted simple square in a square five inch blocks and arranged them light on dark and dark on light. After considerable trial and error I finally came up with an arrangement I liked. I had considered quilting this with sashiko stitches but was afraid that might detract from the fabrics but used a typical pattern of interlocking circles for the quilting. I like the result and am thinking some day I might make one for my own coffee table.

I am still reminded of the day Marie was born. It was the year of the "Fire Horse" which was considered the worst possible year for a girl baby to be born. Very few risked having a girl and the maternity wards were rather empty. I was near the window of a 6-bed ward and all the babies were kept down the hall in a nursery. At feeding time the infants were put on a cart and rolled into the ward to be handed out to the waiting mothers. BUT ... Ahead of the cart came a nurse carrying one screaming baby which she placed in my arms. Small but mighty, she was! And the nursing staff always "forgot" to pick her up at the end of the session (or maybe that was intended)

Marie liked to be held. Unlike the doll that closes it's eyes as you lay it down, her eyes would fly open no matter how gently you placed her and the screams would follow. Living in a neighborhood where houses are poorly insulated and only three or four feet apart, I spent the next year and a half carrying that fire-horse everywhere. I learned how to do every task with a babe in arms. I sang every lullaby I knew over and over. I'll bet I have the best repertoire of lullabies of anyone my age. Is it any wonder that that daughter turned out to be musically gifted!
Maybe she was making her own music in self defence. So... one more runner for the birthday girl.

Outside our front gate is this pineapple lily. We had a clump of them in our last house and they were frequently the victims of the plant vandal. Before we moved I separated the group into several bunches and placed them out of reach. I must have brought one tiny bulb with me because I notices the fleshy leaves last year among the agapanthus and gave the bulb a pot of its own. I noticed last week there was a small bud and took this first picture.

Today, when I went to the park to see if I could get a better picture of the runner, I noticed the lily had begun to bloom. I'm so happy to have this reminder of the years spent at the Suginami house. I also noticed when I was there a little more than a week ago, that the plants had buds that were not vandalized. Hooray for small blessings!

My quilt room/space/corner

From time to time I get a blogging glimpse of quilter's "studios" or "rooms", their lovely design walls and shelves of organized stash. I see the latest machines that do everything but wash the dishes.

Well, here I am in my chair, my machines connected to my arms (and they also wash the dishes) and my trusty helper at my side. My husband at the shutter saying,"why would anyone want a picture of this!"

But, my friends, THIS is the world's most comfortable chair! And, it has a story.

When I was teaching in the public schools, the Board of Education took money from our scant pay and put it into a retirement fund rather than social security. You can bet it wasn't much since the starting salary was only three thousand dollars a year. In the late 60s when I was back in the States, I checked up to see how much I had in my retirement account and I was told $135.00 and it would never amount to more no matter how long it sat there so I decided to take the money out and buy something I really wanted, a wing rocker. Because of a crooked spine, there are not many chairs I can lean back in but this chair is perfect for me. $134 well spent!

It lived in my bedroom for years and I rocked and nursed babies here. It sat in other rooms in other houses and we piled in with kids to the side and kids on the lap and read thousands of stories. The upholstery wore to shreds and we had it re-covered. This time the foot stool and the arms got some quilted covers to protect them. Now it sits in the corner of my living room. to the right is the entryway. To the left are some drawers for my rulers and sewing things and my Ott light. My quilting waits in the bag I used to carry it to my group meeting on Friday.

The light is special to me too because years ago I quilted a quilt for a friend who said she would pay me. I kept a record of the hours I spent working on her lovely quilt but had no idea what my time might be worth. In the end, I had seen the Ott light advertised in quilt magazines and really wanted a lamp that would give good light for judging color at night.(which was the time of day mothers of large families had for quilting) I cut out the page with the ad and gave it to my friend, who had a APO address and could get things from the states, when I returned the finished quilt. I believe there were three sizes of lamps and I would have been happy with any but she bought me the floor model and an extra bulb. The lamp has lived beside my chair ever since.

For a room so tiny as our living room, this chair is really too big an object but my husband has a massage chair that is even bigger so I feel a bit justified and it is a comfortable place to sew. The only trouble being, since it is by the door, things tend to get piled on it when people come in.

And now for the next project in the lineup. For my daughter's final runner, I wanted to make her one double length size for when she adds a cube for parties. She wanted some traditional Japanese indigo fabrics so I drafted this simple five inch block and alternated dark and light fabrics.

All the blocks are complete so I laid them out on my bed/futon (the only horizontal place in the house of any size without a layer of dog hair) to see if I can come up with an arrangement. I'm still not completely satisfied. Here is where a design wall might come in handy. In this room the ceiling slants down to only about two feet above my pillow, a bit hard to get the whole view.

The typhoon, "Ma-On", is bringing rain to my garden after a long dry spell. It is not clear yet where or if it will land but rain is predicted for the next two days. I wish I could say it has brought cooler air but with the windows shut against the rain, the house is hot and muggy as usual.