Mrs. Furui's projects

I finished two blocks for Mrs. Furui's box in our block exchange game. She wants trees, actually of all colors but I stuck to green. The light one isn't so striking but it has sparkles in it that reminds me of snow. I'll see if I can get one more block made before I'm due to pass this on.

Mrs. Furui has been a quilter almost as long as I have and it goes without saying that we love to give away our quilts... Maybe Mrs. Furui more than me! Together we started the kindergarten raffle quilt project nearly 20 years ago and Mrs. Furui has made prayer quilts for her friends and family and also Wicked Easy quilts to give away.

For a long time the two of us have been interested in making quilts for some organization... One that speaks to our heart. Some of our overseas quilting friends belong to guilds that pour out an amazing number of donation quilts but basically it is just Mrs. Furui and me that seem to have the time and desire to donate our work.

A couple months ago Mrs. Furui signed up to volunteer at a university hospital in the next city over and she was asked WHAT sort of things she might be willing to do.

"I make quilts."

Ah... There is a need... but a sad one. Each year babies who return to Heaven, angels for a short time on earth, are carried home by their parents in bath towels... Maybe the grieving parents would be comforted to hold their angel in a gift of love and sympathy. Would Mrs. Furui take on that project? Nearly 20 such quilts are needed each year in the one hospital...

So, Mrs. Furui set to work and made up a couple small quilts and she approached me about helping her throughout the year. May I say that I don't believe in coincidences? The day Mrs. Furui told me about the hospital's angels' quilts was the day my own first daughter was born... and less than two months later I sadly took her home wrapped in a bath towel. At a time like that it doesn't really matter... bath towel... quilt... but still I felt that God was telling me that this was another project I should participate in. I certainly could understand the pain and heartache.

According to Mrs. Furui's instructions I've made up an "Angel's quilt." That's what I'm going to call these. So tiny! Only 20 inches square. Hand quilted on pastel pink. There are reasons for the color choice, light pink or light yellow... It is too sad to even explain why. How sad that there is even a need for Angel quilts. How blessed to be able to share in the sorrow. I'll be making more of the same over the year.

Church cleaning

Yesterday was Tetsu and my turn to clean the church. Since we live closest it is a quicky chore that we do once a month. All the pews get moved either to the front and then to the back of the room and the place is vacuumed and then dry mopped. Vacuum upstairs in the small Sunday School room, clean the two bathrooms, sometimes wipe down the pews too and then move them back into place. The whole process takes about 30 minutes.

Twice a year though the church floors are waxed and this always turns out to be an all day process. Everything gets taken outside, the pews (which were constructed INSIDE the building) can't be taken out and so they are pushed forward while the floors behind them are waxed TWICE... and then all the waiting for the wax to dry in-between. Some years we have 10 people waiting around while the wax is drying so yesterday Tetsu and I waxed the back of the room and today after church the front part will be waxed.

Japanese churches don't have the budget to hire janitors or organists etc. The members take turns or use their talents where needed and flowers are picked from the garden or a potted plant is brought over from the pastor's house. Some churches will have members that have studied ikebana, flower arranging, but none of us are blessed with that talent.

In the entryway of our church is a New Testament quilt that my friend Kaoru-san (the solitary Sunday School teacher) made. A few years ago Kaoru-san learned patchwork from me for awhile and she put a lot of effort went into hand sewing this New Testament sampler quilt. When Kaoru-san was finally done she immediately gave it to the church which I have always thought an enormous act of love. Can you figure out what the different blocks are?

Bethlehem star. The Holy Spirit descending as a dove. The star and the cross (Jesus' life). The grape basket (fruit of the Spirit). The palm branches (entry into Jerusalem). The crown of thorns. The cross and the crown of glory. Worlds without end (Eternal life). The butterfly (Resurrection).

Kaoru-san chose her favorite Bible verse to embroider in the center.

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.
Thessalonians 5:16-18

The original pattern was developed by Sandra Shigeno, a missionary in Japan and I have made this quilt numerous times and taught it often... I wonder how many New Testament quilts are out there in the world thanks to Sandra. It is actually only a part of a Bible sampler quilt and I have never made the complete quilt though I have the patterns squirreled away somewhere.

"Rejoice always!" even when waxing!

Fabric shopping

Yesterday afternoon I went off with my friend's Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san. We have been planning a trip to a city a couple of hours away to check out a fabric shop. With that said, I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures of the shop but I did have a wonderful day.

First the three of us had lunch at a winery in the hills. Since none of us are wine drinkers we just enjoyed the brisk air (we sat out on a deck with blankets over our legs!) and had a delicious salad lunch. Though I don't appreciate wine and the orchards were already bear of grapes, I still thought the winery's sign was wonderful.


After lunch we headed to the fabric store/gift shop and joined up with another friend. The shop was a much larger and much more elegant a shop than I can find in my city but the prices were dear! Still, such beautiful quality! The shop specialized in Liberty prints and oh my!!! Such a collection!!! Such prices!!! I was NOT going to buy fabric. I have enough fabric to last me a lifetime. But... after advising Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san about purchases (they are planning to make Irish Chains) I couldn't resist. First I bought some relatively inexpensive fabric for backing... Maybe for a special friend's quilt that is still on the drawing board. And I splurged and bought a few inches of choice Liberty fabrics that I have absolutely no use for, nothing that will match it in my stash and nothing that I could make from this exquisite fabric would feel comfortable under my needle. So it will sit in a drawer. I'm so annoyed with my lack of will power!

After fabric shopping we stopped in at a coffee shop and indulged in cakes and coffee. Look at this cup! We were all served coffee in museum piece china! One friend who had been to the coffee shop before whispered that she'd asked the price of the cup and had been told one cup was about $1200! Gulp. Sip carefully! (By the way it was delicious. Does the price of the porcelain make the coffee taste better or do they just make better coffee than I do? Probably both.)

Last night I had nightmares about Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san's Irish Chain quilts. I dreamed that they didn't like their choices of fabric after all... I dreamed that they absolutely couldn't use a sewing machine and that I had to make the quilts for them. I dreamed that I'd told them the wrong measurements and that all the expensive fabric was wasted! For such a fun day, I must be stressed about my upcoming role as quilting teacher again...

vending machine drinks

I've written about vending machines before this year but I thought I'd show you one again...

This vending machine sits outside of the elementary school and I stand next to it when I am on crosswalk duty. Absolutely every morning that I am there a construction worker stops and buys the exact same can of coffee. I've chatted with him a bit and he says it is his wake up drink. I don't know if he's been awake all night and is trying to stay awake on his drive home or if he is just waking up to go to his job (the latter seems more probable).

Canned coffee is the most popular vending machine drink in Japan. Someone researched this and found out that men are more likely to buy canned coffee from the vending machine than anything else. (And I guess there are more long distance men drivers.) The varieties and brands are endless! Black coffee, cafe o'lait, flavored coffee, sugarless but with milk, milkless but with sugar, etc. etc.

This past month the vending machine next to the school switched to winter mode. If you look carefully you can see the top row of canned drinks now dispense hot drinks! (The top row's buttons are red...) I think this is a very nice invention (even though I don't like vending machines). In the warmer seasons the same vending machine dispenses only cold drinks... in the winter it can do both cold and hot!

Other hot drinks up there are hot Japanese tea, hot milk tea (British?), cocoa, corn potage, and six varieties of coffee. In the cold sections there are some of the same plus soft drinks... And the plastic bottled drinks (called PET bottles) also change depending on the season. The mouths of the winter bottles are a bit wider I suppose so that one can drink without burning your lips...

The construction worker I meet every morning always chooses GEORGIA original brand coffee but I notice he is drinking the hot variety this season...

Welcome Back Feathered Star!

Amazing! I am hand quilting again!

On my list of handwork to do the Feather Star quilt has been there for MONTHS. Well, I wasn't going to hold a quilt on my lap during the summer months so it understood the need to sleep in the closet for awhile.

When autumn came along I brought it out of the closet and placed it on a chair in the hallway. My Feathered Star was very patient with me and anxiously waited for me to pick it up and work on it again. Hadn't I let it out of the closet? Wasn't it due for some together time?

Unfortunately knitting needles and yarn moved into the prime space next to my chair and the poor Feathered Star lived a couple months on the chair in the hallway. Blocks for my patchwork group's game moved into line next to the chair. So did the Tisket a Tasket BOM. I even did some quick hand quilting for a project of Mrs. Furui's. That was the ultimate insult to my Feathered Star!

"Applique? Piecing? Knitting? Well... there must be times when they have to come first. But hand quilting? How DARE Tanya start more hand quilting while ignoring me in the hallway!"

I could almost hear the whimpering from my beloved Feathered Star.

I felt remiss. Instead of promises I brought my Feathered Star downstairs last night and placed it next to my chair (on top of knitting and blocks and applique). And what do you know! If it is THERE it gets my attention and I even quilted on it for about an hour. My quilt was so happy!

I'm committed to satisfying my Feathered Star Quilt's longing for completion. It is staying by my chair and maybe by working on it bit by bit, it will someday find a place in light and glory! (On my wall? On my futon?)

Welcome back Feathered Star!

Passing

Some of you have asked about and followed the struggles of my friend Yumetaro-san. Last night his sister let me know that he had passed away earlier this month.

Over the past couple months I've visited Yumetaro-san 3 or 4 times at the hospice floor of the oncology hospital. Up until the last time I visited he was able to walk out to the "living room" and we would chat together. Once we walked around the small garden on the rooftop always with him pushing his IV pole. He even was able to go on a few hours outing with his sister and that evening she brought over some tofu that Yumetaro-san had bought for Tetsu and me.

I visited Yumetaro-san on Nov. 6th and was sad to find him barely conscious. I thanked him for the tofu and spent some time holding his hand. He was mumbling and I felt bad that couldn't catch what he was trying to say but I do think he knew that I had come to see him one more time. His sister said that they didn't expect him to live much longer, so I said my goodbyes then; a squeeze of the hand, a few words of gratitude for his friendship, a kiss on his cheek.

Yumetaro-san and I had an odd friendship. I knew him only 4 or 5 years. He brought me little things of his making. Paintings he'd painted on rocks, covered baskets, a beautiful scarf. I actually know so little about him. His first name was not really Yumetaro (Yumetaro means "dreamer") and I barely remembered his unusual last name. When I visited him the first time at the hospice, I stood at the nurses' desk and racked my brain until I finally pulled up his last name so that I could tell them whom I wanted to visit. We laughed when he greeted me in the hospice living room.

"Yumetaro-san! I didn't know who to ask for! You're just Yumetaro-san to me!"

"Yeah, well when the nurse told me that Watanabe-san was here to visit, I didn't know who that could be. I've only ever called you Tanya. What a pair we are! Don't even know each other by name!"

My friend Yumetaro-san is gone. I think I'll wear the scarf he gave me today.

Ramen

This is the season for RAMEN!

You may have heard of Instant Ramen. I have nothing against instant noodles but let me tell you, the difference is like hamburger and steak. They are NOTHING alike! And I'm sorry to say, I have never had a good bowl of shop made ramen noodles while I've been in the States. On practically every trip home after Tetsu picks me up after being a month in the States, I crave for ramen!

When it starts to get cold, steaming, bowls of hot noodles beckons from the noodle shops. And there are soooo many! I have heard of people traveling around Japan to sample the different types of ramen found here and there and there is quite a connoisseur cult. You can get miso ramen, or soy sauce ramen or salt ramen or pork broth ramen... And within each of those categories, each shop has it's own specialty or something that distinguishes its noodles from any other shop. One could easily just eat ramen daily for a year in my city and never have to go to the same shop twice.

(Soba noodles shops and udon noodle shops also abound in Japan and those are even more traditional and have their own cult of followers... Ramen is originally from China so I'm sure Chinese would NOT consider Japanese ramen authentic either....)

Tetsu LOVES ramen and we eat green onion ramen or cold ramen, or Chashu ramen (roasted pork).

This was our ramen meal the other day. Chicken broth ramen with lots of chashu and flavored bamboo shoots. The little pink-white circles are slice fish cakes. Yum! This shop's ramen has a nostalgic flavor and just walking into the shops takes us back 30 or more years... Pepper in hole punched bottle lids... numerous calendars on the walls...

And look at this! A working dial type telephone! You can't find those anymore in Japan though when I came to Japan every house kept one in their entryway. And yes, they all had these pretty little crocheted lace telephone covers!

We warmed up nicely with our hot ramen.