My sewing room

Saturday I was upstairs sewing when Tetsu came to see what I was doing.  Now that he is at home everyday he seeks me out telling me of his progress gardening outside, asking questions about his cell phone (that he still has trouble mastering).  I was upstairs working on the little Partnership block when Tetsu looked around the room and piped up...

"You need to rearrange your sewing room.  There must be a better arrangement for all this furniture!"

ALL THIS FURNITURE are the big heavy pieces that Tetsu has made me over the years... some that he made for usage in other places but for some reason or another they didn't fit.  Tetsu is a wonky carpenter only using 2 by 4s and never using a measure...  He just nails things together and they end up pretty sturdy albeit terribly heavy.

In my sewing room I have a floor to ceiling "bookshelf" that holds fabric patterns, a roll of batting, bins of scraps, boxes of orphan blocks, racks of threads and rolls of freezer and applique paper.  I hide most of the clutter with curtains hung in front of the shelves.  Heaven forbid I am in the sewing room when we have a major earthquake because the bookcase alone is so big and heavy!

 On one wall is a shorter shelf and this one holds a defunct stereo, BOOKS!, and folded quilts.

For my sewing machine, Tetsu's masterpiece is a board custom fashioned so that my sewing machine can fit down in it making the board and the table behind it flush and very nice for machine quilting (no drag on the quilt when moving it through the machine.) 

I probably will never buy another sewing machine because I love this board-table so much.

Another fantastic piece Tetsu made for me is an ironing board...  a very large, table with two Japanese small boards that fit inside it (and with a cloth thrown over all.  This board is so great for ironing large quilts out... when I keep it free from scraps, boxes, patterns etc.  And I have put fabric bins, and quilt storage boxes under the ironing board but that pushed the board away from the wall a bit unfortunately allowing things to fall down behind.  Every couple of months I would move the storage boxes away and retrieve fallen items and I've never thought of the ironing board as a nuisance.

However, Tetsu seemed to think my room need rearranging and he began to pull out his heavy furniture.  Sigh...  I really didn't need him to do that chore right now but anyway I put my sewing down to help him and explain WHY I wanted the sewing machine where it was, WHY the table couldn't be pushed to the wall (it also serves as my cutting table).

Pretty soon Tetsu had the vacuum cleaner out and was moving books and quilts and fabric everywhere.  This man is destroying my sewing room!!!

In the process of trying to move things Tetsu determined that I really wanted everything back in the same place they had started from and he did move everything back the way it had been when he first came into the room.

BUT he noticed the big gap between the ironing board and the wall (well, he'd picked up fabric scraps, quilting stencils, pins and lost patterns from behind the boxes for me while he moved furniture). 

"I will build you a shelf to keep things from falling behind the ironing board." 

And he did.

My sewing room is back in its original arrangement and thanks to Tetsu it got cleaned in the process.

Partnership block finished!

Yeah!  I have finished making the very small block for the Tokyo International Quilt Festival's Partnership Quilt.  The deadline for this is July 31st so I'm somewhat on schedule.  (Now don't mess up and forget to send this, Tanya!)  This year's theme is "My favorite Animal".  I couldn't decide what my favorite animal is...

Cats?  Dogs?  I like birds too...  I like practically any animal that one can think of so I feel like I'm playing favorites if I choose just one.  With my cat population it seemed pretty obvious that a cat had to get into this block, but that left my dog friends out...  So I chose to represent both (sorry birds and others in the animal kingdom).

My sketch of last week was NOT original.  Many, MANY years ago I had bought my mother a small pin as she was also an animal lover and a few summers ago I brought it to Japan with me as she no longer used it.  Unfortunately it is extremely tarnished and doesn't seem to be able to be polished up.  It was a cheap piece of costume jewelry to begin with but I haven't been able to toss the piece as I like the idea of dogs and cats living side by side.

I made up a sketch and then transferred it to fabric (forgetting that things reverse in the process... Oh well.)  I had visions of doing Mola on this and what actually happened was a sort of reverse applique...  The cat seemed to get more attention paid to it than the dog did so I added a butterfly friend to the dog.  And his nose seemed to get longer as I sewed (subconsciously I must be thinking of John.)

I will try to get this in the mail next week along with a self-addressed postcard so that the Partnership committee can let me know if and where they use my block.

School Observation Day

Yesterday I was invited to attend the elementary school's Observation Day.  Instead of Open House in the evening for parents as was in California (when I was a child...  I don't know what the schools offer nowadays) parents are invited to attend a class in session twice a year.  A few years ago I was asked to be on an evaluation team and since then twice a year 6 of us meet with the principal and vice principal and another teacher to talk about school policies, mottos, safety, class atmosphere etc.

Actually, year by year not much changes at the school but I suppose it is a requirement to have input from the community though I am getting somewhat hardput to find new things to comment upon and ask questions about.  I really enjoy seeing the school in session though because it always gives me something to blog about!

Yesterday afternoon started off with a school lunch.  Let's see, the menu was noodle salad which was cold noodles in a soy broth covered in tuna and vegetables (corn, cucumber, radish, seaweed) and with a topping of dried mackerel flakes and mayonnaise.  There was also a scotch egg (which I managed to cover in ketchup) and a sweet roll.  And of course milk.

I asked about lunches...  Every student eats a school lunch (no bringing lunches to school) and parents pay about $30 a month per student.  The rest of the cost is supplemented by the city.  The lunches are made on the school grounds but from this year there is a company that sends kitchen staff to the school each day instead of having the city arrange for staff.  Each class eats lunch in its own classroom as there is no cafeteria and the students learn to serve up the daily meal themselves after carts are rolled to the classroom.  The student servers for the week always wear a white coat, a mask and a white cap and the white clothing gets taken home on the weekend to be washed by the parents and sent back the next Monday for the next set of servers.

Okay... So much for lunch.

After lunch and a discussion with the principal, our evaluation group joined the other parents who were milling around the hallways and standing around the edges of the classrooms to see what was going on.  Most of the parents observe in their children's rooms but we evaluators get free reign of the school and stop in at all 6 classrooms...  One class only per grade at this small school.  I guess we also observed two small classes of "Challenge" for students with learning or behavioral disabilities so I visited 8 classes in all during the one hour observation time.  Most of the classes were having language and ethics class...  Ethics meaning getting the students to talk about feelings and communication and connecting with other people's ideas and differences...  There is emphasis on curbing the bullying problem that is prevalent in Japanese schools. 

"That intonation of voice would hurt my feelings..."

"That word could be taken as asking for a fight."

A language class I really enjoyed was the teaching of Haiku, a Japanese form of poetry.  The 5th graders were given a theme of "Swimming Pool" (they chose their theme) and were asked to write Haiku (5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable) poems.  I would have liked to stick around and try to write my own Haiku!  (The final poems are a bit hard to translate into English...  things about coolness and aqua and having fun.)

A class I really enjoyed observing was the Home Economic class where the 4th graders were working on their sewing skills.  Now I wonder why I liked THAT class!

The students each have a sewing box and inside is a place for scissors and thread and a box to hold any other sewing implements.

The inside of the box is rather nifty!  The pins and needles area flip up for easy access!  Also this way one knows if they've dropped a pin or needle on the floor as each space is supposed to be accounted for...  A pin cushion... 

The children were working on sewing on this printed fabric piece.  They were learning to tie knots before and at the end of their sewing (and sew knots inside that ring on the left).  At the bottom of the left side were examples of a running stitch and back stitch that some of the girls had already finished.  Most of the kids this day were figuring out how to sew on buttons.  Three snails with three different kinds of buttons.  Two holed button, four holed button and a button with a hook on the back.

In the hallways were examples of art.  A calligraphy class had been working on brush writing, everyone writing the same Chinese character for Maturity.

 Totoro (a Japanese anime character) from a paper bag.

There was an English bulletin board in the hallway too.  Schools are putting a lot of emphasis on English too these days especially as the Summer Olympics will be held next year in Tokyo.  I think twice a month there is a native English speaking teacher who spends two days at the school teaching all grades some English.

Observation Day was really nice.

"That's good!"

Flimsy complete!

That scrappy 2 1/2 inch square quilt that I was working on got to flimsy stage pretty quickly.  I laid it out on our beds yesterday to get an over all effect.  This is an official flimsy completion though I considered making this bigger...

My purpose for this quilt was to just use up the 2 1/2 inch squares in my scrap bin and I think I can say that that was successful.  Of course the more I sew the more squares I cut from left over fabric and there are still quite a few "medium" color squares in the bin but at least the bin will hold more scraps again

This pattern I think was called Film at Five...  and I found the free tutorial on the Internet at Wedding Dress Blue. 

The quilt turned out much larger than I had expected and it fits (barely) over our two twin beds.  It could be a row wider for full coverage but that would mean more 2 1/2 inch square cutting and of course sewing and then I'd probably have to take out a center seam to make it into TWO quilts for quilting convenience and then resew the center seam etc.  It seems like a lot of work and the size it is at now is acceptable.  At any rate, I'm probably not going to get around to basting and quilting this for awhile so in the meantime I'll see if I change my mind about not enlarging this...

I always get to this point and think,

"Why did I make this big quilt?!  What on earth am I going to do about a quilting pattern and how am I going to get this quilted on my little sewing machine?"

I think maybe it is time to start thinking about the nice SMALL block I need to make for the Tokyo Quilt Festival's Partnership Quilts.  15 centimeters by 15 centimeters!

Walking with John

After all the excitement of being in Michigan, life back in Nikko is rather routine and unexciting.  That's okay too but it doesn't give a lot to blog about...

Mostly it has been raining nearly everyday and so it is difficult to find a few minutes of time to go out for a walk with John.  He is so close to the ground that even on days when it isn't raining he gets his stomach dirty...  We saw another daschund the other day who was wearing an apron around her middle.  Her owners said it was to keep her tummy clean when they went outside...  That seemed like a good idea but I guess we aren't going to try it...  There would be no way we could get an apron around John's middle!

This morning it was pouring outside but of course John needs to go for a potty run and so Tetsu took him outside.  When they got back, Tetsu asked for a towel so that he could dry John off but the three of us stood there looking at each other because the humans were unsure about how to go about drying John off as he doesn't like to be touched...  in the end John had to come back to his circle wet...  he wouldn't let us dry him.  He has a blanket in his circle so I guess he dried himself off after breakfast...  Isn't this ridiculous that we have to triple think everything we do with John?!

But John does like walks and so yesterday he and I headed off while the weather held.

 We found ducks resting by a rice field.

No, the picture isn't upside down.  The rice is reflected in the flooded field.

We visited a cow. 

The corn fields are just beginning to grow into rows. 

Oh John!  You blinked!  If I had chosen a dog to own I think I would have chosen one who wasn't black around his eyes...  Choco too had a black "mask" around her eyes and it was always hard to take her picture.  With John too, I can't even tell when he is looking at me because his black eyes get lost in his black fur.  And John being so close to the ground means that most of the pictures I take of him are of the top of his head!  Well, he can be photogenic but it is a challenge to get a good picture of John.

Ah, the sun was coming out and even the weeds were pretty!

Rattan furniture

Tetsu and I recently got rid of an old brown sofa that has been in our Japanese room for a year or so.  Actually, the Japanese room hasn't been a Japanese room for years because first we took the tatami mats out, then we had flooring put in and I removed the paper window shades and at one point Tetsu had moved the old brown sofa into it when we had found a smaller sofa.

Why we bought the huge brown sofa is still a mystery to me...  The FIRST sofa had been adopted by our very old dog and it was smelly and loosing stuffing because the cats had used it as a scratching post.  We bought the brown sofa to replace that in the living room but we hadn't learned our lesson and the cats immediately began using it as a scratching post too.  Besides that, the brown sofa was WAY too large for our small living room and squishy to boot meaning that though it made a very comfortable bed for Tetsu to sleep on when watching TV, it took a bit of "umph" to get up from it.

Tetsu and I replace furniture when we find something usable in the second-hand shop and last year we found a smaller sofa that didn't have padded armrests (hoping the cats will stop considering sofas as their scratching posts).  I was ready to take the old brown sofa to the dump as it had also become threadbare, but Tetsu insisted in moving it to the Japanese room (gotta find a new name for that room) and it has taken up half the space in that room since. 

But a week or so ago when at the second-hand shop again, I spotted a nice rattan set with two chairs and a glass table.  THAT might look nice in the Japanese room...  We bought the set and have placed it in the room looking out onto the backyard.  Unfortunately the backyard now sports the old brown  sofa but hopefully that will get taken to the dump in the near future.  In the meantime I have a very nice summery room!  I read in it, I practice Duolingo Spanish on my iPhone while looking out the window, and Tetsu and I just drink coffee and plan someday projects for the backyard.

The outdoor cat-house cats also get a bit more attention as we can now see them when we sit in the chairs and they have even been enjoying the chairs this morning as it was so wet and rainy in their cat house.  John has noticed the two cats in the chair and he is trying to make friends with them but they are not having it...

In the summer this is a nice room...  In the winter I don't know...  Now, what to call it...
 

Traveling with the Yamadas

Tetsu and I have been away for two days taking an overnight trip with our friends, Kohei and Marlene.  Though our families have been friends for ages, this was the first time to go off somewhere together!  The excuse was that we were celebrating Marlene's birthday.

First deliver John to the vet's again.  And of course arrange for the neighbors to take care of our cats.

Then we were all off in one car and we took the back roads to an resort onsen community north of us.

We stopped first for coffee and scones which were yummy.

 The Yamadas know different places in this area than Tetsu and I know.

Marlene has been in Japan about as long as I have.  Tetsu and Kohei were judo friends back when all of our children were little. 

It was so nice to sit out under the trees.

This was a very fancy resort!   But the main purpose for staying there is the very nice hot spa...

Here is Tetsu dressed in the hotel's cotton kimono, heading for the bath.

Marlene and I got to the women's side in the evening after dinner and then once again in the morning.  I think Tetsu and Kohei enjoyed the bath 4 times during our stay!

I got pictures when no one else was in the bath.  The indoor bath looking out.

And the outdoor bath under a gazebo-like structure.

We also enjoyed wandering around the garden and put our feet into the small hot spa foot bath.

Hmm..  A lot of white feet.

There were cute little stone objects in the garden...

In the evening we played cards.  (This is a very "foreigner" activity...  I don't think many Japanese couples play cards together as it is consider a child's way to spend time.  Marlene and I grew up playing cards and so our husbands have had to adapt...)

The buffet breakfast was wonderful but we enjoyed that too much to take photos.  We talked about how each of us really enjoy breakfasts when we are visiting the States.  In Japan, unless one is staying in a nice hotel, there isn't much offered at restaurants for breakfasts.  Both Tetsu and Kohei look forward to American breakfasts.

 On the way home we stopped at a bridge overlook to enjoy the scenery.

 Japan is really green!

See this photo...

And this one...  I think Marlene and I have special husbands who show affection and let us hang on to them.  At our age I don't see many Japanese couples doing much hand holding in public.  I don't know about Kohei but it took a lot of getting used to for Tetsu!

We sure had fun these two days!  I hope we can figure out a way to do an annual trip with the Yamadas.