Spring flowers. No cherry blossoms yet.

To the south of us, Japan is celebrating cherry blossom season but the cherry blossoms have yet to reach our town.  I went out looking for some signs of spring in the gray landscape and surprisingly found a bit of color hidden away behind trees and besides parked cars.

 I found three crocus blossoms at a factory entryway.

They are trying to bloom through the still frosty moss.

Actually I photoed this rape blossom just before Choco peed on it.  Makes me want to be sure to wash all the rape blossom greens that Yuma-kun brings me to cook this season.  (We already had a pot full this week.)

I'm afraid I have no idea what this is...  It was growing in bunches behind some construction signs.  The petals are almost paper-like.

The plum orchards are beautiful in the early morning sunlight and the air around them has a heavenly aroma as we walk past...

By afternoon when I go past again on a walk with Choco the fragrance isn't as noticeable.  It must be the freshly opened blossoms in the morning or maybe the fragrance dissipates in the warmer air.

This is another edible plant that is found along the edges of the rice fields.  It is called fuki and can be eaten as tempura or chopped up and mixed with miso.  I have a bag of these too that Yuma-kun picked for me...though that would be a lot of tempura to cook...  Fuki is really the herald of spring!

There was more spring around than I thought I would find.

Flip-flop

Last night we had another wind storm.

And this morning Tetsu and I went for a walk and what do we come across?

The farmer's shed is upside down again!  This is the shed this morning.

This was the shed earlier this month...  It looked like it had quietly flipped over. 

About two weeks later the shed was right-side up again so I guess the farmer found it pretty easy to flip it back to its original position.  (I didn't take a picture of the right-side up shed.  A shed is a shed.)

But this morning the shed is back upside down again despite a bit of anchoring that the farmer had hoped would hold.  It didn't.  This time the shed has incurred more damage than before and the next flip right-side up is going to have to include some repairs.

Or the farmer could just give up.  I wonder if he finds the shed an embarrassment or a challenge.

Small Liberty quilt Finished!

I put in the finishing stitches to the Liberty Quilt this morning and can cross one WIP off my list.  I will take my this to Patchwork on Friday and hopefully the trials and errors experienced when putting that binding on can be turned into a teaching opportunity for the other ladies...  One of the reasons we chose this pattern to begin with is because rather than a squared bottom, the zig-zag at the finish seemed intriguing.  It took two attempts to get the binding in at those inverted Vs but I think I've got the hang of it now. 

(Note to me:  Tanya, make sure you clip the basted quilt at the V tip and pull the binding and the quilt edge straight when machine sewing...  The binding will close nicely when it is hemmed later in the back...)

Besides the interesting hang to the quilt, this pattern really shows off the Liberty line of fabrics beautifully.  Mrs. Furui had a couple hundred fat quarters of Liberty fabric and we cut up lots of strips to mark for 6 Liberty quilts (5 for personal use and one for the hospital).  I brought home 48 cuts and supplied my own white/neutral fabric that I picked up when I was at the quilt show in February.  Unfortunately, I never could tell which was the right and which was the wrong side of the neutral fabric.  

Selvage holes going IN.

 Selvage holes coming OUT.  My choice.

There is a whole theory of whether the right side of the fabric has holes on the selvage going IN or coming OUT but opinions vary...  (I checked the Internet and came up with different opinions.)  MY fabric has tiny woven flowers on it and I chose the side I liked best... the shimmery side. 

  But what does it matter?  Not at all!

Meow, meow, meow

Day by day it is getting warmer and often when I'm hanging out laundry Toi and Patora will venture out to the veranda and search out the sun.

Toi USED to jump from the veranda ledge to the front porch roof and back again, but maybe he is getting older (or just heavier) and isn't as light on his feet as he used to be.  I once found him in the front yard so I'm assuming he fell off the roof on one of his jumps.  He seems to be able to jump onto the roof, but these days he mulishly refuses to try to jump back to the veranda.

"Meow, meow, meow, the window to Mom's room is too high up.  Somebody come rescue me!"

"Meow, meow, meow.  I found a window I can reach.  Mom!  Mom!  Open the window and let me back in!"

Toi is not my smartest cat (just ornery) and he keeps getting stuck out on the roof.  And I keep letting him back into the room through the window. 

6th project

Tetsu shook his head as he watched me quilting last night and asked me how many things I am working on these days.

"Don't you get confused and frustrated doing three or four projects at one time?"

Excuse me... that is six projects at one time.

• The bazaar quilt
• The hospital Liberty quilt
• Yuma-kun's quilt (which only gets worked on when he is around)
• The Pine Burr quilt which is waiting for some backing
• My smaller Liberty quilt
• A Leaders/Enders quilt for a friend

I was trying to think of a good quilt to give a friend who is moving soon.  Well, I had all these 2 1/2 inch leaders/enders and a pattern called Traffic Jam, (scroll down at that link for the free pattern) so I started sewing and made a whole bunch of four patches.

The Pine Burr's yellow fabric was still on the cutting table and making sure I left enough for the Pine Burr's binding I cut squares and sewed those together too.

Next I needed some sashing between my blocks...  I could have gone all yellow, that might have been nice.  I don't know if my friend likes yellow.  Or I could do traditional sashing in one color...  Or...

Hey, I have some left over batik strips from a jelly roll that I had used last year!  I had used the subdued colors and set aside the darker purples and eye-catching chartreuse greens.  Can I use those?  This is a little out of the box, but I made the vertical sashing purple and the horizontal sashing green.  And I alternated green and purple intersecting squares in hopes that it made the sashing look woven.  Does it?

I am in the process of sewing a four patch border today...  We'll see how that looks around all this...

And I'm running out of 2 1/2 inch squares (not that I couldn't make millions more) so I feel like I'm making a dent in my scrap box.

Random beliefs

Sometimes when I write posts, I have a specific topic in mind.  A quilt I want to show, something that happened a day or so earlier.  The camera stays pretty close to me and I don't think a day goes by that I don't take SOME picture.

A lot of pictures just end up in the computer files because they don't relate to anything.  Let's see what is in my file box recently.

Here is a picture of a Shinto shrine blessing set up by a rice field nearest to my house.  In a few more weeks the farmers will start plowing their fields and before that the famrers go to the shrine to get a blessing.  Maybe you can't tell from the photo but the blessing is only about a hand length tall and it is written on Japanese washi paper and set into a piece of bamboo.  The paper is very sturdy and the blessing will stand guard by the field for quite a few weeks.  Here and there over the farming landscape you can see paper blessings during this season.

This is actually Tetsu's mother's Buddhist altar that she has set on her dresser.  I'll have to ask some friend if I can photograph their huge gold family altars which are really pieces of furniture, but I'm not sure if that request might be rude or not...  Maybe someday.  Tetsu's mother lives in a tiny apartment and so her family altar is this small makeshift one.  As I understand it, the gold altar houses spirits.  In front is a place for incense to be burnt (the incense sticks are in the cup in front of the flowers) and candles to be lit (no candles in those candle holders that day.)  To the right is a gong that will be rung before prayers are offered.

And this is a picture I took from the second floor of our church one Sunday when Tetsu was serving as worship leader.  Four rows of pews, an electric keyboard on one side of the sanctuary and a piano on the other side.  I was sitting at the far right corner at the back.  The pews are nicely cushioned and they have the small ledge/desk in front for laying a Bible or taking sermon notes.

And this picture... Well, I don't know what it is really.  Tetsu and I go past this house every week on our way to church and we wonder what the owners are thinking...  Do you see that big black wall at the front?  For some reason the owner put up the wall in front of their front door a few years ago.  The front door can no longer be used.  Even on the second floor there is a barrier that shuts out the neighborhood from the house.  One of our theories is that there was some accident or misfortune that befell the family and to change the luck of the house they have rerouted the spirit entrance...  We one time knew a family who did the same thing, barred up their front door, after their child passed away in an accident.   Or this family could be trying to catch certain radio waves... I notice a very large antenna there on the left... What do you think?

Swim cap

Tetsu came home mortified the other night but I got permission to write this post..

When swimming at the pool everyone is required to wear swimming caps.  The pool supplies yellow ones for new visitors but most people have their own.  A long time back I bought myself a grey one and bought Tetsu a dark blue one.  Swimming caps are made of stretchy nylon, not the horrid head squeezing rubber things of days before.  Nowadays swim caps are quite comfortable though I must admit they do nothing for appearance.  (One time I Googled how to make a swim cap in hopes that I could design something more attractive.  I doubt that it is ever going to happen or is even possible.)

ANYWAY...  Tetsu went to the pool and changed in the men's locker room.  He went through the door to the pool and placed his towel on a rack and then he headed over to the shower area.  From the showers he headed into the pool, pulling his swim cap over his head.

WHAT THE??!!!!?!  Tetsu was trying to pull my dark blue underpants over his head!!!

That morning Tetsu had grabbed his swimsuit and what he thought was his swim cap from our laundry hangers.  But I just happen to have a dark blue stretchy pair of underpants that were daintily hanging from the hanger too.  Oops.  Wrong dark blue stretchy piece of laundry.

Red-faced, Tetsu beelined it back to the locker room and stuffed my underpants as far into his pool bag as he could.  He wore a yellow cap that evening and he says no one noticed the mix-up near the shower stalls.

Maybe I should be wearing pink lacy underpants.

Smile!

I'm just rambling today.

When I was a teenager and playing around with make-up, I remember my father telling me that the easiest way to become beautiful was to smile.  And thinking back to childhood, I vaguely remember my father prompting me to smile more.  Maybe I was a somber child.

I am not anymore.  When applying for my crosswalk job and being interviewed for the position I was asked why I thought I was good for the job.

"I smile a lot!  That's a good way for the children to start the day."

Smiling does not come naturally to Japanese.  I think it is a samurai mentality and higher virtues are; bearing up, enduring, tolerating, being manly, being serious minded.  Tetsu could be the original Mr. Spock.  Women especially will gracefully hide their smiles and laughter behind their hands. Showing the teeth and the mouth is considered uncouth and even I have picked up the mannerism of hiding my mouth when I laugh out loud (which my American brother finds very annoying... the hiding, not the laughing out loud.)

I think I should start a smiling campaign!  Smiling lets the other person know that all is well, that they can relax and won't be pounced upon, that for the moment there are no dangers.  I think this is especially important at schools and kindergartens and every year I have to ask teachers (and students) to remove their masks during my English classes.  I detest this custom of retreating behind masks in the ruse that society is being protected from germs.  The children can't tell if the teacher is smiling or frowning when they wear those masks all day and I honestly believe that someday someone is going to discover a correlation between mask raised children and depression.  Rats...  I didn't mean to get on my high anti-mask horse again.

I meant to say that more people should be smiling!  At the kindergarten graduation ceremonies, teachers and parents either cried or looked staid and serious.  I think I was the only one foolishly grinning away and waving at the graduation students.  Yes, the ceremony is touching and yes, the children are leaving behind their safe kindergarten memories and forging into an unknown elementary school world but for heaven's sake, let's show them our confidence and let them know the adventure that awaits them... with a few smiles!

Oh well, I may be totally off the wall.  The kindergarten children had their party after the graduation ceremonies and I'm sure everybody was smiling and laughing then...  Maybe I just don't know the time and place.

As a thank you present to the teachers, the kindergarten mothers had each child draw a self-portrait and printed all 30 faces on a hand towel.  I was happy to see all the smiling faces!

More flowers

As I mentioned yesterday, the cherry trees aren't blooming around here yet but the plum trees are!

We have dark pink plum blossoms and white plum blossoms in our neighborhood and the pink ones start blooming first.  I think as a child I always thought that cherry blossoms were dark pink but although there are different types, basically cherry blossoms are a very light pink.  I will keep my eyes out for the first bloom.
On the quilting front, I have started quilting the Liberty quilt.

Actually we are working on THREE Liberty quilts right now so I keep going back and forth between the three.  They all look basically the same, but anyway, one is for the hospital and it will be the largest.  Another smaller one will be for the person who donated the Liberty fabrics to the hospital, and the third one is my own.  (And Mrs. Furui and three other ladies are also making this quilt so all in all there will be seven Liberty quilts to show someday...  You are going to be tired of Liberty quilts.)

The original pattern didn't have any quilting in the white area but I chose an intricate feather design.  I'm not sure if I like it or not but it is too late to change it now...  Keep on sewing!  This is keeping me busy until I get the Pine Burr basted...

March's fabric postcard

We are well into March and I remembered I was still trying to make fabric postcards for my mother.  And I've never heard about the last two that I sent...  Did I mention that I called specifically to ask how the postcards arrived?  My mother and I talked for 30 minutes, I hung up and realized that she hadn't said a word about the fabric postcards.

"Ah... she has forgotten that they came in the mail."

But I can't complain because I forgot to ask her if they'd arrived...  and that was the whole purpose of the phone call!!!  Daughter like mother.

Going on the assumption that my mother enjoys getting fabric postcards, I made one for March.

I fused fabric together to make a three-dimensional cherry blossom and then added some darker color because the petals seemed too light.  The center is just some yellow thread that I tied together and clipped the ends.  The background fabric was just right for a bit of movement and I machine stitched a single line.

That was easy!

This went into an envelope again because I could just imagine the post office man pulling at those petals trying to determine if this could be sent... 

And by the way, the cherry blossoms aren't blooming yet around here but they will be soon!  Here's hoping!

Comics

The other day Takumi's friend from elementary school and Jr. high school called to say that he was going to the California for a week and staying with Takumi and did I want him to take anything.  He later stopped over to take some things I'd pulled together.

So, what did I send to my son?  Not much.

I was never much of a cook and my children probably don't have any memories of Mom's Home Cooking, so I didn't send cookies or such.

I didn't have a quilt ready and Takumi doesn't seem too interested in my quilts anyway, so I didn't send a quilt.

I went to the grocery store and found dried foods for one person meals which I am sure is going to be very boring and may never get used.

Comics?

Ah, my hated comics.  When the children were little, Tetsu used to buy them complete sets of comic books.  Judo comics, super hero comics, sports comics, history comics, mystery comics.  And SETS means that there were 30, 40 books to a set!  (Granted Tetsu always bought the comics at the used book stores but still, that's a lot of money spent on comics!)  As I did not read Japanese, comics rated very low on my list of necessities.  And I would have much rather the kids have used the library for 'more worthy' reading material...

By the way, I regret my attitude about comics as being 'unworthy' reading material these days.  I have finally realized that there is a huge Japanese comic and animation culture that is considered an art and an education...  still I have never gotten into the comic culture myself.

So the number of comics just increased in my house and when Takumi left for the States I asked him to do something about them all.  He proceeded to dump a couple hundred comics into big plastic storage containers and what wouldn't fit there, he stacked along the edges of the closet wall making excellent insulation material but causing the use of the closet to be hindered.  And Leiya had her own beloved sets of comics in HER closet.  A few years ago I asked both children if I could get rid of their comics.  (Good glory, both kids have lived in the States 9 years or more now.)  Both children responded separately that they would like me to keep the comics for awhile longer...  Sigh.

So I decided to clean out Takumi's closet and send along a few comics with his friend.  GYAHHH!  Cleaning out the closet took me all morning!!!  I brought out ALL comics, I sorted and put them in some order, I put some of the sets in their special comic boxes (which cost a lot in themselves!)  And I invited Takumi's friend to come upstairs and choose a few comics to carry to Takumi in California.  I have no idea if Takumi is interested in READING his old comics or not, or if he just wants them in our house to remind him that his treasures are safe in Japan.  Maybe I'll transport a few comics at a time to Takumi's apartment in California and let HIM figure out what to do with them!

In the meantime...  Here is a SMALL corner of Takumi's comics.  A few sets got new homes in the expensive comic boxes and a couple hundred more got dumped back into the big plastic storage containers.  Toi finds the comic carpeting very colorful and interesting.  

Yuma-kun has graduated!

Today was Nikko City's elementary school graduation.  (I think all the schools have their graduation ceremonies on the same day.)  I was invited to attend the ceremony at the school where I stand for crosswalk duty and I went in full uniform and sat with the other "honored guests" such as Jr. high school principals, City Hall officials, neighborhood association chairmen etc.  It was very heartwarming to watch the 6th graders file into the ceremonies dressed in their upcoming Jr. high school uniforms and it made me smile to watch the graduates choke back tears and wipe their running noses on their new uniform jackets.  Somebody should have supplied them with handkerchiefs.  And it was the boys that were having a hard time keeping those tears in check!

Here it is evening and I was just telling Tetsu about today's ceremonies when "Ding-dong!" the door bell rang.  And who should be there but Yuma-kun, (who, by the way, took great offense that I have been referring to him as Y-kun on this blog.)

"I TOLD you you didn't have to write Y-kun.  You should use my real name.  I already TOLD you it was okay!"  (And so did his grandmother.)

So, may I introduce Yuma-kun.  He has done me the great honor of coming to my house specially to show me how he looks in his Jr. high school uniform.  Yuma-kun DOESN'T go to the neighborhood school.  He has attended a different elementary school thus I didn't get to see him graduate this morning.  And Yuma-kun will be attending a different Jr. high school too so his uniform is different from all the students today.

While the local Jr high school uniform for boys is a blue jacket, gray slacks and red tie, Yuma-kun's Jr. high uniform is the traditional black stand up collar jacket with the school emblem embossed on the buttons.  I think the "gakuran" style is based on French military uniforms and it used to be the only type of uniform for Jr. and senior high school boys.  Very spiffy looking don't you think?!

Yuma-kun came bearing me red bean rice made for special celebratory occasions and also a pot of flowers probably given to each student from the graduation ceremonies.  Of course I made a huge fuss over him!  He looked SO handsome and grown up!!!  Somehow different from the slightly pudgy, somewhat hyper, ever generous boy that I see on Thursdays.  I called Tetsu to the door and we snapped photos and slapped Yuma-kun on the back and told him how wonderful he was.  He allowed me to give him a hug and proudly showed us his diploma.  Such a boy!  Tetsu and I felt like we were congratulating a grandchild!

Yuma-kun.  He has been coming to my house for English for 6 years and though I know I shouldn't have favorites, he has been featured often on my blog and has been a special presence in my life. You can not imagine how his surprise visit to include me in his important day has made my heart sing!

Quilting stencil

I am still ornery.  It must be the result of not having Tetsu around for the past couple days...  But we have had "dates" where we meet for lunch for an hour. 

I'm not sure of the mentality of Tetsu not being able to go work because his mother has influenza.  There seems to be a rule at his convalescent home that if anyone in the family comes down with influenza, then the person on staff (in this case Tetsu) must take off from work for a week.  This seems like an odd policy to me because if someone in the office has four children and they each come down with influenza at week intervals, well that's a lot of time off from work.  When I questioned the policy Tetsu grumpily explained that lives are at stake and a bout of influenza going through a convalescent home is life threatening.  Well, Tetsu himself doesn't have influenza (yet) so though he is staying at his mothers and is caring for her, he does go to the pool or meet me for lunch or go shopping.  It's not like he's completely quarantined...

Another "date" we had was last night when we both had to attend a neighbor's wake.  I had gotten a phone call from the neighbor earlier in the day letting me know that her 96 year old father, Ojiichan, had passed away and inviting me to come over to see him.  This is a common custom.  The deceased is laid out in the room and people come in and out during the day offering incense and enjoying tea and sweets while sitting next to him.  It seems a very natural, down-to-earth completion to a person's life though it took me awhile to get used to the custom...  In the evening everyone moved to a memorial hall for a Buddhist service and dinner afterwards.  Today will be the funeral which I won't be able to attend. 

(As an aside...  I made the major boo-boo by peering down at Ojiichan's face and commenting how "lively" he looked.  "Tottemo genki na kao desu ne."  I meant to say how natural he looked but my faux pas slipped out.) 

Gosh, no pictures so far.  I have spent the evenings putting the finishing quilting marks on the Pine Burr quilt.  With the border I had been able to just trace the pattern through the fabric but within the pine burrs I had to resort to making a stencil.  I chose a simple pattern and traced it onto a plastic template with a heavy felt pen.  Then I spent quite a lot of time cutting out the lines with an Exacto knife (leaving connections so that the plastic didn't completely fall away).  Finally I stenciled the lines on with a Karisma Fabric pencil on the light areas and with a yellow General's Quilter's pencil on the darker areas.

Hmm.  That picture didn't turn out too well.  You can't see the stenciled lines but I'm not making them darker just for photography purposes.  You'll just have to enjoy the scrap of Liberty fabric that the lines are drawn on.