Teaching patchwork

My favorite days are when I am sitting at home with nothing more to do than work on handwork...  quilting, knitting, tatting, embroidery.  It really doesn't matter what is at hand, I just like doing it.

My second greatest love might be blogging but a close third comes teaching handwork.  Not necessarily teaching English which seems a shame as I've been an English teacher for nearly 40 years.  (And I'm not saying that I don't like teaching English.  I just like teaching hand work more!)

I "officially" teach patchwork maybe once a month or so.  On another day I also help friends with patchwork projects, usually projects I've pushed on them, once a month or so also.  I had hoped to be teaching a young lady patchwork this year but that fell through as she was trying to hold down a full time job also.  And I suppose I could say that I teach Yuma-kun patchwork occasionally too though once he became a jr. high student and has English tests to study for (and just keep up with the class!) we haven't been sewing very much.

The friends' projects that I've pushed upon them started when Mrs. T began her battle with cancer and wanted to make some baby quilts for her as yet to be born grandchildren.  She figured she needed to get started while she could and three of her friends, including me, vowed to help her complete her quilts and tie up any loose ends if Mrs. T couldn't do it herself.  Well, the battle goes on and Mrs. T finished her second quilt already (the first one given away to someone who was also battling cancer).  She is hard at work on another baby quilt, this time getting very elaborate with quite a bit of embroidery and applique.  And as she doesn't really need much instruction right now but enjoys the company of us three friends, I forced a new project on them. 

One day I brought some McKenna kits I had and all three friends spent a couple hours collaging.  And I brought my sewing machine with me and taught them how to do machine quilting.  They didn't much like that, but as the sewing machine was there, and I had some scrap material with me, they tried their hands at free motion quilting following a Pounce pattern.

Here were their three attempts.  A lot of laughter and exclamations but at least we all had fun!  And my advice is to go over the first lines of quilting with another line and the mistakes aren't so obvious.  Actually I think these samples have a lot of personality, don't you?  The smooth, flowing lines may take a bit more practice but I can visualize a border like this very well on a wonky or free-form quilt.

The two patchwork students who come to my house always have a couple projects going at one time (don't all quilters?) but with limited time I decided to finish off our table runners which were really machine quilting practice blocks. I made up my own sample first and supplied the fabrics and quilting patterns so all three sets of blocks are the same.  The placement was different though and we each chose a different fabric to lattice and bind our table runners.

Each friend is holding her own table runner with mine in the middle.  Good Job!

R-san was worrying that my whole afternoons are killed when I teach these two friends quilting.  Let's see...  About four hours?  I don't mind in the least!  (Even though it does mean that I don't work on my own projects very much).  When I go to Mrs. Furui's once a month she has patchwork friends coming in and out her front door from 10:00 to 6:30!  And her husband has to stay holed up in his study all day while the ladies all take over his house!  But Mrs. Furui has dedicated herself to helping other quilters and she doesn't seem to mind the killed day either.

So teaching was done for the week and yesterday (thank goodness for leap year!) I put together a New York Beauty block.  Um..  Remember I was going to try and make one block a month.  Well, I had forgotten until yesterday and so I threw together a somewhat more complicated block than January's.  I could have given color placement more thought but ANYWAY!  February's New York Beauty block is DONE!

Two down, ten to go.

Girls' Day displays

This weekend Tetsu and I went off in search of something but as so often happens our plans didn't go as "planned" and we ended up doing something else...  (We had PLANNED to go to a restaurant for lunch... "Oh no.  We don't need a reservation." but the restaurant only seemed to have four tables and there were 10 groups of people on the reservation list ahead of us...)

So while waiting to see if the reservation list was going to move along at a reasonable pace (which it didn't which was why we ate fast food instead) there was a small park nearby that was having a Hina Doll display.  Girls' Day which is when Hina Dolls are set out, is on March 3rd.  I left Tetsu standing at the restaurant entryway and went to look at the dolls but was more entranced with the fabric art made with Japanese kimono fabric.

At the entrance to the park was a plum tree which gets the tourists into the mood for Girls' Day! 

 A very interesting mobile made from colorful chirimen shibori fabric.  Chirimen is a crepe fabric and shibori means that the fabric has been tied every quarter of an inch or so and then dyed.  In some cases the fabric is ironed flat but all these perfect little balls were spiky like colorful little porcupines.

 Bunny dolls seemed to be popular.

 And I loved this basket of vegetables all made from fabric.

Those little blobs don't look too interesting and I wasn't sure they were even worth photographing but I thought you might like to know that they are covered clam shells!  (Empty I'm sure.)

And there were two patchwork tapestries on the walls depicting the Hina dolls (Emperor and Empress).

 It would be fun to use some of the gold fabrics to make the tapestries...

And after seeing the Girls' Dolls displays I realized that Girls' Day is around the corner so I came home and put up my own Girls' Day tapestry in my entryway.

Tetsu's photo show

Saturday morning here in Japan and I've finally got Tetsu home long enough to download the photos that he's had in his camera.    So today's photos are going to be miscellaneous photos from the past couple of weeks...  Tetsu's versions.

This was from our day trip north when we went looking for swans (didn't find any that day).  I took the same shot with a zoom lens...  Tetsu's camera gets a lot more saturation in color in his photos and those mountains really come out spectacularly.   And they were pretty spectacular to the naked eye anyway.

And we found the swans the next day at a different part of the prefecture.  Why do swans (and ducks) choose some places to visit and not others?)  This area wasn't very far from a high wire electrical plant.

Tetsu got a good shot of all the ducks and swans living together side by side very happily.

And by doing a bit of photo cropping I find that Tetsu did a better job of getting a photo of those swans in flight.

Here am I trying to be a photographer....  Aim at a swan... any swan...

Do you think there is a dress code for photographers?  Maybe a hot pink jacket doesn't blend in with the natural surroundings... 

This is from the day before yesterday when we woke up to the snow.  And this is our house at the edge of the forest (and neighborhood).

We headed out to the main street on our walk with Choco.  As you can see there isn't much main about our main street...  It is a good thing we like trees.

We REALLY like trees!  This is Tetsu's photo from this morning.

So Tetsu's camera chip is cleaned out again... 

February's fabric post card

Because I've been thinking of my mother a lot this week I decided I really ought to continue the "tradition" (of two years) of making her fabric cards... whether she appreciates them or not.  But with not much time left in this month nor ideas, I was sort of at a loss. 

I'm not really sure if my mother is a "Bible" quoting person...  she was extremely active in her church for many years but not one to spout off Bible verses nor do any in depth Bible study.  Still, the basic message is in her heart and so I made up another Bible card for February.

This month's pattern is from Allie-Oops Sweet Happy Life introduced by Jenny of Elefanz.
I really didn't do this pattern justice as I was a bit in a hurry...  Not that my mother is going to notice but someday I'm going to pull out all these fabric postcards and look at this one and think "I really did a slap-dash job in February 2016."

The embroidery came out fine but the finished binding didn't work out so well.  For some reason once my card was finished it was larger than the post card I was binding it to.  So some of the edges got cut off and all together I wasn't very centered, was I?  Sigh...  And the binding was sewn to the top AND the paper card on the back at the same time...  And then top stitched so that the back of the binding got caught in the top-stitching... And my pride keeps me from even SHOWING the rather ship-shod job of sewing that binding down! 

I really need to get this card off as early as possible and so I'm going to have to be satisfied with this.  Maybe the lesson learned is to stop trying to sew fabric cards onto paper cards...  I should just buy some heavy interfacing while I'm in the States next month and write messages on that.

Anyway, February's card is finished and ready to be sent!

Snow... and thoughts on being busy

We woke up to snow again this morning!  Lots of it!  And the first thing Tetsu and I think of is to go out into it and take photos...  We really do have a busy morning schedule (I have to get to the crosswalk before 7:30), but we prefer racing through breakfast just so we can play with our cameras.  (Unfortunately the rush after breakfast meant I didn't have time to download Tetsu's photos so I don't know what he has in his camera.)

 Even a lowly factory across the main street from us looks pretty inviting in the morning snow...

I guess I'll show snow photos while I ramble this morning.

As mentioned earlier, time is getting away from me.  Is it just me these days?  I barely get any sewing done at all recently and I wonder what became of my patchwork blog posts...  Though I don't want to measure my worth by the NUMBER of quilts I get made in a year, it is true that the past few years I've been able to count up a good number of finishes by December but I realized that I have only one finish so far and practically nothing that looks like it will be finished soon.  What happened to my motivation... if that is what the problem is...

And it also seems ludicrous to worry about the end of the year's finishes while it is still only February...  Still...

Blogging time has been cut back too recently and I find it nearly impossible to go blog visiting.  I'm so sorry about that, my dear blog friends.  It is depressing to find the posts piling up in my Bloglovin' feedbox but I know if I start I really want to comment too...  I have a feeling that this is a perfectionist symptom...  "If I can't do it right then I'm not going to do it at all."

Even the snow photos today reflect a change of my mood or something because I haven't been out and about with my camera much either recently...  WHY!?  Tetsu once commented that he knew I was in good spirits when he checked my blog daily on his lunch time just knowing I had blogged that morning and was enthusiastically posting photos.  My blog was my barometer of moods.  Well, I think I'm in a pretty good mood still these days... just not finding a lot to blog about.  Hopefully I will look back on this time and realize I was just busy... though I can't put my finger down on what I'm busy about....  And by the way, I consider busyness to be the block preventing really important things getting done.

While we're in the snow...

This isn't my photo...  These final two photos are from my friend, Kaoru-san's Smartphone and she sent them to me when she went skiing with her husband this weekend.  Every year they go to Mt. Zao which is a famous ski resort and known for its Ice Monsters.  Actually these aren't really ice monsters yet...  They are the beginning of juhyo which form under unique climatic conditions.  There have to be evergreens... there have to be strong winds and the snow has to be damp.  The damp snow adheres to the trees and build up until there are all these blobs on the mountainside...  No trees (or at least none visible... they will be under the blobs.) 

Now I'd LOVE to go take photos of Ice Monsters myself someday but as Tetsu and I aren't skiers nor much at snow driving, I'm grateful that Kaoru-san took the time to send me her photos. 

And I'm also very happy with the minimal amount of snow that we had this morning!

Good news, bad news

I'm having computer problems!!!  Gyahhh!  This drives me crazy!  After 6 tries I'm finally connected again but I don't know why I couldn't get on Internet to begin with nor why I can connect now.  The Internet world is a mystery that I enjoy most times but that confounds me when things don't go as planned.  Just last week Tetsu and I "attended" live, a funeral taking place in Tennessee.  That was a wonderful benefit of the Internet.  So I guess the blessings still outweigh the frustrations.

Last week I got a phone call from Marcy.  That is never good and to be honest my first thought was that I was too late in scheduling a trip back to California next month.  Just hearing Marcy's voice sort of took the wind out of my sails and I plopped into a nearby chair expecting to hear the worst...  Not so.  Grandma was taken to the emergency room the day before and was under observation for a possible heart attack.  Not good.  But I talked to Marcy two days later and Grandma was already back at home.

"Your mother is like a cat with nine lives."

So things are not great but Grandma is happy to be back in her own bed.  Marcy unfortunately has turned into a full time nurse, NOT a job she bargained for but she is soldiering on with bursts of tears in her own bedroom.  Please say a prayer for Marcy as well as for my mother.

Marcy always has a sense of humor though and she was relating that while in the hospital my mother had a roommate and the two older ladies were on the same dementia wavelength.

"I've got to get out of here!"

"Me too.  Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the market."

"What are you going to buy?"

Marcy and the other lady's daughter could only laugh and cry at the absurd conversations that went on between the two seniors and BOTH did NOT want to be there.  I think in my mother's case the hospital was glad to send her home...  My normally quiet mother was really putting up a fuss...

 Marcy is so good at looking after my mother... (photo back from last July... obviously)

So my March 15th trip to the States is still scheduled and hopefully I can be of some help to Marcy when I get there...

Cuties

I'm sort of on the run again.  You would think that someone headed for retirement would have a little more time on her hands but either I am getting slower at doing the daily errands or I'm mismanaging my time these days.  This year I'm not going to get many quilts done at this rate!

More "cute" things.

 One of my students brought some chocolates for the class to enjoy.

Almost too cute to eat!

And yesterday the neighbor girl who takes care of my cats for me when I'm gone brought over a belated Valentine's Day bag which included some sweets in a kitty can, homemade cookies and a scrub pad for the kitchen.  No way is that cute crocheted paw going to be used for scrubbing dishes.  It might make a nice suitcase tag for recognizing my suitcase quickly.

And three of my own cuties (four if you include Tetsu.)

Japanese Health Care for the Elderly

Someone asked me about the type of work Tetsu does and how he is involved with nursing care...  No photos today.

Tetsu has spent 30 years or so working in convalescent care, basically in the office doing accounting work.  For the past 10 years he held the position of office head of the convalescent home but as of last November he has changed workplaces and has different responsibilities.

Until a couple of years ago Japan's policy was retirement at age 60.  The government is having trouble with their pension plans and they have now given the option of working until 65, as they say "on commission" which means that the person has the same responsibilities at lower salary...  which seems strange to me but we have to live with it.  ANYWAY, Tetsu is 62 now and has only two or three more years of work.  He opted to change positions within the same convalescent care group and now he heads 7 care "centers".  (It used to be he was in charge of 19).

Breaking down the 7 centers...  Two are Day Service Centers.  One is a Group Home.  One is a Home Helper Station.  One is a Care Manager Office.  One is an Assistance Center for the Handicapped.  And one is a All Around Community Assistance Center.   Tetsu no longer has much to do with the convalescent homes (two), and Short Stay Centers (two)...  I don't know what else is connected with the overall care group...

Day Service Centers are just that...  Elderly from the community are picked up by the Center and delivered for a day of activities, bathing, lunch, and general chatting time.  Tetsu drives one of the vans every morning and picks up different people depending on the day.  There are of course care workers with him.  Tetsu really seems to enjoy these morning rounds and being with the elderly, chatting with them as he drives and joking with them.  After that I guess Tetsu is mostly in the office running things from his desk though he seems to have given himself the responsibility of being the in-house photographer.  The many workers at the Day Service Center have the job of bathing the guests one by one and I'd say that this is probably the foremost service that is offered.  Most of these people get to the point that they can no longer get into a bathtub without help or just don't wash up themselves very well and that is the reason families begin to use the Day Service Centers.  The other reason of course is that many of these elderly just can't be left at home all day long alone while their families go off to jobs and so they are "guests" of the Day Service Centers.

Group Homes are live in facilities mainly for people with dementia.  The group home Tetsu is affiliated with has 18 people living there; two units of 9 people each.  There is staff on duty at all times and where the residents can help, they do small jobs like fold laundry, sweep porches, serve lunch, occasionally even help in the kitchen.

A Home Helper Station is the hub point for certified helpers who go out to homes daily on an hourly basis and care for in-home elderly.  Japan is trying to keep elderly at home as long as possible and so this is a huge part of health care nowadays.  The Helpers may do cleaning or shopping or cooking and a few with more qualifications will help with bathing or toe-nail cutting etc.  Tetsu's mother has a regular Home Helper who comes two or three times a week to do cleaning and shopping and we are TRYING to get Obaachan to use Day Service at least once a week so that she doesn't have to worry about slipping in the bath...  But Obaachan is balking at that move.  She finds the Day Service Center activities to be belittling and the lunches untasty (she went ONCE).  She also didn't like the idea of putting her clean clothes into a basket that previously had been used by another guest... unsanitary she complained.  Obaachan's Home Helper is having her own problems though as Obaachan complains that the Helper doesn't clean well enough or her shopping skills are not thrifty enough.  Each Center has its own problems with their users...

The Care Manager Office is for qualified Care Managers who set up Day Service or Home Helper use for elderly who are registered with them.  I THINK Japan allows each Care Manager to serve up to 50 elderly, working out who is entitled to what service according to the level of care needed.  All persons over 65 are eligible for Care Manager service and each elderly person is rated (if they wish!) for a level of care...  I think there are 6 levels...  And depending on the rated level, that person can have a certain number of days of Day Service Care or maybe can use Care Taxi service a certain number of times a month or whatever.  If a person needs a lot of care (dementia or bedridden) then they pay a minimal amount for all the services available.  If their rated level is lower then they must pay out of pocket if they want extra care. Tetsu's mother is quite upset that she wasn't rated higher (which actually is good, right?  It means she is considered still independent in a lot of ways) and thus if she wants to use the Care Taxi Service 8 times a month rather than 6, then she has to pay more.  Or if she wants the Home Helper to come 4 days a week instead of 2, then she has to pay out of pocket.  She thinks that is not fair.

The Handicap Aid Center is for mentally disadvantaged adults (not necessarily elderly) who use a service similar to Day Service.  They do crafts and every year Tetsu buys me some of their beaded work at the general bazaar the nursing group has.

The All Around Community Assistance Center helps coordinate a person's needs between the Day Service Centers, the Short Stay Centers etc.  For example; a family has an elderly mother who is unreliable staying at home alone during the day.  The family might call the City Office asking for advice and they will be referred to their nearest All Around Community Assistance Center.  At the Center someone will help assess the amount of care needed and will offer to introduce the family to a Care Manager who will then be responsible for that person's care coordination and scheduling rating sessions.  From there the family and elderly person will decide, along with the Care Manager, how much care they can afford or need.

And Convalescent homes are just that though I am sorry to say not as pleasant nor luxurious as many of the convalescent and assisted care living facilities are that I have visited in the States.  But they are not as expensive either and the cost is determined by the person's pension or owned properties.  So for the same care some elderly pay a lot and some pay absolutely nothing.

Short Stay programs are for temporary care when the primary care giver just needs a break for a few days or a regular full night's sleep.  Sometimes the family will have to go away for a few days (an out of town funeral) or plan something but they can't leave the elderly person at home.  I think the number of days Short Stay can be used is limited.

And besides all that there are those Care Taxis and Meals On Wheels.  Tetsu's mother uses both of those...  The Care Taxis take her to the doctors or she could even use it to go to the beauty parlor if she wished...  The Meals On Wheels deliver a lunch box to her 6 days a week but she finds the meals monotonous and so I think she is registered with two different kitchens for alternate days.  She also is eligible for doctor's home visits and a massage service.

Whew.  I don't know if I understood all that myself and am not sure if I've got it all right even.  I know that when I have been in the States, I am surprised to find that there is no way to get even a temporary Meal On Wheel service for my mother (my brother's family was going on vacation for a week and I just wanted someone to bring my mother a meal for four days...  No could do).  Recently Marcy has been overwhelmed with my mother's care and the doctor suggested Home Care but I guess Marcy vetoed that as it costs too much and must be paid out of mother's pocket.  In that way Japanese care for the elderly is VERY convenient.  Tetsu's mother pays very little for all the care she gets.

And as an aside...  Since my children's day, the health care for children has changed in our city also and now children under 12 get free health care.  I'm afraid I only heard that over the grapevine so I'm not quite sure about that either but anyway, though Japanese socialized medicine has its faults it also is a godsend in some cases.

Queenie.... Do you anything to add to all that?  Have I led people astray with the above assessment?
 

Handwork and Partnership block hunting

My patchwork students wanted a hand project that is portable and so I decided to introduce them to the Storm at Sea pattern...  I've been working up the top myself this past week... all hand pieced, and I was able to get it together to show my student today (the other student came down with influenza and couldn't come today.

I have made this quilt two or three times before, giving away the first one when a friend admired it on my wall.

"Such a nice quilt...  I wish you'd make me one."

"Take it home with you."

I hadn't really expected to be so generous and I made another quilt that was similar and hung that on the wall for a few years.  The cats somehow got to that one and it is shredded up and no longer suitable for show...  thus the making of this third quilt.

I started out with the yachts and sort of wondered if I should have used that zig-zag fabric as the ocean (though it isn't blue...)

Still undecided I cut out dark diamond shapes...

And added some batiks in deep blue, green and purples...  It is a bit darker and the colors stronger than I usually make my quilts but I guess one should change their style occasionally...  I'm trying to decide if I want pieced borders or plain.

Today's student (my cat mentor) decided she wants to make cats (of course) for her center blocks.  I don't know how that fits in with the name Storm at Sea so she'll have to think of a different name for her quilt.

 *******************

Queenie sent me an e-mail letting me know that the Tokyo Quilt Festival has a link to the NHK website with all of the Partnership Quilts published.  I'm not sure that they've ever done that before but it is a great idea and so nice to be able to see how all those blocks were put together.  Please take a look at the all the quilts and you'll be amazed at how different the 74 quilts look and how people have interpreted Music which was this year's theme.

The link is NHK Partnership Quilts and you need to scroll down a little bit.

 Do a bit of treasure hunting at quilt number 12 for this block.  (Queenie's)

And quilt number 7 for this block.  (Noriko-san's)

 And quilt number 60 for this one.  (Julie's)

And quilt number 32 for this block.  (Mine)

Happy Hunting!