Days of late June

The Japanese Weather Bureau announced that the rainy season has arrived in Japan.  And today the temperature is heading towards higher digits!  This means heat AND humidity!  Summer is my least favorite season and for some reason it seems worse in Japan...  Mosquitos are rampant and even mites in the house so we will have to fumigate some of the rooms pretty soon.  This is a yearly chore.  Tetsu had a run in with a caterpillar and his whole back broke out in hives which led to a trip to the dermatologist!

Yesterday Tetsu and I changed the screens in a couple of our windows, and both of us complained of how much harder this chore is because of all the kneeling and crawling around on the ground.  

With teamwork we now are protected somewhat from the dratted mosquitos and we can throw the windows open to let in a breeze.  (But pretty soon we're going to have to CLOSE the windows to let the air-conditioning work.)

I hurriedly got through my sewing projects before the heat got too bad as I probably won't be able to spend much time in the sewing room over the next couple of months.  It will be just too hot!  But I finished the quilting border motif quilt that I had decided to make while mentoring M-san on hers.  M-san is making this quilt with jelly-roll strips (as the On Williams Street website suggested) while I decided to see if I could make a dent in my 2 1/2 inch squares bin. 

This is what some of the border motifs are like...  The On Williams Street tutorial offered 10 motifs and M-san and I decided this would be a good way to practice our free-hand machine quilting.

And this is the finished quilt.  M-san has her jelly-roll flimsy made and basted and she will begin the machine quilting this week.

Other things have been keeping her busy such as THIS quilt which is her version of the Hidden Shoofly quilt pattern that I have now made numerous times.  M-san is calling this quilt her 9 Stars quilt.  Actually, the fabric choice for this quilt has a story.  While I was in Indiana, Leiya asked me to make her two quilts that she could give to two friends who were having babies.  At JoAnnes, Leiya picked out the fabric and she wanted me to make one light version and one dark version of the same pattern, thus this dark grey, black fabric.  I got all the pieces cut and laid out when Leiya said "Wait!  Do you know what that black fabric reminds me of now that it's laid out?  A snake skin..."  Hmm.  Well, now that she mentions it.  At the very least, it didn't look very much like a baby quilt!  We went back to JoAnnes and Leiya picked out some different fabric, I made two quilts light colored quilts while in Indiana, and I brought back the already cut black fabric to Japan.  What am I going to do with it except make this one pattern?  When I laughingly told M-san the story, she hesitantly asked if she might make the Hidden Shoofly quilt with the black fabric, and she even offered it back to Leiya if she wanted it.  "No.  Of course it will be YOUR quilt if you really don't mind the snake skin fabric."  M-san finally got it all together and hand quilted it and she and her parents declare it very CHIC and not snake skinish at all.  Everybody's happy!

And while I'm talking about Hidden Shoofly quilts, Leiya was able to visit one of her friends who lives in Ohio and deliver the quilt in person.  This is Yanna and she and Leiya were roommates in college and the two girls took over my blog and wrote posts for a week all those years ago (when I was having knee surgery.  I hardly remember that!!)

One more quilt story and photos...

While Leiya was in Ohio, she (and Tony and Luka and Taiga) went to visit a high school friend and her parents at the parents' "house".  Actually I think the parents are in the process of building a house and in the meantime they are living in a barn.  Leiya was raving about their beautiful barn accommodations and said "I want to live in a barn!"  Again, many years ago, a blog friend had gifted me with a set of McKenna Ryan's quilt kits with patterns and fabrics included.  Chickens!  The fabrics were SO beautiful and the chickens SO colorful and I loved the finished quilt!  BUT....  Japanese don't particularly like chickens very much so I knew I wasn't going to be able to give the beautiful quilt to any Japanese friends.  I remembered that the parents of Leiya's good friend, who had taken her under their wing, had a large dairy farm and also raised chickens! I sent the quilt to them and they seemed very appreciative.  

This week Leiya visited them in their barn home and she sent me this photo.  Isn't that beautiful there?!  And look at the wonderful chicken lamp that they have!  I'm so tickled that my quilt fits their lifestyle so perfectly!

Leiya and family at the barn house.

Enough about quilts.

I was at the elementary school for meetings last week and arrived just as the children were in the middle of their school cleaning time (probably about 20 minutes each day).  

My friends and I have been playing with pressed flowers from one friend's garden.

We finally get John into good shape again and then Toi's health starts acting up so he's been to the vet and will have to go again this week.  Toi, the orange cat, is 16 and while he's a big cat, when he loses his appetite I start to worry.  Cleo with the notched ear (left from a fight with Toi) is our striped tabby.  For years these two felines have been mortal enemies but now that they are both old (Cleo is 19) and they only have each other for complany, they have let bygones be bygones.

We had a beautiful sunset last week.  The greens really are that green around here!  That's what the rainy season will do for us so not all is to be dreaded!