Questions and answers

As most of my other quilting goals were completed last month, I am starting out October with how to move along on that Scrappy Irish Chain quilt I was making.  The big question before I can do any more is "HOW AM I GOING TO QUILT THIS?"

The flimsy is big.  I have chosen a quilting pattern.  Now I have to decide if this is going to be machine quilted or hand quilted.

Question 1:  Do I want to spend a lot of time quilting?

Answer a)  I don't mind hand quilting.  I have nothing pressing to do in hand work though the months are always sporadically filled with embroidery and quilting group projects and as we head into the cooler months with knitting.  I want SOME handwork always by my side but I can always think up SOMETHING to do.

Hand quilting means that this quilt will not be completed for a year or two.  It is a big quilt.  And during the two or more years some cat will pee on it and it will get dragged on the floor and serve as a mop, and it will not be pretty stuffed next to my chair during the day.

Answer b)  I am tempted by the speed of machine quilting.  With a couple of months I could probably have this quilt finished and move on to other projects.  And there will always be other projects.  I have that stash that has to get used!  I would have to tear out some seams though to make machine quilting easier as this is much too large to fit under the throat of my small domestic machine.

Question 2:  Do I have to trace the pattern onto the whole quilt or could I freehand it?

Answer:  I probably couldn't freehand it.  Not with a specific pattern now in mind.  I'd have to trace all those open spaces and there are so many of them...  I could give up on the quilt pattern and do something easier machine quilting just to avoid the tracing... Or I could find an alternative to tracing.

I opted for finding an alternative and I made my own stencil by tracing the quilting pattern onto some plastic and then cutting out lines with an Exacto knife.  That in itself took a couple of hours but it is a time saver and frustration buster because trying to put a tracing guide under all those white spaces would do me in.  One problem solved.

Question 3:  With the stencil, is it possible to pounce the pattern on the quilt?  That would save more time and if this was going to be machine quilted, I could go ahead and sandwich the quilt and pounce the pattern on each time I came to a white space.

Answer:  No.  It is not possible to pounce the pattern on with chalk.  I only have white chalk and pink chalk and when I tried a sample square the pink didn't show up at all.  (And if the pink doesn't show then the white of course won't).  Answer is definitely NO to question 3.  I will have to draw all the quilt lines in all the spaces.

Question 4:  Can I even follow the stencil lines if I did this on machine?

Answer:  Yes.  I put in a sample square and was able to machine quilt the pattern to my satisfaction.  I tried once with disappearing ink which again might mean I wouldn't have to mark anything until right before the quilting.  I tried another square marked with a quilting pencil.  I don't really like using the disappearing ink... a quilting pencil would mean this has to be marked at the flimsy stage and that's okay with me.  Of course quilting a small square and quilting a whole quilt is very different so my experimenting may not have proven anything...

Question 5:  Which quilting result do I like more?

Answer:  Somebody else answer this.

With machine quilting I could do double lines and make this more of a Celtic look...  It is an Irish Chain quilt.  If I hand quilt this I'm not going to be able to put in an echoing line of quilting.  The pattern would be simpler.

The green sample was the first attempt with quilting pencil markings.

The pink quilting was on the actual Irish Chain fabric with disappearing ink.  Both have double lines of quilting.

The hand quilting is also on the actual fabric, marked with the pencil and has only one line of continuous quilting.

Machine quilting is faster.  Hand quilting is relaxing.  Any opinions?

Ridiculous

Tetsu has had another frustrating day...  I just stand by and say "Gambatte!"  ("Hang in there!)

We are of the age when we are thinking about Social Security and pensions or whatever.  Actually it is Tetsu who is doing all the thinking.  As I say, I just stand around and figure what happens will happen.  Tetsu has spent months trying to get everything in order for when he will retire in a couple of years.  At the best of times Japanese red tape is horrendous.  In our case... this international marriage makes for extra problems.

According to Tetsu he started the process months ago by sending back to his home town's city hall for the family records that he was ever born and that later he was married and that I am listed as his wife.  So far so good.

This alone is different from the American system.  In Japan there is the family record that goes back for generations telling whom was married to whom and whose father and mother were who.  It is a very important record for all official procedures.  And it must be obtained from the place where the family is registered, in this case in Morioka which is in another prefecture. Tetsu sent a request to Morioka enclosing a self addressed envelope plus payment in the form of currency stamps...  A lot of rigamarole but that can't be helped.

From there he went to our local city office for tax records and then to the tax office for some other reason and then to the social security and pension office for advice and then he went back again, and then he had to go back again.  So he's been at the pension office three times already.  And each time a form has to be filled out that he was there and requested consultation.

Somewhere along the line the pension office decided they needed proof that Tetsu was married to a foreigner.  It did no good to provide them with the Japanese documents given to us when we were married 37 years ago.  They wanted proof in US documents too as maybe the US hadn't been aware of our marriage.

"That's ridiculous.  We are asking for Japanese pension.  What do they care what America recognizes?  Oh well... Go ahead and take them the US documents too."

Tetsu and I were married in Morioka.  We specifically took our honeymoon on the northern island of Japan where there was an American consulate so that we could immediately register our marriage there.  We are legally recognized by both Japan and America as being married.  We have the documents to prove it.

"Ah...  how nice.  You have American documents.  Now... what do they say?  You will have to translate them for us as we don't accept English documents."

"That's ridiculous!  They wanted the documents and we gave them to them!  If they want them translated they should do it themselves!  Are we supposed to just roughly translate them?  What if they don't like our translation?  If it is so important don't they need them to be notarized?"

I guess not.  Tetsu and I sat down one morning and I translated the certificate of marriage to him while he took notes.  At some point over the next week he made out an official looking certificate IN JAPANESE.  He took that to the pension office.

"Ah... how nice.  But I'm afraid you really need your American wife to accompany you so that we don't have to make up substitute documents."

That was why I was at the pension office with Tetsu yesterday...  And we BOTH had to fill out consultation requests separately.  We handed them REAMS of documents that Tetsu had collected over the weeks, including the marriage certificates, Japanese and American, and including the original and the translated.

"Ah... how nice.  Excuse me.  What is this "remark" on the back of the certificate?"

There was a "remark" on the back of the certificate...  Instructions to the consulate clerks about sending copies, and details about who exactly had witnessed our signing of documents at the Japanese city hall all those years ago.  The DOCUMENT was on the other side of the page!

"I'm afraid all this will have to be translated also.  You can take all your papers and come again on another day."

Tetsu's eyes grew wide in alarm!

"No!  We'll do it right here.  Just give us a corner of your waiting room and a few minutes to translate this."

He and I went at it again... He snarled at me for my poor translation (meaning backwards because Japanese grammar is opposite from English) as he tried to make an official sounding document.  We submitted the translation to the pension people again and they went away and came back a few minutes later.

"That is all very nice.  There is one slight problem we might have.  You have translated that copies of your marriage certificate were kept in the city offices AND in the consulate AND sent to the US Department of State.  If the copy isn't in their records, this may be considered null...  And if it is, the document will have to be reissued and the pension process reinstated. "

"THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!  Do they think we've never even been married?!  What have we been doing all these 37 years?"

Tetsu managed to keep his temper.  He had instructed me before we even stepped into the office to make NO suggestions, to only answer yes or no to questions and to not offer any new documents (like a passport or a Social Security card or whatever... he didn't want to have to translate anything new.)  He expected all this red tape and it is all for the purpose of getting our retirement and later the future possibility of me being alone in Japan secured.

Two hours later back in the car.

"Well.  Are we married or not?  Shall we renew our vows and have a 40th wedding celebration in a couple of years?"

We are waiting to see...  It is all ridiculous.

September quilting and patchwork goals completed

I finally got up to the sewing room yesterday and worked on some of my ongoing projects.  I must be a procrastinator as I don't really get going until the end of each month!

First off I did some machine quilting around one of the applique blocks I had made.  I'm waiting for four more to be returned to me before I do anything else with this...  It is hoping to be a cushion someday.  I'm afraid I took the easy way out on this.  I gave up on the Flying Geese and opted for a basic non-interfering border.  I quilted in the corners of the block in a free motion feather pattern but I was too chicken to use colored thread.  I'm wondering if this is enough quilting on this or if it needs some stippling within the applique and piecing space...  I will wait to see what the other ladies bring to me.  I also have to work up some courage to make a cushion backing maybe with a zipper...  Aaghh!

I finished the fabric postcard this month for my mother.  The embroidery goes along fine but when I get to finishing the postcard off I'm always left uncertain what to do.  Do I quilt this?  Some of these cards this year I have heavily quilted with stippling but I decided to go simple this month and I like it more.  I also think I've been going about this wrong all these past three years as I sew on a paper postcard to the back each time and probably I'm supposed to be using stiff interfacing or something.  Too late now! 

I made my 9th New York Beauty block and I think there is only one more block in the series that I am using from Ula Lenz. 

Nine is a good number to work with if I want to stop this project now...  Or I could continue on with repeats in patterns only in different colors for a bit more motion.  I'm in no hurry with this so I'll leave that decision until next month (and it will probably be easier to just make the 10th block... and then I'll HAVE to make more.)

Ah!  And I guess I even have the Hawaiian quilt piece that I'd been making finished!   The other ladies are making a cushion with their piece or adding more designs to make a larger quilt.  I'm ending here.  I had wanted to use Kathy Nakajima's dyed panel with the colors expanding outwards and had been fearful that the dark blue background took away from her pretty colors but my eyes have adjusted and I do see the Hawaiian pattern again.  This was a teaching tool so I'm satisfied with the result.

Going back and forth!

I chatted with Takumi briefly yesterday.  I wanted to send him some love as he was leaving (or has just left) for a trip to India.  He's been planning this trip with a friend of his for a few months and the guys were leaving LAX today and going to...?  India somewhere...  I don't know why they chose India.  In June I sent Takumi a gift certificate for his birthday from a sporting goods store he likes and I think he bought a sturdy, expensive backpack for his trip.  Yesterday I gave him all sorts of motherly cheer.  "Be careful of the water you drink."  "Send photos."  "Love you and am praying for you daily."  I think he will be in India until the middle of October.

And the other news is that after returning to California and then going on a business trip to the Midwest, Takumi will turn around and come to Japan for a week... for a friend's wedding.  And he will be here just about the time that I will be going to California.  Yes, I'm going to California for another month...  That will make it twice this year!  I figure if my mother is still enjoying her time on earth then I'd better go give her some entertainment and care again.  So Takumi is planning to come to Japan the last week or so of October and we'll have a couple of days overlapping until I head off to California.  I'll see him again in California a few days after that. Too bad we couldn't get our schedules synced so that we could travel together but we didn't.

And talk about not syncing things.  AFTER I'd bought my plane ticket, Tetsu pipes up that maybe he'll come to California too this autumn.  WHAT?  We DID this before with both of us leaving Japan on the same day on different airplanes and meeting up hours later at LAX.  Tetsu is still trying to figure out dates for taking off from work... and when Leiya heard that her father may be coming, she started talking about coming out from Ohio too.  My goodness!  The Watanabes seem to be giving the airlines a lot of business this year!  Leiya and Tetsu are trying to sync their trips to California now...

So I have a month left (to the day) before I'm flying over the Pacific.  I'm already planning to buy quilt backing while I'm there and maybe send away for quilt supplies that end up being too expensive to ship back to Japan... 

Camera frustrations

Tetsu had a frustrating camera weekend and I am rather disgruntled too!

We have had a lot of fun with our cameras.  I bought an Olympus Pen Lite four years ago and last year convinced Tetsu to buy one too.  His updated version of the same camera seems to take more vibrant photos than mine and I've sort of been envious of his upgrade.  The same camera has been nice also because the lenses are interchangeable and each of us started with the same two lenses and I also bought a more expensive lens a few years ago.  Five lenses altogether.

Not long after Tetsu's purchase, I managed to drop my telephoto lens and that gave us four lenses.  And a couple of months ago my standard lens went awry and I've been down to using my expensive lens and Tetsu's telephoto.  That put us down to three.

I had already been looking at the even NEWER versions of the same camera...  EXPENSIVE!  and the larger, heavier comparable cameras.  But I haven't even had my camera five years!  It seemed to me just for the principal of the thing, that I ought to stick it out with what I've got for another 6 months.  Shouldn't a camera last more than five years?!

This weekend, in the middle of our outing, Tetsu's camera stopped working.  After exchanging lenses and diddling around, we've come to the conclusion that it is the lens, not the camera... But that leaves us with two lenses... Tetsu rather disappointedly has sent his lens AND his camera to the maker to see what needs to be repaired and if it is worth the price to repair it...  So now he has NO camera.

We emptied our piggy (kitty) banks yesterday... literally!  Coins everywhere!  And there is enough for me to buy an expensive camera.  And then hand mine over to Tetsu, lenses and all.  But do I want to do this?  Do I want to spend so much money again?  Why do I even NEED a better camera?  I get to thinking that at this rate a cheaper point and shoot should be good enough for my hobby...  Or even that I should be able to use the iPhone for everything...

Tetsu is taking the quiet mode.  He's not pushing one way or the other.... though he does push the kitty bank into my field of vision...

Waiting to see what the camera maker's estimate is going to be...

Relay for Life

Yesterday, Tetsu and I joined a church team to support Relay for Life, an international cancer awareness and survivor's support event.

There are numerous members of our church who are fighting cancer and as they had put together a team for the Relay for Life prefecture's walk, Tetsu signed us up to participate.

It was a drizzly day and between showers when we needed an umbrella, the cancer survivors and then their friends and families walked the laps of a local park.  

The church had been offering luminarias (bags with LED lights inside) as a fundraising opportunity and those were set up along the track and spaced out to spell HOPE in the center of the field. 

Volunteers had to spend quite some time covering the luninarias with little plastic bags as the rain started to come down harder but it looked like they would still be usable at night while the 24 hour event continued.

The survivors took the first lap of the event and then the rest of us fell in to walk for a couple of hours.  Here is the starting team from our church.

Sanomaru is the mascot of one of the neighboring towns and he won grand prize in the Japan cute mascot competition recently.  He even was sporting his own raincoat yesterday and he walked quite a long time with the participants receiving handshakes and cheers himself.

Mrs. T has been a good friend of mine for over 25 years and she has been battling cancer the past two years.  We do beading together and I've helped her reach some of her quilting goals too.  She has been a great instigator in helping the Relay for Life event the past three years (even before she started the battle herself) and she was running around yesterday at a fast and cheerful pace!

RED OVERLOAD!!!

Yesterday's equinox holiday began as it often does with Tetsu making tentative plans and me dragging my feet.  It was raining, the place he wanted to go was far away.

"I thought we could go to so-and-so with our cameras...  The rain might make things interesting, and maybe there won't be so many people."

Tetsu likes to make the most of his days off, rainy or otherwise.  I tend to think a rainy day would be a good day to stay home.  We headed out anyway with a faraway destination in mind but the weather got worse and worse. 

"If we ever DO get to where we are headed, it is going to be too rainy to take photos..."

Finally we arrived at a muddy parking area...  That was bustling!  The rain was starting to abate and though the paths were slippery, one step into the park took our breaths away!

Out came the cameras (along with everyone else who were toting large cameras and tripods).

These are hinanbana flowers.  Red spider lilies.  And they made a carpet throughout the whole park which bordered on a river on one side and a mountain on another.  Tetsu was right.  The rain had made the flowers sparkle and the tree trunks dark.  And though there were bus loads of people, the pathways were still walkable and it was possible to take photos of pure nature.

See...  there WERE people there.  Can you spot Tetsu?

And there were other...  let's see...  Creatures?  Characters?  Actually, these dramatis personae were so much fun to stalk.  They ended up being quite the center of scenery...

After surreptitiously following them around awhile, I finally did ask them what they were doing and they explained that their "Cosplay"... costume play, was a hobby and they liked dressing up and photographing themselves. 

I'm afraid I don't know which anime they were trying to be but they had the color contact lenses and all the details of their costumes as accurate as possible.  I thanked them for allowing me to take their photos and they thanked me for being interested.

 Tetsu and I went back to photographing flowers...

And tree trunks...

Now how do I chose WHICH flower to focus on?

Ah!  Found one!

How about a different angle?

Did I mention muddy?

Sorry.... One selfie in the bunch.

The weather did hold for us the whole time we were in the park, and occasionally the sun would come out and set things to sparkling again.

A wonderfully magical world.

Another fine outing sponsored by Tetsu!

 It was so worth the trip!

It rained again on our way home.

Wasting time

I am supposed to be appliqueing two blocks.  And two friends are appliqueing two blocks each.  We are planning to make a table runner and three cushions.   But we don't have a lot of time or the needed fabrics.

While my friends are working on their blocks I was given the job of going to the fabric store and finding a good border fabric...  We just couldn't figure out a time for all three of us to get to the store together.  On Monday when I was planning to go, I got out my finished block (one of two) and wondered if I had fabric in my stash.  Of course I have fabric, but anything that might match?  Hmm...  Not really and mostly scraps anyway.

Scraps...  Scraps....  I found a whole box of half square triangle scraps from a left over project years ago.  Could I use these?  They make interesting Flying Geese.  The color isn't too far off.  I got to sewing.

Wait a minute...  an applique square with a border of Flying Geese is going to turn into a very large cushion...  Maybe this isn't such a good idea.

This morning I've been playing around with my applique blocks and my Flying Geese blocks too...  I think I'm going to give up on Flying Geese cushions.  Too big.  I'm going to go to the fabric store after all...

And while I'm at the design wall...  The blocks on point with all the Flying Geese around them?  That becomes way too wide a table runner...  Won't this be bulky under dishes and glasses?  Maybe this isn't such a good idea either...

So now I'm thinking I'll forget about putting the applique blocks on point.  And I'll forget about putting the Flying Geese borders around the cushion blocks and just use a solid fabric.  And I'll try to make a less wide table center with the matching solid fabric as the binding.

And I seem to be going around in circles with not much getting done.  Now I'm off to the fabric store so that's another half day away from getting this any closer towards completion.  Which doesn't really matter because my friends aren't going to get their blocks back to me til next week anyway...

And all this needs to be sewn and quilted by the middle of October...

(You notice I've stopped hiding this project from blog readers...  The recipient isn't going to have any idea of what the finished product is supposed to be.  I don't have any idea what the finished product is supposed to be!!!)