Signature blocks again

Friday morning I had to drop something off at Mrs. Furui's house before going on to a class.

"Come in. Do you have 10 minutes?"

I had 10 minutes so I sat down at Mrs. Furui's dining room table and got the latest scoop around her neighborhood and the kindergarten.

Last week a little Down's Syndrome boy who had graduated from the kindergarten a couple of years ago, passed away from heart complications. Many of the teachers and kindergarten mothers and Mrs. Furui went to the funeral.

"Tanya, I want to make a signature quilt for Ken-chan's family. I was looking at your blog and saw that you had been making signature blocks. Do you think I could make blocks and take them to the kindergarten for the mothers and maybe some children to sign them?"

Well, yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea. And within the 10 minutes we had decided to get blocks made and to the kindergarten by this coming Monday. I'm included of course.

"I'm so sorry. You don't have to get involved if you don't want. I know you have so much else on your schedule."

"Don't worry about it. I want to help. I knew Ken-chan too. I even have some already made signature blocks that I decided not to use. I'll pull those out and that will help the block sewing go quickly."

But I came home and can not find those blocks.

"Oh, come on! This sewing room is not that big."

Not in the drawers. Not in the boxes. I've looked everywhere.

"What a waste of time. Just make some new ones."

So yesterday I went through my drawers and cut out fabric to Mrs. Furui's measurements. But the blocks were turning out a different size than she'd figured so I must have been doing something wrong. (Actually we were using different techniques.) I called.

"Mrs. Furui, my blocks are not the right size. And you are not using the technique that one normally uses to make signature blocks. (I'm such a know-it-all.) Are you free? I'll come over and we can work together on this."

Both of our husbands were working on a Saturday afternoon so what do two quilters want to do more than anything? It's a thirty minute drive to Mrs. Furui's but I gathered up my WIP and drove over.

Working together, Mrs. Furui and I made up 80 blocks (she was going to put the last 20 together today.) I cut, ironed and trimmed. Mrs. Furui sewed. I was at her house until nearly 5:00!

"I'm so sorry I got you involved, Tanya. You came into town yesterday and then again today. Maybe I should have just kept my plans to myself."

"Think how I would have felt if I'd found out later that you'd made a quilt without me! Working together on quilts is inevitable!"

It's true though that every time I cross Mrs. Furui's threshold I come home with a new project to work on. That woman! She is such a slave driver! But I love her lots and lots!

(Thus said she will have to forgive me for posting her picture. "Don't take my picture! I hate photos!" Don't we all!)

Does anybody remember where I put my signature blocks?

Karaoke

Yesterday I did something I've never done before and probably won't do again. I went to a Karaoke "bar". (It wasn't a bar... It was a Karaoke room...)

There was a time when Karaoke was the big thing in Japan and there were Karaoke bars and people were buying Karaoke systems for home use. (By the way, the word Karaoke comes from a composite word, kara, meaning empty, and oke taken from the English word orchestra. An Empty Orchestra). I have been to places (like in the gimmicky spas) where there is a stage and customers will pay to have a song played while they stand up in front of everyone and pretend they are famous crooners. ... But I've never tried myself and Tetsu shuns Karaoke places with a long arm. (He doesn't even keep hymn melodies very well. He says he refuses to make a fool of himself in front of a lot of people.)

Anyway, my pool friend, Kyoko-san called me on my cell phone when I was in her city and wanted to get together to go bowling or do Karaoke or go a hot spa. (This week the pool is closed for its annual cleaning and repairs so we patrons are left with finding other ways to bathe.) Hmm. I really had wanted to go home and do patchwork but I believe in putting people first so I met up with Kyoko-san and we decided what to do with a couple spare hours.

Bowling? I've been bowling years before and wasn't very good at it. Yeah, I could probably spend an hour doing that though it sounds like more exercise (and I've been so happy free from lap swimming!) Karaoke? I've never done that. I know that is one place Tetsu is never going to take me. And if it is just Kyoko-san then maybe it doesn't matter if I make a fool of myself. So I voted for Karaoke (with a hot spa bath afterwards.)

Use of a Karaoke room is about $5 an hour with a free refillable soft drink thrown in. We signed into a narrow room with a TV screen and a menu (you can order nibbles if you want) and were given two sterilized microphones and a type-in keyboard. Knowing nothing I let Kyoko-san man the keyboard and she punched in a couple songs and stood up to warble.

She was really very good! A very nice voice obviously trying to emulate one of the famous Enka stars in Japan. Enka is translates as:

"...music, based on the pentatonic scale has some resemblance to blues. Enka lyrics are usually written similarly around the themes of love and loss, loneliness, enduring hardships, and persevering in the face of difficulties, even suicide or death."

Not a too cheerful set of topics but a singer can put a lot of emotion into one song and Kyoko-san played it to the hilt!

I'm afraid I'm more self-conscious and I sat with the microphone a foot away from my face and tried to pick out the tune to Country Roads. There were enough Simon and Garfunkel, Celine Dion, and Disney theme songs that I had a good time but I doubt that I'm going to make Karaoke a part of my regular schedule. I do better (I think) with gospel music and a guitar than with Enka and a microphone...

(Illustration from the Internet, Karaoke definition from Wikipedia.)

Patchwork kits

Yesterday I ended up with a mostly free day (I love those!) and did some preparation work for my friends. I have three friends who are going to work on some blocks (at my request). None of them are quilters, thus none of them have a large supply of fabric. THAT'S okay as I have enough fabric for all of us so I started making patterns, bias tape, choosing fabric and making applique pieces. It actually took all morning to make up three kits and I didn't get too much done myself.

I don't really see the joy in kits. I think I've bought one kit in my lifetime and though it turned out nicely, I never felt that it was really my creation... even with all the time put in! Part of the fun of doing patchwork is choosing the fabrics but a lot of people get hung up at that point.

My advice is to "choose three or four fabrics and start cutting!" Patchwork almost always looks better made up and I don't really think I've ever seen an ugly quilt. (I know, there are some that end up in the ugly quilt competition but even there the owners got some fun out of it!)

Many first time quilters agonize over matching colors or patterns. I don't remember if I started out that way or not... The only thing I do remember from a long ago piecing session with a teacher, was to try to mix large designs and small designs (I had a vague idea that patchwork was only small print florals).

Anyway I have made up my kits and will go deliver them today. I had fun choosing fabrics and I have a bounty to chose FROM!

Junk, trash, garbage and crumbs

I'm in a "throwing away" mood. Do you ever get that way? I probably should have these moods more frequently and then I wouldn't accumulate so much junk but usually I go along collecting and once in a blue moon I decide I can live without all this stuff. If I need it again I'm not so poor as I can't go buy it again and so things are getting tossed. Old CDs, old sweaters and mufflers, a couple old stuffed animals, lots of empty notebooks, unused English material, hand-me-down dishware. While I toss I occasionally feel guilty, but once a year or so all this stuff just makes me feel constipated!

Right now all of the junk is still in wastepaper baskets so I hope my will holds through tomorrow when the garbage goes out. (Sometimes I rethink and drag stuff back out of the wastepaper baskets.) And yes, I did do a little trashing in my sewing room too... A little. Bent and dull needles, one pin cushion that had rusted pins in it...some of the crumbs (and I really mean crumbs! 1/2 inch triangles?) in the overflowing crumb basket.

"Why are you saving those when you have drawers of fabric, Tanya!"

Unfortunately even with a toss-a-thon there isn't a big difference in how my house looks... I can still look at drawers and shelves and see stuff I haven't used in years... but can't throw out...

Oh, and I DO NOT throw out anything of Tetsu's. Years ago I learned the hard way that he does not appreciate my judgement on the necessity of his things. So if you come to my house and see a lot of junk, please assume it belongs to my better half...

(But it's true the the wastepaper basket in my sewing room is the least filled in the house...)

Climb every mountain~

Yes, well, 19 people recognized yesterday's picture as a bug. One person thought it was a robot which I was afraid of. But one out of 20 isn't bad. And a few of you got the hum part. I guess if there are enough humbug looking humbugs in Tonya's quilt that mine will blend in, so my Humbug will go to Tonya at some point.

And still playing, I made letters. I feel more confident about letters than I do about figures but by themselves they don't have a lot of personality. These aren't connected yet but hopefully before Tonya's cut off date they will be sewn together.

And I tried another bug. That's what it is trying to be. With a humbug expression. I don't know about anyone else but it looks like an unhappy Martian to me... What's the difference between a bug and an alien? Maybe the 6 legs... Arghh. I did not want to make 6 more legs.... Rats.

Because it's there

Hmmm. Not much to say today. On days like this I should just close the computer and go do housework.

I had a little extra time the other day and I spent it up in the sewing room. Yes, I know I have homework to do but I when given a block of free time, I wanted to play. Do you know what this is? Depending on your answer this will or will not get sent to the recipient. Talk about playing outside your normal frame... I would NEVER have thought I'd want to take a try at making THIS but a challenge was given and I had to see what my abilities are up to...

I often think quilters are like the mountain climbers that scale great heights with much risk to body. Now, you would think that there are no two people further from each other in attributes. As a quilter I am not physically in shape. I don't like excitement nor hardship. I don't even like being outdoors all that much. I like comfort and quiet and the feel of fabric not thin air and snow and hiking boots.

So what's the comparison?

Like a hiker might look up and see a far off mountain that they want to climb "just because it is there", I sometimes stumble upon quilt patterns or see something on someone's blog, or am met with a challenge (as in today's case) and I want to make something "just to see if I can". Sometimes I can't but most often I can. Sometimes the challenge is

"Can I really make this quilt with all the hundreds of pieces all by hand?"

Such was the case with the Feathered Star. Tetsu asked me why I was making it and my answer was...

"I don't know... I wanted to see if I really could."

which he thought a strange reason.

Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts often sing to me just because I want to see if I can really follow her instructions without know where this is going.

New techniques call to me because I want to see if I can master them and who cares what I end up with when I'm finished... Usually a lot of loose blocks that have no destination.

So this is another "just because" block.

I need to stop playing and do my homework. Or my housework...

One piece of homework done

With all the snow yesterday I worked on my sewing homework. Okay, one piece of homework done. That went quickly. This is the Anne of Green Gables church block and it was easy to do. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be doing Redwork in backstitch or in outline stitch or with one strand or two strands of embroidery floss so I mixed and matched as I went along!

My part of Japan doesn't get much snow but when it falls everyone freezes (literally and metaphorically). Many people figure that the area gets so little snowfall that they won't change their tires over to snow tires and thus when it DOES snow they get caught off guard and can't move. When I went to the pool last night I found cars slipping on the roads and stalled by the wayside. I think their cars can't make it up the hill to the tunnel that connects the two cities. Anyway, I made it safely to the pool but decided I didn't want to risk the tunnel road on the way home so I went the long way around on more crowded streets. Tetsu, who came home early in the evening hoping to avoid the frozen roads was horrified to find me out and about on winter streets and he started calling me on the cell phone. Well....!

I'm trying to drive home husband-dear. Your calling me only startles me as I drive and I can't drive and talk at the same time (and it is also illegal).

When I finally got home my cell phone registered 5 phone calls and 3 text messages from Tetsu within a span of 20 minutes. At least I know he worries about me.