Marking the Selah quilt

Let's see...  What have I been up to? 

I spent some time this weekend marking my Selah quilt and yesterday I got it basted and ready for hand quilting.

I marked much of the inner part of the quilt with a cross-hatch.  I will stitch-in-the-ditch around the word Selah and around all the pieces in the flowers.  (THAT'S going to take awhile to quilt!)  I decided to do some feathers around the border of the quilt but couldn't find a border pattern that I liked or that just fit in any of the books I have.  I decided to make my own pattern.

This may be the way everyone makes quilting patterns but anyway, this was the process... 

First I marked a piece of paper the width of the border and also the half of the border length.  Then I drew in a curved line, mostly freehand.  Finally I added feathers freehand so that some feathers were randomly large, others small.  The problem was to get this border pattern onto the fabric as the fabric is quite dark and hard to see through...  I un-threaded my sewing machine and sewed along my penciled in lines with a free-motion quilting foot.  Thus my pattern was made!

I got out my Quilt Pounce box that I had bought years ago at a quilt show along with a few quilt patterns (that I have used before).  This has served to be a rather convenient way to mark quilts and I have used the method quite a lot with machine quilted quilts.  Pounce the chalk filled box onto the silk screened pattern (or in this case, my perforated paper pattern) and the chalk filters down onto the fabric.  The chalk brushes off easily after the quilt is quilted but this also means that the chalk brushes off with too much movement of the quilt.  I can temporarily solve that problem with hair spray which holds the chalk a bit better though still not long enough for the months of hand quilting with a bunched up quilt ever turning which-way-and-that in a quilting hoop.  Still, it only means I have to go over the chalk outlines with a marking pencil and it is easier than trying to trace through glass especially with a quilt taped to a window!!!

And here is the pounced chalk pattern waiting to have the marks re-drawn (the border on the left has been finished.)  Hopefully the marks will last a few months as I quilt but even if they don't I can always quilt pounce again (the marks are easier to draw over before the quilt is basted but I've pounced quilts mid-quilting while on the sewing machine!

So...  How long is it going to take me to quilt this Selah quilt?  Ready.  Set.  Go!

Spring scenery

John and I went out for a longish walk today...  Sort of between rain showers, which John doesn't like.   This is Golden Week for Japan and today was the start of a 10 day school and work holiday.  Not much different for Tetsu and me (well I don't have crosswalk duty!) but it already feels leisurely.

Looking straight down.  The cherry blossoms have mostly fallen from the trees.  Sort of a "snow layer" of petals everywhere.

 The wheat fields are just beginning to get their heads of wheat.

 Occasionally rape blossoms get lost in the wheat rows.

The rape blossoms are so pretty reflected in the flooded rice fields.  The rice fields will lose their mirror effect this week because the farmers will be planting rice shoots over Golden Week

Grape Hyacinth can be found in ever garden and along the rice fields.

A quick shot of a farmer tilling his rice field.

Daffodils are on their way out but the farmers are planting beans and green onions in their vegetable fields.

More rice field reflections.

Uh-oh!  It is starting to rain in earnest!  John and I hurried home!

Kagayubinuki

The past couple of weeks a couple of my friends/students and I have been trying a new craft.  Kagayubinuki.

Mrs. I is always up for any new craft.  Me too!  Mrs. O sort of gets pulled into things but anyway when Mrs. I showed me an advertisement for ordering Kagayubinuki kits, we decided to give it a try.  Fortunately or unfortunately, it is a month by month series and so Mrs. I signed up for one kit a month with two yubinukis in them.  Three months worth gives each of us two different patterns.

And what is Kagayubinuki?  A yubinuki is a thimble.  And a Kagayubinuki is a decorative silk thimble from the Kanazawa area of Japan.  When I visited Kanazawa with friends three years ago I was entranced by the Kagayubinuki but the prices were such that they were quite beyond my means for a little bauble with no real use...  Strictly decorative!

Yes, these are thimbles...  A Japanese thimble is usually a circle of leather that one fits over their middle finger.  It isn't a cap like western thimbles.  I have heard that when sewing silk kimonos (always completely hand sewn) the seamstresses wanted to used silk thimbles that wouldn't damage the delicate fabric and thus the Kagayubinuki were developed.  They are so pretty that nowadays they are used as decoration and accessories...  A chain slipped through a thimble and worn around the neck...  They are a bit bulky to be worn as rings...

Anyway, Mrs. I and Mrs. O and I sat down with three different Kagayubinuki patterns and each week we have put in stitches...  the other ladies helping me with the Japanese instructions (which are harder to read than patchwork patterns in Japanese, let me tell you!)

My goodness!  There are really only the basic materials in this kit!  A piece of heavy weight paper to be wrapped around one's finger and then taped to make a hard foundation.  A sliver of bias tape to use for the inner lining (pink in this case).  Some strange threadlike silk to be wrapped tightly around the stiff foundation (after the lining has been sewn around it).  A piece of Japanese paper that needed to be marked with arrows and sewing points. 

And of course the silk thread.  I was making one thimble with white and green and dark pink (Mrs. O is using the light pink) and another thimble with yellow and red and maroon.

The sewing process begins...  Yellow thread going from marked point to marked point around the thimble to make a layer.  For each layer the needle had to be rethreaded as the thread overlapped from top to bottom.  Confusing!  And time consuming!  I now understand why Kagayubinuki are so expensive!!!  I have a much better appreciation for the craft!!!

I think it took us three weeks for Mrs. I and I to get our first yubinuki made.  Hmmm.. She made the white one and her little diamonds in the pattern are much more even than mine.  Mrs. O is still plugging away.

Yesterday I started on my second thimble and now that I understand the process I was able to continue on without my friends translating the pattern for me...  Here I am sewing around the top of the thimble from point to point.

I ended up working on my second thimble until quite late at night just because I was afraid I'd get mixed up with four different threads being woven in different directions at the same time!!!  See, they are not very big.

I am quite pleased with my Kagayubinuki and I'd be willing to try another couple.  Looking back at that first blog picture today I wonder at the symmetry and perfection of the stitches in that display (a picture I took three years ago in Kanazawa at a craft center.)  I will never have a jewel box filled with Kagayubinuki like the one shown but it is a rather satisfying craft.
 

Selah

I'm at another step in my circle sewing but I'm stumped again.  What would I do without input from blog friends...  I can never make a decision on anything again.

I have spent the week embroidering a word on my circle quilt.  Holly reminded me how much I love the word Selah from the Psalms.  I had come across the Passion Translation of Selah and had been struck anew.

"Pause in His presence."

Selah actually seems to be a poetic pause in the verses of Psalms and I've always just passed over it.  The words, pause in His presence though, relates to me the need to stop, to pause and give problems up to God.  To pause and reflect on His goodness.  To pause and get guidance for the day.  To pause and just feel loved.

I outline-stitched heavily to make up the texture of the word Selah.  (I even highlighted it a bit with a different colored floss...  can you see the white?)  The Pause in His presence phrase I did in back-stitch but didn't much like it...  So I wove white floss through the back stitches hopefully giving the words a bit more flow.

I was feeling rather satisfied with all my embroidery when Tetsu looked at what I'd done and said,

"Who's Selah?" 

That may be the reaction of anyone who isn't familiar with the phrase in the Bible....

(Which reminds me of the last two weeks with my mother when her care was getting me down. I had purposely bought a t-shirt that had emblazoned on its front,

"Today I choose Joy!"

My mother had poked at my stomach and asked,

"Who's Joy?"

I got my laugh that difficult day and I still chuckle when I wear my Joy t-shirt and remember my mother's question!)

I am now trying to decide if my Selah quilt needs a continued border with a thin line of color around the main block (as recommended in the pattern).  I can't seem to find any more of that dark blue.  I could easily add a thin trim of light blue but I'm going to have to change to another color for the outer border.... If this quilt even needs one...  I could just call it quits and start thinking about quilting...

And thinking about quilting.  Do I want to do this by machine?  Probably in matching thread or invisible thread.  Or do I want to continue "pausing" and relax in the hand quilting process, in which case I'd probably go for an over all grid.  Any opinions?
 

Random photos again

I started out waxing the upstairs floors and then retired to the sewing room waiting for the hallway floor to dry.  I sort of cleaned it the sewing room and wandered aimlessly from one WIP to another.  I'd start cutting up left-over fabric into 2 1/2 inch squares, then 2 inch squares but I really don't have a plan for more leaders/enders, so then I started ironing fabric.  That seemed like an endless task so I sewed up another shawl from the left-over kimono fabric that I had...  I can make two very long shawls and one short shawl and maybe even a scarf from one kimono.  What I'm going to do with all these scarves and shawls that are identical I don't know...  Then I worked on getting a center block made for the signature quilt.

This will probably be the center block.

The farmers are flooding their rice fields this week.  They plow through the mud so that it settles again and forms a rooting silt for rice stalks to be plunged into.   

Two days later, the same field is completely flooded and the surface is like a mirror reflecting rape blossoms.

This is a different species of cherry blossoms than any I've shown before, which is blooming along the sides of the forest.  Whereas the most beloved species of cherry blossoms called Someyoshino bloom before they get their leaves, the mountain cherry blossoms' leaves unfold at the same time the blossoms appear.  Some of the trees have green leaves...

... And some have pinkish-brown leaves.

And here we have John and Tetsu enjoying the warming weather!
 

Signature quilt

Although I have had my signature squares ready to take to Detroit for the last month, I got to thinking that no one but me is going to understand what I really am planning to do with them.  Can I just put out a basket of signature squares and some fabric pens and leave a message saying "Please sign a square for Tony and Leiya's wedding quilt."  I don't think anyone is going to understand what is in the making.

I still have to check out some Internet images to get an idea for a message board with an understandable explanation... but besides that I wondered if I need something visual, like an idea of the type of layout these signature squares will be incorporated into.  I decided to make as many four-patch blocks as my leaders/enders bin would allow and set out a possible layout.  If I print a picture of this will non-quilting people understand what their signed squares are going to be used for?

Here is the basic idea...  I may take out the center four squares and make up a larger block with Tony and Leiya's names and their wedding date...  From there, the signature squares are going to alternate with the four-patches.  I could make this more assymmetrical with the "center" more off to one side but I guess I don't have to think about that until I get back after the wedding.

Does this give guests an idea?  I'm not planning to take the alternate blocks to Detroit...  They were made yesterday just for photography purposes...  This isn't going to be a big quilt...  maybe a throw quilt or a large wall hanging...  Well, we are not inviting more guests just so I can make a bigger quilt!

Any advice on how to set up a guest sign-in table?  (I'm going to take to heart the advice of putting out a sample sheet of freezer papered white fabric so that people can practice before actually signing.)  I'm probably not going to be able to man the table myself but I may enlist someone to help...  If I can explain it to them!

Romance!

Today is April 18th in Japan.  In exactly one month Leiya and Tony will be getting married!  I'm pretty excited!

I guess I never showed any of the photos that Leiya has on their wedding website (a new thing for me.  It took me awhile to figure out how to browse the webpages.)  Leiya said that she had contacted a local photographer about taking wedding photos and when she and Tony went to meet with the girl they took some photographs just to get an idea of what kind of shots could be taken.  I'm posting a few of my favorites in honor of the "one month 'til wedding day".

 I love that Leiya and Tony are using my mother's engagement ring as theirs.

I have no idea where these photos were taken.  Someplace in Detroit.

They look like they're having fun!

Tony and Leiya have dated since her sophomore year in college.

After a few months of dating, when she and I were both visiting California, she showed me an email from Tony saying something to the effect that he saw in her all the attributes he'd want for a wife (or something like that).

"Oh my!  Is he proposing to you by email?!"

"No!  We're just friends."

I think it was the next year that Leiya brought Tony to California with her to meet the whole family, mom, dad, brother, grandma, aunt, uncle, cousins.  But she still didn't want us jumping to any conclusions which I found hard to do.

"Everybody's going to assume..."

"Don't."

So, all of us have been waiting for this up-coming wedding for YEARS!! 

Leiya and Tony look so happy!  We ALL are!

Yo-yos

I completed making 75 yo-yos for the Kittens' Tales quilt I've got up on the design wall. Whew! 

Once the quilt is quilted I will sew on the yo-yos but I'm setting aside this quilt until summer.

One problem is that I don't have backing for this quilt and when I think of backing fabric that I could get at M and L's in California for $2.98 a yard, I just can't bring myself to pay nearly $13.00 for about the same amount of fabric in Japan!  Mrs. Furui and I tried to find fabric at a Japanese catalog site and we were hoping to just buy 6 meters which would get us a discount and she and I would split the amount and the cost...  Alas, the fabric we chose was sold out so I guess we are going to stop trying to buy together and I'll just have to find something on my own.  I do have some vibrant yellow and orange fabric in my stash but it doesn't go at all with the mood of the Kittens' Tale quilt.  Do you try to match your backings to the front of your quilts?  At least in color or tone?

Maybe I can get to a cheap fabric shop when I'm in Michigan next month.  I'm not planning to do anymore sewing on this anyway for a couple months.  Now to set aside the yo-yos AND NOT LOSE THEM IN THE SEWING ROOM!