Pillow case instructions

More sewing! We really went to town yesterday! I made three more pillow cases and even Marcy got in the act. Kiana has another pillow case lined up for today and I think we're making another trip to JoAnn's this afternoon. Yep. Marcy has decided that she knows what this year's Christmas presents are going to be for friends and family.

Okay, I think the instructions called for 3/4 yard main fabric and 1/3 yard border fabric but as usual I cheated a bit. One reason is because pillows are not as big in Japan so an inch difference isn't going to make for that tight a fit with me. If your pillows are standard size then buy a bit more fabric. Marcy used 1 yard and 1/3 yard for her pillow cases because she has king sized pillows. Here is the way I made two matching pillow cases. Sorry, no step-by-step pictures.

1. I bought 1 yard of fabric in two matching colors. Hopefully your width of fabric will be the same length on both fabrics to make things easier but if not do something so that they will even up.


2. Line the two fabrics up and roller cut about 10 inches from the edges. (As previously mentioned, no roller cutters in this house so do what you have to do with scissors.)


3. Now you have two pieces in each fabric, a large piece and a narrow piece. Fold the narrow piece in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and press.


4. Sew the narrow fabric piece onto one cut edge of the matching fabric, right sides together. Well, the narrow piece is all right sides now that it's pressed but you get the idea. 1/2 inch seam worked best for me here.


5. Go back and zig-zag the raw edges.


6. Press towards main fabric.


7. Sew around one side and across the bottom (right sides together) with a 1/2 inch seam and zig-zag the bottom as before.


8. Turn right side out.


9. Do the same for the matching pillow case (opposite colors, right?) or if you're a quilter like me you can flag sew everything one after another and make two or more pillow cases at one time. Marcy thought this was clever but you and I know this is a basic of machine quilting!

I know. Strange patterns for those two dark blue pillow cases but Marcy and Kiana and I decided that Takumi likes strange so those are for him.

Pillow cases

Good morning! Back from a walk and checking in. As some of my blogger friends have noticed, I haven't been replying to comments and now I'm so behind I'm drowning. I guess I'll just apologize, and if you'll bear with me I'll try to get back to a normal routine when I get back to Japan and my own computer at the end of June. I do love hearing from you though. Another apology is that I haven't been visiting blogs much either since I don't have 24 hour computer access. (I trade off between my brother's computer, Leiya's and my niece's. You'd think with all those computers around I could find one free...) At 7:00 am, yes, but when people are awake I try to stay away from the computers and socialize instead. Hope you'll realize I'm not ignoring you...

Let's see... someone asked me if I could put a translator on my blog sidebar but I'm afraid I don't know how to do that. If anyone knows how would they let me know. I probably won't get around to that until a later date too but I can see how a translator link might be helpful even for my husband!

Okay, the big news is that I was sewing! Yeah! We went to JoAnn's yesterday and I bought some fabric so that I could try my hand a pillow case making. Kiana, my niece was semi-enthusiastic to the project when we first suggested it to her. Nevertheless, had my brother set up a sewing table complete with TWO sewing machines, an ironing board in the corner and a fancy set of sewing threads. My brother and Marcy had given Kiana (earlier mistakenly posted as 14, she informed me she'll TURN 13 this month) her own sewing machine but it still wasn't out of the box yet. I don't think anyone had checked the instructions on how to thread the thing yet.

Let me at it! I had that machine threaded and humming in a few minutes. It must be instinct. Whipped up a pillow case in no time and was embarrassed at how thrilled I could be with this extremely simple sewing project. Of course I chose cats for my pillow case fabric.

Kiana sure got the bug when she saw the finished result and together we started measuring and cutting her fabric too. No long quilter rulers in this household, no rotary cutters and cutting boards. Marcy was saying we could go out and get a set for Kiana, but honestly, unless someone in the family is going to start quilting I think quilter's rulers and tools would just get forgotten in a back closet. I started in with scissors years ago so why shouldn't Kiana?

Kiana quickly put together a Snoopy pillow case and enjoyed herself so much that she was anxious to start another so at 8:30 pm Marcy, Kiana and I made a trip to WalMart to get Kiana more fabric. I say Kiana, but I ended up buying enough fabric for 4 more pillow cases! Hey, I'm not going to have enough time to start and finish a quilt while I'm here, but maybe I can make pillow cases and leave them for Takumi or Leiya or someone.

Yeah Kiana! Hope the pillow cases done this week will lead to a love for sewing for the rest of your life!

At the lake

Spontaneity is the key to having a good time. At least at my brother's house. Yesterday at 10:00am we were sitting around saying,

"What do you want to do today?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

and by 11:30 we were out on the road and heading out with Sea Doos to a lake.

What is a Sea Doo? I guess it is a big water motorcycle and my brother has two. That seemed strange to me since as a child my family was never into water sports and I didn't even know there were any lakes around here. (Southern California is VERY dry!) I guess my brother's family goes out to a river a few hours away once a year but yesterday morning a friend invited them to a lake about an hour away so we packed up the car, bought some sandwiches, hooked up the Sea Doos and were off (left Grandma home with a sandwich!)

What a great day! The family friends had brought along a boat and we all sat on the lake shoreline under a canopy and chatted or read magazines or went out riding on the lake. I've never done that before and never did get up the courage to take the Sea Doo out on my own, but I hung on to Marcy and got soaked and sun burned! Keion (my brother) was out with Leiya and my niece and we zoomed around the lake until Keion's Sea Doo flipped but thankfully only the sunglasses were irretrievable. What a lot of laughs!

Leiya tried weight boarding (never heard of that term before but it is sort of like water-skiing) but I don't think she ever managed to really get up on the board and most of my pictures just look like big splashes in the water. "She's down there somewhere!"

Ah, the wind blowing in your hair! The sun beating overhead! The lake water cresting over the boat as we sped through the water! Everybody hang on tight!

By sunset we were all tired and ready to load up and meander on back to the boat launch area to hook up the boat and the Sea Doos but wouldn't you know it, one of the Sea Doos stalled so it had to be tugged across the lake. An anti-climactic finish to the day, but everyone stayed in good spirits and my brother's philosophy of life is that problems are part of the fun.

No problems for me (as I know nothing about boats, Sea Doos, lakes etc.) and I had A LOT of fun!

My mother's daughter

While in Ohio I didn't get much walking in but I'm trying to add up steps again on my my pedometer in the mornings before anyone else is awake. I walk down to my old high school (I never made the walk when I was a high school student!) and then through a residential area and then up into the hills around my brother's house. All in all about an hour's walk and I probably get more exercise (when I do it) than on my flat walk around the rice fields in Japan. Of course I'm stuffing myself with too good food, so this is only token calorie control but it is better than nothing.

I took the camera with me today and captured some native Southern California flora. I don't know what some of these plants are but they are nothing like I see in Japan so I'm showing them. You can see how dry it is around the roads but the yards and tended areas of the neighborhood are quite green and lucious looking. Some of the flowering trees around here obviously don't need much water to thrive.

Mexican sage along the roadside and close-up.

A species of Bottle Brush but there are other shapes of the same type of flowers elsewhere along the road.

Ever present California palm trees.

Interesting dried weeds.

We're guessing that these are Jacaranda trees (don't know how to spell that). Every single time we drive past some of these purple trees my mother says "Aren't those pretty? Those must be Jacaranda don't you think?"

Wild orange trees and this is appropriate because the city my brother lives in is called "XXX, the City of Oranges."

This morning when I got back from my walk I started wading through the PILES of papers and pictures that litter the floor and desk and table in my mother's house, and I discovered that most of the pictures that my mother has taken in the past few years are pictures of her garden and flowers and cut flowers that she had stuffed into vases. Sorry, but once you've seen a rose you've seen a rose and certainly she didn't need hundreds of pictures of flowers and trees. People and activities spark much more interest in the viewer. But then I looked at the pictures I was planning to post today and realized that I really am my mother's daughter with all these plant pictures I've taken.

Sorry about that...

No sewing

Lazy California days. I guess I'm getting my reading fix. During the year I have VERY limited access to English books so while I'm in the States I find myself just lounging around reading almost anything. My niece's young teen books, Leiya's homework books, old Time magazines and old Guideposts that my mother saves throughout the year. I'm not picky about reading material.

I have lots of free time on my hands and it seems such a waste to not be sewing! At any other time I'd be using every extra minute to work on one of the numerous quilting projects I have going, but here I am without a sewing machine or fabric. I think I'm going through withdrawal. I even feel out of the loop because this morning Marcy (my sister-in-law) and I did spend a couple of hours at JoAnn's and though I had a list of things I wanted to buy, I couldn't really get my head together.

My list said I needed backing for the Wonky Word, for the 365 Challenge, for the Orange Crush and the Feathered Star and for a Wicked quilt, not to mention yardage for the latter three quilts. But actually I came away with bits and pieces for the Wicked and the Feathered Star. I don't think that was too smart, because when buying just a few fabrics at a store, and hoping to supplement them later from other shops I tend to forget what I've already bought and have a worse time than ever coordinating fabrics. I know I sent some pink fabric home with Tetsu (for the Orange Crush) but for the life of me, today I couldn't remember what it looked like...

My niece did mention that she wanted to make a pillow case and so Marcy and I picked out fabric for that today. My niece, at 14 already has her own sewing machine (she took a home economics class this year) so she is anxious to use it and make something. I'm looking forward to that project and I remembered that Tracey was making pillow cases so I think I can help my niece over this weekend.

I guess I forgot to mention that Takumi toodled in the evening before Tetsu went back to Japan, so we did snap a couple of pictures of the four of us together. We haven't had a family picture together in a couple of years so though we all look pretty grungy, this is what we look like nowadays. Takumi has already gone back to his apartment but he promised to show up again before I leave. Looking good and happy (friends, please note, Takumi smiles now!) and we celebrated his 23rd birthday by going out for frozen yogurt and buying him shoes. Big thrill!

Sprite, Please.

We said good-bye to Tetsu this morning at LAX. A teary good-bye for Tetsu and Leiya even after my last post about smiling. Tetsu is a softy and he gets more choked up about things than I do. I guess since I've had lots of practice saying good-bye every summer to my family that I'm an old hat about it nowadays. Leiya has always been an easy crier and but seeing Tetsu's tears set off Marcy and my mom too and we all stood around half laughing, half crying at the airport security check-in. Let's see. He should be a quarter of the way over the Pacific about now.

As often happens when Tetsu and I come to America together, I realize how Japanese he really is and what a difficult situation he is in. He brought along his business cards which of course he never had a reason to hand out. That is a very common Japanese custom. He was continually pulling out American money and trying to remember which bill was worth how much but finally just handed me his wallet and gave up trying to pay things. It must be hard for him. Granted, I was the one who for 30 years has adapted to Japan, and makes the daily adjustments, but sometimes I honestly feel more comfortable in Japan than in the States. Tetsu makes the trip to the States about once every three years and often it hardly can be called a vacation for him.

For one. with the language barrier, coming to the States means that Tetsu is completely dependent upon me and often that doesn't sit right. Usually he is in the lead position in our marriage and I rely on him when things get beyond my understanding. This works well for us since women usually take a lesser role but coming to the States and having to ask me to buy things for him in the stores, explain situations to him, waiting for me to translate for him, makes Tetsu feel ineffectual.

Sometimes the situations we are in can get extremely stressful between us just because I've not translated clearly for him or he doesn't understand the problem. This happened at the Ohio airport when we had lots of luggage and weren't sure if all of it could be checked through. I had concerns about overweight luggage, Leiya's host mother had advice about paying the extra luggage fee, Leiya had one free baggage allowance while Tetsu and I had two piece allowance but of course Tetsu didn't understand the airline system and we also had a crazy shaped package that we could have been charged extra for. Between the four of us at the check-in counter, Tetsu's stress level was sky rocketing and there wasn't a dang thing he could do about anything! Just leave it to the women folk who started opening suitcases and redistributing weight in hopes of avoiding extra fees. I could practically see the smoke rising from him!

That is only one incident of Tetsu trying to manage in the States. Another one, which we had a good laugh about was that on the flights to California Tetsu and Leiya and I had to be separated and for a couple hours and Tetsu didn't have me as a seat partner. Usually I am the go-between for ordering on the flight but this time Tetsu was on his own. The stewardesses came around during beverage service and I guess each time Tetsu asked for a Sprite. When we landed in California and got back together he says to me,

"You know, I really just wanted some water but the stewardesses don't understand my pronunciation so I kept ending up with Sprite.

"Sprite, please." they understand. I say "Uoa-ta-, please." and they ask me to repeat and it gets very embarrassing for everyone."

We all had a good laugh at that and even Marcy and my niece and nephew were trying to teach Tetsu to pronounce "water" correctly for his flight today. I think in the end they advised him to say, "H2O, please." Wonder what he's drinking right now up in those blue Pacific skies.

Graduation and Smiles!

So many things going on and hardly time to check the computer let alone blog. Sort of frustrating too because I wanted to keep a running account of all we've been doing but here it is over a week since we arrived and Tetsu is already getting ready to go back to Japan. Tetsu, Leiya and I flew to California yesterday afternoon and we have been hitting all the high spots of my home town, In 'N Out Hamburgers, thrift shops, donut shops and tonight an Italian restaurant.

Let's see. Shall I give a report on Leiya's graduation? I think that is where I left off. Leiya's high school graduation was held in a huge auditorium at the country fairgrounds and we were amazed at the number of people attending. I think in the morning another local school had also held their graduation ceremonies there too so there were hundreds and thousands of people coming out of the fair ground as well as coming in. In Japan, high school graduation is attended by maybe the mother of the student but in Ohio there were parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everybody imaginable! No wonder they needed an auditorium! Tetsu was very glad that he'd made the effort to come to Leiya's graduation after seeing all the family that had turned out for the other students. "It would have been a lonely graduation for Leiya if we hadn't come for her."

I think what struck us most about this graduation was the happy atmosphere throughout the whole two hours. Instead of the formal bow and set routine for receiving a diploma as in Japan, the students smilingly shook hands with different members of the school board, the principal, their school counselors etc. while there were lots of cheering and whistle blowing from the audience. Each student had also chosen a faculty member to come forward, a teacher who had been their special mentor and they freely shared hugs and back pats with the graduating student at the corner of the stage. Such a warm and happy graduation ceremony.

Caps were thrown high as the proceedings came to an end and then the students were engulfed by family members hugging and yelling and milling about trying to congratulate friends and students. Yeah Leiya! A great way to end her three years of American high school and lots of wonderful memories for Tetsu and me of this short week not to mention the memories that Leiya has stored up in the years she has lived in Ohio.

So here is Leiya in her cap and gown. And here we are, the proud parents trying not to look too much like the foreigners that we are amidst all the other people.

Later in the evening we attended a graduation party for one of Leiya's best friends and I was struck by this simple quote sitting near the girl's picture and her thank you gifts.

"Don't Cry because it's Over.

Smile because it happened.

--Dr. Seuss

Leiya's high school years have come to an end and she won't be with the same people who have nurtured her and been her friends... But because of them she has grown and changed for the better!