Bath conversation

Yesterday I spent an hour at the pool again.  Swimming those laps you know!

After swimming I was in the bathing section of the facilities when I got to talking with the woman next to me.  Bathing in Japan, one has to get used to it being a communal affair.  I've mentioned that at the hot spas we are all together (at least the women on one side, the men on the other) but even at gyms and recreational pools, the bathing afterwards is communal.  One gets used to it especially when you realize that no one really cares about what your body looks like other than yourself.

This lady was sitting naked beside me on her little bathing stool while I sat on mine.  We talked about the shampoo that is set out for patrons to use and what aromas we liked.  And then suddenly she said something about "when I had my surgery".  She had obviously meant for me to know she had had surgery at some point and when I turned to talk to her I noticed she had only one breast.

(from the Internet)

Well, if she doesn't mind talking about it, then I don't, and I asked her about when she had had cancer and what her feelings had been.  It just seemed to me that a breast cancer survivor normally wouldn't want to show her scar and would try to avoid swimming pools and locker rooms and public baths.  That may be more easily done outside of Japan but still, if she felt uneasy she wouldn't be taking a public bath would she?

My bath friend said that for the first two years she was embarrassed but somewhere along the line she decided that her missing breast was a good conversation starting point when meeting women in the gym and she often made a point of talking to younger mothers about the importance of breast check-ups and which doctors were available these days.  This lady had made her experience into an awareness campaign and I thanked her for talking to me and being so open.

 (from the Internet)

Maybe not the everyday conversation with a stranger but it made me think that it doesn't just happen to "the other" person.  (Check, check, check.)

Open House

Yesterday I was invited to attend Open House (classes in session) with parents at the elementary school where I am crosswalk guard.  Actually I guess I went as a member of the school board (THIS school's not the overall city's school board) and the six of us were served a school lunch and then asked to observe classes and attend a lecture.  Afterwards we exchanged impressions about what we'd observed. 

Lunch yesterday was, salad noodles...  Cold noodles in broth with vegetables and tuna, a piece of deep fried chicken with cheese, a slice of white bread (no butter or jam), milk, and a sherbet cup.  Good.  Filling.  I brought home the slice of bread for Choco.

All in all, the classes we observed went about as normal as Japanese classes go I suppose.  Most of the grades were having "ethics" class which in itself is different from American schools...  I don't think we ever had "ethics" in elementary school (or any other grade!)  A situation was related (through a textbook) and the students were asked to give opinions, express what they might have 'felt' (this was the important part) and make suggestions for a happy outcome of the situation...

"So-and-so's pencase is missing.  She tells the teacher who suggests she might have left it at home.  How do you think she feels if she knows it is not at home?  She checks at home that night and the pen case is not there.  What are the possiblities for the missing pencase?  She thinks a classmate has taken it and accuses him but later finds it behind her sweater.  What should so-and-so do?"

There was more to it than that, but the focus is on being aware of others' feelings and possible ways of seeing one situation.  Japan is very careful about the bullying situation which leads to many juvenile suicides and thus the emphasis on understanding other's feelings...

As for the board's opinion exchange after classes, one lady pointed out that some of the mothers were more interested in looking at their Smartphones and texting than they were at observing the classes.  I guess the mothers could have taken a hint from the ethics class and considered what teachers and students and their own child might feel from their show of lack of interest.

The comment reminded me to be more careful about my own iPhone use.

A weaving party

Last week my friend Mrs. I, brought frames and yarn to our English class.  We do this every so often.  Completely throw English out the window (except for using it to chat) and work on some project.

Mrs. I had found some cheap wooden frames and had set about hammering in lots and lots of small nails around the back side of the frames.  Then she strung up some heavy cording and brought the whole lot to English for us to play with.  She also had torn up strips of kimono fabric and I of course have loads of left over yarn myself so we had had a weaving party!
There wasn't much instruction for doing this project.  Just pick a yarn or strip of kimono and weave it back and forth using a safety pin.  We moaned and groaned that our works weren't coming out as we'd expected but I had a lot of fun with this project!  What I was making, I don't know but it was fun!

This is Mrs. I's finished piece.  She tried to make a scene of a mountain and a starry night.  She used sparkly kimono fabric for her night sky.

Mrs. O claimed that she wasn't the artistic type and she chose the smaller frame so she'd have less to fill.  It worked out nicely and though she maybe didn't enjoy the confusion of choosing yarn, it all pulled together in the end.

And this is my finished piece.  I too don't know what I was trying to make but I sure did like making it!  Using different types of yarn gave different textures and there are velvety yarns and stringy yarns and glossy yarns used here and the red was made from kimono strips.

The pinecones are there because the frames have embossed numbers and letters on them and I don't really want to paint the frame.  Mrs. I sandpapered hers down but Mrs. O and I have yet to decide on using the pinecones or maybe a ribbon or sticker...

That was fun!

June's fabric postcard

As it is getting towards the end of the month, I finally got my fabric postcard made for my mother this week (after I got waylaid by making a more intricate paper cut card for a friend).  This month's card is an elephant!

I am strictly staying with animals this year for my mother as she has always been a big animal lover.  There are loads of designs in this paper cutting book I'm using... flowers, objects etc, but the animals are cute and cheerful.

First I go with the paper cut version and see what the pitfalls are going to be.  Then I make the fabric version which entails being upstairs at the ironing board as I trace the pattern on bonding paper before adhering it to black fabric to cut out with scissors.

The paper versions I've been keeping and they were getting lost in the clutter of my computer desk so I decided to display them in the living room.  Hopefully Marcy is hanging up the fabric cards in my mother's room so that she can see them from her bed...  At least I made a similar hanging arrangement last year for her when I was in California and they can be strung in the same way.

I am probably going to have to make another fabric card (July's) next week so that it can be sent to my mother before I leave to go to the States myself.  I don't think I want to take all my paper cutting implements and fabric scraps with me to the States.

Miscellaneous photos in June

I guess its about time for another miscellaneous photo post.  Sometimes I get photos in my files that have nothing to do with each other and I wondered when I'm ever going show them to anyone...

This was a clematis vine that took off and bloomed by our front door when we hadn't even realized it was still alive!  I do remember once planting a small seedling there a few years ago and I think we've even had flowers, but not to the extent that we had this year!

The interesting thing about this plant was that my friends and I noticed that some of the blooms have 4 petals, some have 5 petals and a few even had 6 petals. 

Here was the pretty 6 petal bloom.  Is that normal with clematis plants?  I don't think the flowers were just losing their petals as the days went by...

Walking with Choco I notice the air in my neighborhood is fragranced with a nutty baked smell these days.  It is the fragrance of the chestnut tree flowers and the dark green trees are right now covered in white! 

The flowers themselves are not all that beautiful (especially when they fall to the ground and look like white worms) but their aroma is very inviting and not at all sweet as other flowers.

This was just a photo taken on one of our jaunts out.  It is the entrance to one of the mountainside tunnels.  I think we were near a lake that is very proud of the swans that visit yearly and the town made their tunnel into a swan tunnel.

Heading into summer around here though actually I was heading into town when I took this photo.  The clouds change quickly from these beautiful fluffy things to roiling black ones that bring thunderstorms and pelting rain.  All in the same day sometimes! 

Ah...  I never showed the Father's Day gift that Takumi sent to Tetsu.  Actually he sent another shirt too, an aloha shirt, but alas it is a bit snug and I may get it.  This shirt says,

"I am the father.  Tetsu"

Takumi ordered it with Tetsu's name on it and Tetsu loves it!  If you'll notice the photo of me up there on the left sidebar of this blog, you'll see me wearing a T-shirt that says, "I love Watanabe", my own tribute to Tetsu.  (Wives often refer to their husband by their last name.) 

So those are my so-far June miscellaneous photos.

Scrappy Irish Chain Finished!

Whew!  I have finished the Happy Scrappy Irish Chain quilt! 

Let's see... I started June 16 of last year.  That's a pretty good pace for a hand quilted quilt!

I had all those Leaders/Enders sewn in a box from quite a ways back so that was a head start...  But I began thinking about making them into the Happy Scrappy from June 16th.  The flimsy was finished by August 16th of last year...  (Hmmm...  I was in the States before and after starting this quilt last year so there were the free summer months to work on this) and it took awhile to decide on a quilting pattern, decide if this was going to be hand or machine quilted and then get the motif drawn on the quilt.  I sandwiched the quilt IN TWO PARTS this January and I've been quilting in the evenings ever since. 

Someone asked how I liked making the quilt in two parts and joining them at the end.  That works out pretty well for me and this is the second quilt I've done this way.  The other one was a machine quilted quilt that was just too wieldly to quilt on my domestic machine.  This one I just thought it would be tough on the shoulders to be dragging the hoop around in my lap with all the quilt weight...  There were a lot of twists and turns in the motifs...

After both sections were hand quilted (leaving about two inches on each side with no quilting) I matched and pinned the seams well and then machine stitched the center seam of the quilt top.  Laying it flat, I trimmed the overhanging batting though in this case I actually had to add a strip of batting because the batting width hadn't been enough when I originally basted the parts.  I web/bonded the center batting down though I could have stitched an overhand stitch to hold the batting all together.  From there I laid one side of the backing flat and then ironed the other side over it.  I hemmed the overlapping backing down and then went back and hand quilted the remaining lines that I'd left undone.  The center seam is invisible from the front and not too visible even on the back...  No worse than sewing a large backing together.  (And isn't that backing a great match for the quilting motif!  That was sort of a coincidence as I'd forgotten what motif I was planning to use when I bought the backing in the States in November).

I am very happy that I went with hand quilting on this.  There is a nice puff to the whole quilt and it looks traditional while at the same time cheery.  All that color!

Now that wasn't a bad job at all and why I thought it was going to be a lifetime project I don't know!  Isn't that the way with quilts.... If we just started something and stuck with it (it is the sticking with it that is hard) eventually we have...  a quilt!

Paper cutting

I have gotten a bit waylaid and have been doing projects other than sewing lately...  I opened up my paper cutting book to get inspiration for a design for my mother's fabric postcard this month but I found a pattern that I just had to do in paper alone to make a card for my friend.  While I did work on the postcard for my mother, I will show that another day.

This is the first time I've ever attempted paper cutting this intricate and in a size more than a spot on a postcard.  Still...  it isn't that large.  It probably would be way too fiddly to try to do this in fabric, at least in this size...  (Hmmm...  That gives me an idea.... Maybe the pattern could be enlarged and reproduced in fabric...)

I love using the dyed washi paper that I can get in Japanese stationery stores.  Some are rather airy with visible fibers that made for a good choice in the sky and bubbles in this card.

Earlier this week I finished quilting the second half of the Scrappy Irish Chain quilt I was making and I took the plunge and connected the two pieces (with a lot of crawling around on the ground!)  Now in the evenings I have been busily sewing on the binding.  Yes!  Finally at the binding stage!!!  Even Tetsu noticed that this quilt seemed to have grown sometime in the last few months I've been quilting it.

"Is that a new quilt or has it gotten bigger?  It wasn't that large before was it?"

I really need to finish this in the next couple of days before the heat and humidity set in!

The Nikko Sleeping Cat

Tetsu and I read a funny article in the newspaper yesterday.  And the item was on the news this morning so I guess it is newsworthy.

At the Toshogu Shrine, there are many famous carvings...  The See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys, and the Sleeping Cat, to name the two most famous.

The carvings have undergone 20 restorations since the originals were carved 350 years ago and just this January the newly restored carvings were presented to the public. 

I learned from the TV not long ago that the philosophy behind restoring historical artifacts is different in Japan than from, say, Europe.  When cathedrals and famous works of art are restored in Europe, the craftsmen take great care in removing as little paint as possible repairing damage and keeping the artifact PRESERVED.  In Japan, the artifact is protected with modern pigments and renovated with the original item and past renovations in mind.  The respected Japanese craftsmen of the era are allowed their own interpretations as history moves along.

So back to the Sleeping cat.

The sleeping cat is a symbol of peace.  The carved cat sits very high atop the cornice of a doorway in the Toshogu Shrine.  It is rather hard to take a photo of (and I have tried). 

On the OTHER side of the same cornice are sparrows playing.  The story is that when the cat is sleeping, the sparrows have no fear and can enjoy life...

It seems that the latest renovation of the Sleeping Cat met with some disapproval...  Here is the photo in the newspaper article.

At the top is the original Sleeping Cat in need of renovation.

The second photo is of the renovated Sleeping Cat in January.  It seems that the craftsmen repainted the cat with its eyes open!  Or at least half asleep.... Or on the edge of sleep... 

That will not do!  The Sleeping Cat has to be sleeping!  This month the newly, NEWLY restored Sleeping Cat is back in place...  Sleeping again.

Now we can all relax and play again.

 

My stupid cat

I am rather upset this morning.  One of my cats badly bit a friend of mine yesterday... 

Why do I even have all these dangerous animals?  The stupid cat (Chip) sat quietly on my friend's lap for over an hour.  Every week the cat sits on someone's lap and it just happened to be Y-san yesterday.  She who loves cats!  When it was time for my friends to leave Y-san tried to lift Chip off her lap and Chip bit her HARD!  Drawing blood in four places!  Talk about ingratitude for a nice place to sleep for an hour!  We swabbed and bandaged the puncture points but Y-san did end up having to get a tetanus shot last night.

Y-san graciously e-mailed me this morning saying that she was fine and not to worry and that she LOVED ALL MY CATS!  Still, I regret terribly what happened though Chip does not seem to think twice about the matter.  How do you reprimand a cat?  That cat no more remembers the incident than she does the kindness I did for her taking her in when she was a mere morsel.  At any rate... I am angry with her and not allowing her to nap on MY lap today.

Stupid cat.  She always has been beautiful but oh so selfish.

(Photo taken three days ago when I still thought of Chip as beautiful and sweet)
 

LINE and other iphone mix-ups

For all the time I spend on this computer and now my iPhone.  I am really rather stupid about all things digital and cyber...

A few weeks ago I spent a long time talking with Marlene on my iPhone and ran up a rather large phone bill.  As I understood it, I do not have unlimited calling in my carrier contract.  Whew!  I don't want to do that again!  But Marlene does have unlimited calling so we have arranged that I will call her and she will call me back...

A bit later I was chatting with another friend using the Japanese LINE SMS and I asked if she had unlimited calling privileges with her phone carrier and could call me back.

"Tanya, we are using LINE right now and LINE gives free calling.  Doesn't it say FREE CALLS in the little box on your screen?"

Yes it did.

"Ohhh...  I get it.  That means I can call you for free if I use LINE?  And that means I could call Takumi in California for free using LINE too?  I always feel bad for making him call me and making him pay for the calls..."

"You both are using LINE. It is all free calling."

I learn something new everyday and my friend thought this very funny that I didn't already know this.

"What about Leiya?  She doesn't have LINE."

"Leiya has an iPhone and she calls you using FaceTime right?"

True...  So I've been refraining from contacting my children just because I don't understand how my iPhone works...  So sad.

****************

Next month I am going back to California for a month.  I asked Leiya to arrange the flight for me and she had sent me an e-mail with the itinerary and e-ticket receipt.  On Saturday I was trying to download and print out the e-ticket....  Which I couldn't for the life of me do!  I was on the airline website, I was trying to screen print the e-mail.  I was SO frustrated and I finally contacted Leiya.

"I am trying to print out the eticket.  How do I do that?  I can't get in.  I think I need your mileage club number... It is 10 digits.  And I need a password. ....  I still can't print it out!  What do I do?  No luck.  I ABSOLUTELY HATE these computer things!!!!!  That's why I need to pay a travel agent to send me physical tickets!!!"

"LOL!  Mom.  U don't need a physical ticket.  U just print it off at the airport..."

"How do I know what I'm printing?  Make a memo of the reservation number and mileage number?  There are three numbers I'm working with.  A 6 digit number with letters.  A 13 digit number and now a 10 digit number!!!  I HATE numbers!"

"Mom, u r going to have your phone with you, right?"

"Right."

"U can open the email tht I sent u when u get to the airport."

Oh.

Even Tetsu seemed to know that bit of information.  Don't you think after flying back and forth to California for 40 years that I would understand or at least keep up with the system?  But I remember the days when if you didn't have the airplane ticket and its copies in your hand when you arrived at the airlines counter that you wouldn't be let on the airplane...  I actually did that once.  Flying from college to California I threw away the round-trip voucher when I got to California.  My parents had to pay for a first class plane ticket for me when I headed back to college!  The only time I've ever flown first class!

I have so much to learn and I'm having trouble keeping up with the times.

I SPY quilt and booklet

Friday our patchwork group got together to put the finishing touches on the Liberty quilt we've been making for the Children's Hospital Ward.  With the addition of the binding, the quilt is basically finished but we've come upon a few snags with the I SPY book we were making.

Here is the quilt.  It is long and simple.  It will hang above a long blue bench in the Children's Ward's waiting room.  This is where all our quilts get hung and there is special ceiling strung wiring that holds our pole hung quilts.  (We always put in a sleeve at the back top).

Someone mentioned how they liked the white block outlines between the circles and that got me off the hook from having to do any machine quilting.  The quilt is stitch-in-the-ditch hand quilted around all the circles and their circle borders and around all the block connections.

As for the I SPY booklet...  well, the pages are made.  Our group's Least Confident Member who admits to not liking sewing but enjoys all the chatting we do, was given the job of constructing the booklet pages and she has been doing a fantastic job.  Along with another rather new member who was an elementary school teacher for nearly 30 years, the two of them worked out riddles for each of the Liberty blocks that had been made.  With my suggestion (given to me by a blog friend!) we made the circles into magnifying glasses!  Absolutely perfect for an I SPY book!  And with the addition of some paper cutout elves... which is the theme of the Children's Ward, the booklet is shaping up nicely!

Unfortunately the hospital has informed us that the pages must be laminated.... No problem there... and then if fingers are going to be touching the pages they must be wiped clean daily!  Now that is a problem as none of us are working at the hospital.  Sooo...  we now have to figure out how to HANG laminated pages near and around the quilt...  And by the way, no thumbtacks or nails allowed...

It would be a shame to trash the I SPY book project at this point so Mrs. Furui is frantically trying to figure out a way to hang 23 "pages" from the edges of the quilt itself... 

This isn't going to be hung until late August so we have time to ponder the dilemma.  I guess we should stick to making quilts.
 

Obi bags

Last week a church friend invited me to her house to spend the day making an Obi bag.

Obis are the wide belts that are worn with kimonos and as Japanese women wear kimonos less and less, there are many obis tucked away in closets and drawers.  I have a couple myself that I rescued from my mother-in-law's rooms!  If one looks around, occasionally one can find very lovely obis for a piddling amount at the recycle shops (though some still reach hundreds of dollars even in those shops) and my church friend has the idea to make obi bags and sell them at a bed-and-breakfast owned by another church acquaintance. The obi bags are very popular with foreign visitors at the bed-and-breakfast.

The first hurdle is to figure out how to make obi bags.  Three of us "students" gathered at my friend's house and the lady who makes the bags taught us the basics of bag making...  Tearing apart old obis, applying interfacing and the cutting and sewing.  By early afternoon we had each made one bag and if I can get the order right, they are not that difficult to make.

Here is my bag.  Isn't that a bright color!  Very unusual for wearing with a kimono I'd think, but it seems quite modern and stylish in bag form!

Here are a few of the obi bags that our "teacher" has made.  There are different kinds of obis with different thicknesses and amounts of brocade etc. depending on what season the obi and kimono would be worn and even the place where the obi was made.  Those black ones are made from the same obi in the style of Central Japan...  the large flower being the back part of the obi, the double flowers being the part folded in the front, thus making the symmetrical design.  The orange obi has brocade embroidery on it...

How about a bag made from an obi like this!?  This is probably a wedding obi... that a guest might wear?   I'm not really sure about that but with all the gold threads I would think it rather an elegant obi...

Basically from one obi, three bags can be made and if using recycled obis, the only real expense is the handles which do become rather expensive in the Japanese craft shops...

I will check out the box in the bottom of my closet and hunt down Tetsu's mother's obis...