Bloom Where You're Planted

Yesterday I put together a mini-quilt as an example for my two patchwork friends who are coming on Friday.

Both ladies are making Love Me, Love Me Not quilts and they have their quilts at flimsy stage and are ready to start machine quilting.  They both have a Bible quilt that they want to hand quilt so by default the Love Me Quilts will be done on the machine.  And these are the two ladies who bought their sewing machines last summer and specifically ordered a free-motion quilting foot.  So you can see that they are williing.

But neither lady has done machine quilting and so I fixed up a small sandwich with the same Love Me, Love Me Not motif.  I figure they can get their practicing on the little one first and it won't matter if they mess up and maybe they can gain some confidence.

For my own example I really quilted this densely though I don't expect them to.  I tried Pebbles (a first for me) and also following the pattern in the border.  The words I printed out and then traced backwards onto fusible paper and then transferred and fused to black fabric.

Well, off to do my blooming today!
 

Graduations

I was off at the kindergarten graduation ceremony this morning.  Actually I was also supposed to be at the elementary school graduation ceremony but since both ceremonies were being held at the same time I chose the kindergarten's.  I've been the kindergarten students' English teacher for the whole three years that the kids are in kindergarten.  I only see the 6th graders for a few seconds every morning when they go across the crosswalk on their way to school.  But in the afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to have one of my English 6th graders come with his parents to say thank you for teaching him for 6 years. 

As a part time teacher at the kindergarten I had little to do at the ceremony but observe and bow politely to the teary eyed parents as they left the sanctuary (Christian kindergarten).  Nearly all the children's fathers attended the ceremonies too which is a change from when my children were little.  25 years ago it was the MOTHERS' job to do education duties and a father would nary show his face at the kindergarten  (I think Tetsu participated more because he had this foreign wife that insisted a father's role was important.)

Today I counted 8 mothers dressed in kimono for the important day, as was the homeroom kindergarten teacher.  From my viewpoint I could only get a quick photo of the back of one of the mothers.  Pretty obi on that kimono!

I must say that the parents, fathers especially, seem so young these days.  Spikey hair, earrings...  And they must look at me and think

"My, Tanya-sensei sure is going gray."

Busy-ness

I was offered a teaching job this weekend... but I turned it down.  I'm not really sure why.  I have taught English ever since I came to Japan, over 35 years.  I have a fun time doing it but I am always surprised how much I look forward to vacation times when no children are coming and I don't have to go to the pre-school and kindergarten.

Recently I had a conference with the kindergarten principal and let her know that she might think about finding a new English teacher within the next couple of years.  Retiring at age 60 seems about right to me but the principal flattered me and went on to talking about next term's English curriculum.  She didn't really take me seriously saying that since she is already 64, I can't talk about retiring yet...

In all my years of living in Japan I have never gone looking for work.  It just comes to me (by the grace of God) and it has always been enough to get me back to the States yearly or to keep the kids in school.  When a job DOES come I really do think it is just another path God has set out and all I need to do is take the first step.  So when I declined the job offer yesterday I almost felt that I was turning my back on a God given challenge.  And hey, we are not so well off that I can afford to turn down work!

But a new job wasn't really what I wanted to do.  The past year I've been trying to downsize my working schedule and a major job just wasn't in my plan.  I don't want to do a job grudgingly, I want to do it joyfully.

What do I want to do? 

Spend my days sewing...  Keep the house a bit tidier...  Cook other than slapdash meals...  Keep my body in motion with dog-walking and swimming...  Visit with friends...  Read inspiring books...  Pray for my church...  Take pictures...  Blog regularly... Teach a few classes joyfully...

My Bible reading this week was Matthew 22:5

"But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business."

Am I just going about my own business?  Busy-ness?

And my prayer for that day (before the job offer) was:

"Lord, help me to not let busy-ness interfere with my relationship with You."

I'm not sure if I'm following my own schedule or God's.

After dinner tea time

Once a week or so, instead of an after dinner wine, Tetsu and I will enjoy an after dinner drink of tea with sweet bean paste sweets.  (Of course bought at the corner sweet shop where I do crosswalk duty).  This week we had Sakura mochi and Monaka with Sakura tea.

The Sakura mochi I showed being made the other day.  They were still minus their salty sakura leaves at that point.  Yes, the leaves are marinated in brine and then wrapped around the pink mochi balls.  Most people eat the leaf as is, though I have run into people who prefer to enjoy the slight salty taste left after unwrapping the leaf.

Monaka is a soft, somewhat crispy wafer made of mochi with sweet bean paste inside.  Depending on the shop or area made, they can be round or flower shaped etc. This one is shaped as a traditional thatched roofed farm house.

And the Sakura tea was a gift from Tetsu.  Though we usually drink loose leaf tea made in a tea pot, this box was filled with tea bags.  Some of the nicer tea companies will make their tea bags of organza.  The tea and sweets were delicious!

Which brings me back to the first picture of the little flower at the top of my post.  This was made by Mrs. Furui.  I think she's trying to make a corsage or something...  And what did she make it out of?  The organza from left-over tea bags.  Already pre-dyed by the tea!  Ha!  Talk about not being wasteful!

Well, I'm not planning to make any corsages and I'm not planning to pass on my left over tea-bags to Mrs. Furui.  She can drink her own quantities of tea.  (I'm usually a coffee drinker anyway.)

A fox family

Yesterday I had a big chunk of time to do some serious quilting.  On what?  Ah... that is the question.  I don't feel confident enough to put my McKenna Ryan's Christmas quilt under the needle.  I needed a practice piece.

You may remember last Saturday I showed a close-up of the cute little fox in the McKenna quilt kit.  Hmmm.  I have the patterns...  I DID make that little fox, but McKenna's kits are all pre-cut.  (Thank goodness!)  All those tiny little pieces are laser cut and just a snip is needed to remove the piece from the bit of fabric.  And McKenna's pre-cut pieces all have fused backing, another life-saver.

But there I sat, looking at the McKenna pattern...

"Now... If I just trace the tiny pattern onto fusible paper... (remembering to flip the pattern over... whoops forgot that the first time and had some backwards pieces).  And if I fuse the patterns to different scraps of fabric...  And if I use tiny embroidery scissors to cut out the pieces...  I SHOULD be able to put together another fox.  Yeah!  I did it!"

I tried another fox.

 "Oh good!  I can make foxes now if I have McKenna's patterns."

I continued on with the tree pattern.  Though wiggly they weren't too hard and by the end I was cutting trees without even using a pattern.  (Just wiggle the scissors a bit...)

Great.  Two foxes and some trees on a couple "hills".  Can I do more?

Umm... I'm no McKenna but I designed two more baby foxes.  That is what they are trying to be.  Maybe they look like wolves.  I could have taken more time for fabric choice.  Oh well...  I am trying to make a practice piece for QUILTING. 

I fused my fox family down and was ready to put the whole thing under the needle.  Instead of basting I used spray bond, just great for a small piece like this.

I used Madeira Monofiliment 60# thread for the top.  (I could only get it in one color.)  Mrs. Furui and I tried to buy some recommended Sulky Monofiliment thread but having it sent from wherever was $24 shipping.  I don't think so.  We are experimenting with the Madeira thread instead.  It seems to work fine.

It took a bit of tension adjustment to keep the white bobbin thread from pulling to the top so a couple of my dark trees have white dots along the sewing line.  I think I've got that problem figured out.

I was pretty cautious as I started quilting the fox so I barely moved along at all.  As I gained confidence my stitches became a bit more even.  The eyes that I had worried about weren't that hard after all.  That monofiliment thread just takes you anywhere so I just stitched up the noses.

My sky could have been a bit more artistic but I'm ready to start quilting the REAL McKenna kit now!  Wish me luck!

Hand-spun yarn

My blog friend, June, sent me some of her HAND-SPUN yarn!  It is so beautiful!!!  I knew that June did spinning (as well as long-arm quilting) but I didn't expect to reap the fruits of her talent.

Look at the beautiful colors.  The photo is a pretty good representation.  The strands go from dark teal to turquoise to a light lavender to a soft pink and twisted within the yarn are gold threads.  Just sitting on the table the two skeins look like they tumbled out of a jewel box!

June suggested I knit a scarf with these.  Hmm... Maybe... Or a dressy shawl?  I'm also thinking that the yarn could knit into an intricate Fair Isle type sweater.  Or... I've always like the round yoke type sweaters (called Ropi style?  From Iceland?) and this might be nice in a two colored sweater.

I have a feeling that I'm not going to get started knitting for myself until later this year.  Such a shame to put these skeins away for months... I could leave them in a pretty bowl and let them decorate my table!  (But then they'll get dusty...)

Thank you June, my brain is twirling with ideas for your beautiful yarn!

Scrappy Trip Around The World Finish

 I have finished the overall quilting on my Scrappy Trip Around the World.  And I even got the binding on last night!  The quilting sure was a long haul!  But it is the first time I've quilted a full size quilt in the overall random style and it took quite a lot of time and a lot of concentration.   I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been faster to just hand quilt a few lines on this and have been done with it but this was my practice piece and is going to the Ronald McDonald House where I doubt anyone will be judging the quilting.

The good thing is that the quilt's scrappiness makes it very difficult to see the blurps and mistakes.  The bad thing is that for all the time put into this quilt the quilting can hardly seen at all.

The backing is cute isn't it.  I didn't really have enough so I pieced a backing and in parts it is green.  I had found this backing fabric a couple years ago at Ikea of all places, when I was in the States.  100% cotton, cute, and on sale.  The back of this quilt may be nicer than the front!  And the quilting shows up.

Ah well, I did learn how to space a random quilting pattern and get from one point to another.  And I used up quite a lot of my leaders/enders and other scraps.  Why is it I still can't close my fabric drawers?