Goings on in March

Let's see...  What has been happening in the last month?

Today is a warm day and the sun is out making it extremely pleasant.  But March is famous for its tempermental weather and we have had storms and snow and a lot of cold days.

We had two snow days when I had to report to the crosswalk for morning duty and Tetsu, ever afraid I won't be able to drive the snowy icy streets, drove me to the crosswalk and then stayed the hour to shovel and sweep the snow from the sidewalks.  It is sort of a futile past time because on snow days most of the children end up coming to school by car, but there were still a few who braved the slush and snow so it wasn't all in vain.  By afternoon most of the snow had melted.

After my last scrappy quilt, I got to work on a lovely art quilt from Marie Noah, called Misty Gorge.  Marlene's son, who had been living in Alaska, brought the kit for me and it turned out beautifully!   

It looks like this LONG quilt is a part of a series of different scenes from Alaska, some scenes with fish and deer etc.  

M-san and I enjoyed putting the parts together which were nicely laser cut and then I machine quilted it all.  I had such a time doing the machine quilting however and at one time concluded that my sewing machine was on the fritz!  The thread kept breaking, I'd adjust the tension (bobbin tension too!) and then the thread would get caught in the gears.  It's true that I often have issues using monofiliment thread, but that is the only way to do all the detailed quilting in art quilts, so I perservered.  I finished the quilting as well as I could and before taking the machine to the repair shop, I switched back to cotton thread and a different needle and low and behold, the machine is sewing normally again.  We'll see how long it works without an overhall.  Eventually I think I'll give this quilt to Marlene and maybe she'll want to pass it back to her son and his wife as they have good memories of their time in Alaska.

In Japan, the week of the spring equinox is a time to visit graves, clean them up a bit and leave flowers and drinks and snacks.  Tetsu and John and I still go walking in the cemetery every morning and as the sun is up early, it isn't as eerie as it has been in dead winter.  The cemetery near us has large family graves as is the tradition, but more and more people are worried about not having family to pass the grave to nor any family nearby who will visit reguarly and offer prayers.  In the cemetery near us there are medium sized graves that maybe only hold four or five urns at a time and they are lined up (on the left of this photo) like little "apartments".  And now, these communal graves are becoming very popular because they are just small square holes which will hold two or three urns and then are covered in lawn.  No gravestone nor any individual place to offer incense or flowers but there is a grid there on the left with each grave marked out with at least names.  It is sort of interesting how even cemetaries are changing in Japan.

Can you guess what this is?  No it's not a candle!  As we were walking around the cemetary, we noticed at the "apartment" graves, many of the little altars had these "candles" which were leaning this way and that.  We surmised that this is a bit of ice!  Probably what happened was that the snow from the day before had piled up on this altar and that little center area stayed frozen while the rest of the snow slowly melted leaving all these cores of ice!  

We had graduation ceremonies last week at the elementary school.  Japanese ceremonies are so ceremonial!  So much deep bowing, so much shouting out and marching to receive diplomas.  The principal even wore tails!  For all the formality, the 6th graders, the parents, the teachers and even the very formal principal all had their handkerchiefs out!

My friends and I did some sashiko from kits I bought.  None of the three of us had ever done sashiko before but it was fairly easy and as the stitch guide was marked, it didn't take much thinking about stitch length etc.

Another project that I've been doing is applique.  I actually started M-san on her own project with some antique fabric squares I had and then I decided to make a similar quilt using batik and dyed fabrics instead.  Many years ago I made this quilt pattern using the same antique fabrics that I've given M-san and I thought if I make the quilt again the batiks would be a nice companion quilt.

And look at the beautiful fabric selection that Leiya purchased yesterday!  She asked Tony to babysit while she went off for a couple of hours to JoAnn's before the store closes up.  Once at the store (and thoroughly enjoying her free day!) she facetimed me and I "walked around" the store with her while she chose fabric and asked my advice.  We have a plan for me to make Taiga a colorful robot quilt (pattern by Elizabeth Hartman) and Leiya just had a better fabric store from which to chose fabrics, let alone the fact that the prices are about half of what I pay in Japan.  Now the problem is how to get these fabrics to me!  Paying for shipping sort of negates the fantastic sales prices.  It may be a while before I start Taiga's quilt.

And here are the boys!  They seem to have a good time playing together!

All in all, Tetsu and I live quietly.  We get annoyed at our computers because we can't do something or even more frustrating, when we can't remember how to do something we used to be able to do!  We feel like such dinosaurs these days!

Back to my applique!