New beginnings and continuing challenges

Spring is arriving slowly ... two steps forward and one step back.

These Nanohana (rape flowers) are one of the traditional signs of spring. Though usually seen in fields, these are in planters outside the rice store.

This week, the rice store lady added two planters of beautiful tulips. Those she has to hide inside her gate each evening because of the resident tulip vandal.
I see a few of the bulbs I planted in the weed lot have come up this year but I doubt there will be blooms as they were ripped out last year.

And another new beginning, just across the street from the rice store, is a home going up.

There was a ceremony on the lot that had been cleared with shinto priests and family.

Then the foundation was laid and the posts set in place.
At this point the roof will be put on and another ceremony took place.

A table was set in the north-east corner room and the family all gathered in chairs around the table.

At this point they are passing the saki and making a toast.

The following day, the curtains were drawn around the construction site and the roof was put in place. The shingles are now on and work is progressing.

The side street on the way to the station has about 12 young magnolia trees along the sidewalk.

Every year they begin to bloom first at the east end of the street.

It is something like watching spring walk closer and closer to my house as each tree finds it's time to open the buds into huge blooms.

This picture is just to give you an idea of the size of those blooms.

There are several varieties of magnolia in the area. The others have somewhat smaller flowers  This is the darkest and largest variety.
By the time leaves begin to fall at the end of summer, they are as large and round as dinner plates.

In the park there is a larger tree with smaller white flowers and I think I have seen a star magnolia in some garden nearby.

These sure do look pretty against the blue sky ...

Yes, we did have a bit of blue between the blustery rainy days.

And ... my little orchid ... given me by the man down the street has rewarded my patience with two pretty flowers.



I think it is about ready to be re-potted.

And ...

On my design door you can see the first border added to my nine-patch.

Now the size is 64" x 46".
Bigger but not big enough yet.

I am thinking the next border will have something set on point. I have not done the math so I am not sure what will fit.
Usually I just make the blocks and do the measuring later. Maybe I can set them with some colored sashing to add a few more inches.

I did add one more challenge because last night while going out with my daughter and my husband's cousin for a treat in an unknown shop, I miss-stepped on some pie-shaped steps and almost fell a few meters to the bottom. Luckily, I caught myself on the handrail before crashing into the line of people waiting at the entrance ... but ... I broke my index finger on my right hand in the process. A waiter at the restaurant gave me some ice to put on it ... which the doctor said was a good move ... but the x-rays today showed the joint was broken and it had to be set. Now I have to figure out how to go about my regular routine with one hand. Luckily, I am left-handed but practically everything I do takes more than one hand. (and Nikko is not helping at all) I know they make rubber gloves but I probably won't be able to find rubber mittens. This is going to be another challenge added to my already challenging month of April!

Busy days

The days are just flying by to the point I dread looking at my date book.

Of course some of those days were lots of fun.
On the 16th, Norie and I met with my good friend, Shigeko to take in a museum exhibit.

Shegeko always finds outstanding exhibits to see and this one was excellent.

The  National Art Center, Tokyo hosted an exibition of "The Best Selection of the Ohara Museum of Art".

There were seven rooms filled with ancient art from Asia, going through early modern art from EL GRECO, Manet, Rodin, Degas, Renoir, Matisse, etc.

The collection had outstanding works and those of Japanese artists influenced by modern art.

I was also impressed with the large number and variety of viewers, all ages from young to old, canes and wheelchairs, jeans, fashionable, Fancy kimono, dress kimono ... both women and men ... dress suits and casual. Not a weekend, but the middle of the day and the middle of the week. Japanese and foreigners ...  good English descriptions in each room ... Definitely the highlight of the week.

Other events included a meeting of my old quilt group, Tokyo Merit Badge day ... First-class trail in the morning and collections merit badge in the afternoon. It is always fun to see what kind of things teenage boys collect and share their passion.

Sunday the choir sang two services with practice between and after and though there was a St. Paddy's parade, I was off to lunch with a friend. I was a bit disappointed not to get to meet up with the Tokyo Piping Society in which I was a member for many years.

The quilting is nearing the end on the baby quilt but I will need a guest bed shortly and the nine-patch blocks were all laid out on top. I was afraid if I didn't get those blocks together, I would have to put them back in the box and it would be ages before I could arrange them.

So, above is what I have made so far. The blocks are each only 6 inches square so it is obvious this size is too small for a bed. Now I will think whether I should make more blocks or  find some other way to increase the size. I have been thinking of making a border of nine-patches set on point. Maybe adding several borders using up more of my cut squares.... I really have not put much of a dent in my collection.

Well, the rest of the week is busy too, Choir sings for the Maundy Thursday service and our small choir is singing at the Good Friday Service, a beautiful piece, "Crucifixus" by Lotti, eight parts, and eight voices ... 2 parts for each section and I have the first tenor. This is the second time our small group has sung special music and I feel so blessed to be included.  Special Easter music will follow and then we will be busy with final plans for my husband's memorial service.

It's in the hoop

Finally the backing was assembled and the quilting has begun.

I did have one big snafu though.

I have a container with fabric marking tools, pens and pencils.

For the darker fabrics, I love my karisma pencil with the thin white lead ... even though it gets used quickly and the last centimeter will not hold so has to be tossed out.

Karisma makes leads in yellow and blue for lighter fabrics but they don't come off as easily as the white which disappears as you stitch over it. Well, in my container there are a number of pens, blue and purple, made by several companies. The blue comes out with time and the purple stays longer but both wash out with a touch of water.

Well, I started with the purple because often the blue lines fade away before i get to them. The first pen I used was a bit tired and soon gave out so I reached in the box for another one. OOPS! when I went to wash out the ink with a paintbrush dipped in water, the lines did not disappear. Looking at the pen again, I found somehow a permanent marker had been stashed in the container.

Well, I am not going to redo the whole #7. Maybe it will fade with time. I don't think the baby will be bothered by the lines but I am a bit miffed that I made the mistake. There are many kinds of pens and the writing is all in Japanese. It may be that someone else moved that pen to my box as I doubt I ever even bought a purple permanent marker with two sized points.

The plum tree is still blooming in a wild and disorderly way.

I think this is what happens when you can't afford a professional tree trimmer and your ladder is too short to reach the upper branches.

Anyway, I am still enjoying the sweet scent of those little flowers.

This picture was taken during days of cold and rain.

Note the pink snow on the street below.

And as you may notice my sweeping duty will go a long way up the street as there is just as much on my neighbor's pavement as mine.

Neighbors in the other direction seem to have planted some bulbs in their weed bed.


(As a weed-aholic I always find this long bed of weeds hard to pass by ... and admit to reaching in and removing some that were tossing seeds along our street).

These are very tiny and look like what we used to call, "Johnny jump-ups".
Since each is single, they are probably just small daffodils, but they were a joyful surprise this spring. Now, if only this family would get serious about the weeds in the other ten meters or so...

The magnolias on the street to the station have begun to open their blooms.


They always start with the tree to the East that gets the most sun.

And last night's Cub Pack meeting took longer than expected.

I had made five kits of stools for the cubs to assemble as a team.
They had to saw the long bars for the sides and bottom, sand the pieces, and glue and nail the sections together.

The hardest part was hammering in those nails without bending them. They did work together well as a team, and even were able to decide who would get to take the finished stool home.

That meeting was LOOOOONG and I arrived home long after bedtime. I gave up the idea of dinner, walked Nikko around the block and went to bed.

This has been a busy week but all the stuff on the list has been done except for one ... that is a Skype call with the kids. (not easy when we are taking in areas between Boston and Tokyo.) well, and then the rest of the day's items and maybe even a bit of quilting ....

Finished top

The tenugui fabric got the most votes and it was my favorite too, but the width was only 14 inches and it would have been hard to cut in a way that would not waste fabric. Also, my plan was to add vines and leaves to count (and add width to the quilt). I really needed to pick fabric that would not hide the leaves.

I had used a heart fabric for the baby's sister's quilt and in the end I decided on this heart fabric left over from an earlier baby quilt, thinking the title of the quilt will be, "You can count on my love".

The green of the 7 is washed out in the photo but it does show up well against the heart print.



I think the light background also makes the pale cats show up better or at least be more balanced.





I do not know how the family will use the quilt.

I have not heard how they used the "I Spy" that I made for the first baby, but I made an "I Spy" for my daughter's kids and I know it was used for play as well as a bed cover.

We did enough count-downs in our family ... 5 minutes to bedtime ... three more bites of your dinner ... one more story before lights-out ...

Count the left-handed cats ...


count the cats with eyes closed ...


I may quilt in leaves or cats in the larger areas to make it more interesting to count.

Now I will begin digging through my tenugui for a quilt backing.
The first daughter got a dragon on her quilt back.
Now it is the year of the monkey so I will have to see if I can find at least one monkey tenugui.

Maybe a monkey print would be fun.

Anyway, I am happy to be this far along with the project.

Last Sunday was Norie's birthday and the sweet daphne is perfuming the air along the street.

This bush is actually a cutting from the original we planted when Norie was born.

The original was moved to Suginami-ku while we were living there and I think it went to Norie's garden from there.

Cuttings are not difficult to make so there are still some bushes blooming in the Suginami garden as well.

We had a nice dinner gathering on Sunday to celebrate and Leia helped me decorate the cake I had baked earlier.

Stencils and powdered sugar  ... we both cut and Leia did the arranging of the letters and other stencils.

All on a applesauce spice cake....
The candles were gone and the cake was about to be cut before I dug out my camera.


Early in the week we had cold blustery wind ...
rattling the windows at night ...
But a bit of sun today and flowers along the street are beginning to appear.

Nice to see these volunteers along the street.


The park has good southern exposure. Mine will follow in a few more weeks.

Hope you are enjoying the change of seasons too.

Meeting challenges and expectations

Long ago, when I first began cub scouting with my first son, I only had 16 years of girl scout experience to compare it with.

Suddenly it was a new ball game with parents involved. The first time my son made a pinewood derby car he was a third grader and could make the car himself with only a little support.

When the day of the race came, he was there early and had his car weighed, measured and checked in. As we were sitting waiting for the race to begin, there was one cub watching the door. Suddenly he jumped up and ran to the person entering saying, "Dad! Dad! Have you got the car?" The father answered, "Yes, I've got the car." "Can I see it?" asked the kid. "Yes, but don't touch it", replied the father.  Well, so much for kid-made cars, I thought to myself. Actually, my son's car did not turn out in the design he had first planned but somewhere along the way he noticed it looked more like a shoe so he had added two rows of small nails and laces. We knew nothing about the fine tuning of weight and wheel work and the car was not very fast but my son did feel he was a winner because he had managed to take that block of wood and make it into a car. I did notice that the cars that won were pretty high-tech for elementary school age kids.

A few years later, I became the cubmaster and made a few changes in the race. We began what was called "rough-cut days". We assembled saws and gouges and tools and provided help when the kids came with their drawings. We also opened a category for siblings and parents and leaders.

I told the parents to let their kid make his own car.
We helped with the weights and wheel tuning.

I told those parents half joking, "I'm the one to beat!" Thus began a long line of "cars". If you are interested in seeing past car designs, you can go to my awhittlescouting.blogspot.com and click on the label for 2012 and 2013.

After so many years of coming up with car designs, the expectations have become higher and higher and the challenge of doing something new, more and more difficult.

This year I toyed with the idea of making a bobcat.
It is the first rank a cub has to earn and I thought that might give the idea of coming in first.

Well, I googled some pictures of bobcats and none that I could find gave me any inspiration ... and I was running out of time as the race is tonight!

Well, "Owl win", says the owl, so I went with plan B. The only paint I needed was for eyes, feet and beak. I used a wood burner to add the feathers and markings. The wings are added from Magnolia wood and I just added acrylic varnish to help him shine. Several times parents have mentioned they were looking forward to seeing what I will make. Expectations for them, challenges for me!

In the quilting world, I have dug out a few pieces of fabric (all gifted by a friend as I never buy large amounts of fabric unless I have a purpose to use it.)

The center numbers will have a one inch strip of the yellow on each side and the finished quilt will have one inch of yellow around the entire border.

On the right is some tenugui fabric, on the left, a pastel stripe. That looks a bit pale but I intend to applique a vine and colored leaves over the strip. The leaves will match the numbers in fabric so will need to show up against the background.

Here are a few more I auditioned.
On the left is a pale pink stripe of hearts that I used on another baby quilt made in the fall.

on the right upper side is a pale olive batik-looking print and below a rather pale blue batik.

I will have to think this over a while. The baby will be a girl so the two left-side prints might be nice with pink.

The blue kind of matches the appliqued cat print but might it be saved for a boy quilt later on?

I wanted the quilt to be the same size as the sister's quilt so the side strips will be only 7 inches. I could cut the pastel strip to feature the blue.
Checking back, I see I used the tenugui fabric on the backing of the sister's quilt. Hmm, another challenge? Didn't I hear somewhere that facing regular small challenges is good for the brain?

A bit more Tokyo Dome show

I often wonder how the judges arrive at six quilts, from out of all those entered, to award the prizes.

This sign was posted to explain the awards.



Usually I make more than one trip to the show, the second one later toward the end of the show and the end of the day so that I can get better pictures without heads and shoulders of the crowds.

I usually take a picture of the quilt, followed by one of the sign posting the  details (for later identification)

This year, my priority was meeting my friends. Even among the crowds, friends are the very best. My pictures kind of fell in the gap betweens friends and crowds.

Somewhere in the center of the hall, the Grand Prix winners are exhibited.

We happened to pass when Miwako Mogami was posing for a photograph in front of her first prize quilt, "Wow, BANANAS".

How typical this pose is ...

Is this a V for victory ... or the Cub Scout sign promising to "Do My Best"?

Probably the first ... but she DID do her best on this one ...
in the eyes of the judges.

This was the pick for the best "Hand Making".


There certainly are many handmade quilts to chose from, and I am glad I didn't have to pick only one for the prize.



This one was made by Yoko Izumi.





I only got one other picture from among the winners and that one was the friendship award ...


though being somewhat distracted, I did not get a shot of the label so I can't give proper credit.

The winner here seems to be a group of friendly elephants.









Well, the last thing I have to show is progress with the baby quilt.

This one is never going to be displayed in a quilt show. No one is going to be counting the stitches to see how precisely it has been made.

But it is about real friendship. Maybe the label can say, "You can count on my love".

This will be the center of the quilt.

I am planning borders on the two sides with vines containing leaves in the same fabric as the numbers ...

One red leaf, two green and yellow leaves, three blue leaves, etc.

I plan a yellow border around the whole thing but I now have to examine my stash to find a background fabric that will go with the vines and leaves.

I have a good assortment of fabrics to use for the reverse side.

I used tenugui on the sister's quilt and one of my friends has just sent me a new supply ... but then, again, I have some cute kid-friendly prints as well.

Well, there is still time to think it over while I change projects to do a bit of whittling.

(Our pinewood derby is coming up this weekend and the expectations are high).
If I can't win a prize for quilting, maybe a fast car will do.

Tokyo Dome part #3 ... and other stuff

Each year, the Tokyo Dome show includes quilts by well-known quilt teachers.

The display has changed over the years, now the quilts are larger than before,  but usually there is a theme provided.

This year's theme was "Log Cabin".

Who has not tried making this pattern? One of my first bed covers was a log cabin quilt. It is faded now but still in use on a daughter's bed.

My camera did not do so well with the lighting but here is an interesting interpretation of the theme.



"An Autumn Walk"
by Reiko Naganuma.

"Multicolored Log Cabin"


By Akane Sakamoto.

"Townscape" by Masako Wakayama

" Old Denim Square" 

by Noriko Nozawa.

Too bad the lighting was poor but this was interesting with parts from old jeans ... many well worn.

I liked the way many parts were worked into pictures.

This quilt was hung with better exposure and very popular with viewers. 

I think every other person walking past it took a picture.

The title is "Buddy" and it was made by Yoshiko Kurihara.

"The Garden of Log Cabin" was made by Akiko Kawata.

Lots of beautiful applique.

"Flowers of Cosmos"

by Fumiko Nakayama.

Well, it is a "log cabin" basically

but these are not ordinary pieces.

Lots of Mola details in this quilt!

And here is what I am working on now.

I have completed enough blocks for my nine-patch challenge.   (one more row added yesterday)

I have not decided the layout as yet.

Meanwhile, can you guess what is going on below?

A few years I made an I-spy quilt for a friend's new daughter. Now my friend is expecting a second baby and I think (having spent my childhood with mostly hand-me-downs) that the second baby should have a quilt of it's own.

I drafted this layout of numbers and the first row is waiting for the rest.

I am trying to make this quilt the same size as the first one so the plan is to add a vine on each side with leaves in the colors of the numbers.... one red, two green, three blue etc.  The little good-luck cats are also something to count.

I spent a lot of time going through scraps thinking I would use some of the fabric I used in sister's quilt but no luck finding it. Maybe I have too many unorganized scraps or maybe there was nothing left or maybe I am not very good looking!

More Tokyo Dome quilts ... part 2

I found a few more partnership blocks among those I had photographed.

How about this musical variety?

A singing bird, a singing pineapple,
a singing elephant,  a note-worthy cat, a dancing couple, and the cow jumping over the moon.

Just imagine trying to coordinate a quilt with this variety!

And, I did mention cats ....


At least these are all singing in chorus and they have a fence of pieced blocks to keep them all together.



It would be very interesting to talk with those who took on the task of assembling these blocks.

As I understand it, each year one well-known quilt teacher assumes the responsibility.

She gets TV time where she can demonstrate making blocks in a class. Maybe publish patterns ...

then, with the help of her loyal disciples, the quilts are assembled. She must have access to a very large space to lay out all these blocks and decide what will go where. 120 blocks per quilt!
Next year with smaller blocks it might be even more of a challenge.

And another joy that came completely unexpected ....

While standing in our small group, we were approached by another blogger who had recognized  us from our blog pictures.

(Not an easy thing among that mob you can see in the background)

Jenni was visiting from Australia ...
her blog is JACARANDA. What fun to add a new friend to the equation!

We also met up with Chikako Ueno. Though I didn't get a picture, both she and Queenie got pictures of the two of us standing in front of her beautiful quilt.

I did get a poor shot of her bag, also being exhibited.

Since Ueno-sensei is not from the Tokyo area,  it is amazing that we seem to meet up every year with no planning at all.
Her group of "Team Quilt Ten" used to have a display every year at the Yokohama quilt show.
Each year the theme would change and the display included quilts from other countries who had joined that year and theme. What a pity that show has not continued, but how good to see Ueno-san is still in action.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2016 (part 1)

This show is the fifteenth year, and though each year I have filled out the questionnaire, commenting that something termed "International" should include at least the names of the contributors in English, very little progress has been made.

For those familiar with kanji ... the Chinese characters ... There is a problem that most of them can be read in a number of ways.  My own kanji that read "ju li" in Chinese  can be read "shu rei" in Japanese. Even names written in Japanese kana can be read in a number of ways because lei and rei are written the same. Since every citizen knows how to write their name using Roman letters, after 15 years one would think it would be a no-brainer to have the entry forma filled out with those characters as a backup. With NHK as a sponsor, one would think adding one more line to the form would not be so very hard.

Each year I see so many people taking pictures. I'm sure some of those will be shared over the internet and not to be able to give credit to the person who had created that masterpiece (and there were many) is not only sad but inexcusable.

I was so happy to have the day to meet up with my friends. Virtual friends are great and I have many, but if you ever have the opportunity to meet in person, don't have second thoughts or pass it up ... and quilters are the greatest.

Carin, better known as "Queenie" took time from her very busy life to meet up with me. I love looking at shows with Carin as we both see so much more.

We checked out the "Partnership quilts first. I liked the arrangement of the quilt displaying hers and it is not hard to spot the colors of the Swedish flag and instrument.

The quilt containing my block was rather jumbled in comparison. it looked more like a collection of leftovers than a planned product.

It is possible to buy a ticket to bid on any of the quilts but this year I didn't bother. I wonder if anyone dropped a ticket into that box.

Queenie was able to get this link  http://www.nhk.or.jp/kurashi/hand/quilt/index.html where all the partnership quilts can be viewed.
Translate the page and you can view all the quilts and see the names of the contributors.

Next year the blocks will be made smaller and I wonder what that might mean for the layouts. There were certainly many identical blocks but some creative ones too.

Tanya joined us all the way from Nikko a bit later in the day and here she is with her block.

Both Carin and Tanya have posted pictures from the show
And both of them are better than I at figuring out the Japanese names.


As you may have already noticed, the theme for this year was "Music".

Well, Tanya's block is among lots of notes and signs. Carin's is one heavy with musical instruments.



My Ohio cardinal was singing among flowers, slippers, and even a 4-leaf clover and an alarm clock. At any rate I appreciate all the work that must have gone into assembling these quilts. It could not have been an easy task as there were over 70 finished quilts.

They lined the outer walls and the aisles,

Beside each quilt is a posted list with the name and location (city) of each contributor, and below that a box in which to drop a ticket for the drawing of that quilt.

  here are some creative interpretations of the theme, "music".


Frogs ... yes, there were quite a few.

Cats ... many.

birds ... my cardinal did have some company.

Lady bug? I have never heard one sing or even make a sound.

The one hanging on the left has my cardinal third row from the bottom. The neighboring quilt is a bit better organized. Maybe the name of the block was square dance or something musical. There were other quilts with dancing legs below gathered skirts and a silhouette of a girl singing.

Though these blocks were quite similar,

the effect of many combined seemed rather pleasing.



Though I have little understanding of the process, it seems that many blocks may be made in group workshops or patterns may be offered by quilt groups or teachers.


It is interesting though that even among these similar blocks, there is creativity in the choice of fabrics and the appliquéd critters.


Hopefully I will have a chance to figure out the other pictures from the show. I hope you have visited both Tanya and Queenie because their pictures are so much better than mine.