Reflections quilt progress

I spent part of the afternoon sewing my "Reflections" blocks together. 

Now they are all in one piece!  

Actually, one day I had arranged the blocks up on my design wall, a piece of flannel pinned to the wall, and started cutting more fabric for blocks.  And when I turned around,, PLOP, there was my design flannel and most of the blocks on the floor!  I'm going to have to figure out a better way to pin my flannel onto the wall.  Or maybe figure out a way to make a larger frame as my flannel isn't really very large (and I end up pinning blocks to the wall).  Anybody had any success making a design wall large enough for a bed size quilt?

Sorry, this is an odd angel for this shot but furniture was in the way.  I should be done with this flimsy but I think I will add a border as it is still a tad small... 

Wisterias

On one of our early morning walks we headed over to the temple that has an old wisteria tree.

This seems to be a hidden away place that only the locals (Tetsu and me?) know about.  I've never seen anyone else here. 

Some years the blossoms hang longer... sometimes shorter.

I tried different angles.  Straight on...

 Shooting up from under...

 Close up...

I wasted an awful lot of time chasing bees!  Lots and lots of big ol' bumble bees that seemed to be as interested in me as I was in them!  They would hover just at eye level... UNTIL I pointed my camera and then they would buzz off to another spot.  DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPOSSIBLE IT IS TO PHOTOGRAPH BEES?!!!!!  They don't stay still and they don't just buzz up and down and right and left, but in and out at you too!  A was a comical figure zeroing in on something that was not there and then finding another bee that I would stalk for awhile until it too disappeared.  So in case you can't tell, I'm letting you know.  That above photo is a BEE!  That's the best I could do!

Basting

There's not much going on this week...  Hand quilting the large Liberty quilt but nothing fantastic to show there...  It is all stitch-in-the-ditch.

Here is Cleo making himself comfortable this morning on the quilt.  I can't keep the felines off the quilts so I will give it a good going over with sticky paper before I pass the quilt on to the next quilter.  Or maybe I won't because she has two cats too!  It will be more efficient to use the sticky paper before the quilt goes up on the wall.  (I am SOOOOO glad that the other quilter has cats!  Then all the cat hair can't be blamed on me alone.)

Someone asked about how we baste our quilts.  Well, I think I've tried every way in the book!  Normally, my friends and I use Japanese basting thread which is wonderful for taking out after the quilt is quilted.  It is sold by the skein and can be cut to uniform lengths with one snip of the scissors.  Thread basting works out best when I am hand quilting and using a hoop.

When I started machine quilting I began using safety pins as the books suggested that this was a very easy way to remove the basting every time the machine needle came to a basted part.  That has been somewhat successful but my fingers got sore putting in the pins and I also would forget to remove them and suddenly the sewing machine was stuck at a safety pin.  Nowadays I thread baste even for machine quilting but I still use safety pins for test quilting pieces that I practice on.

I don't know how I found out about the spray basting but that is a wonderful invention!  The drawback of course is the cost...  and in Japan it is REALLY expensive!  Still, I keep a can of spray baste around for smaller quilts that I am going to machine quilt, especially the McKenna quilts that require heavy machine quilting.  Cost wise, it is just not practical to spray baste the larger quilts I make.

The one exception was last summer when I was making three identical photo quilts for my sister-in-law.  (I don't know why I didn't take a picture of all three quilts together but I didn't...)  Three tops were made and together we got down on the floor and thread basted one.  Unused to the work, Marcy was sweating and finding basting to be a harder job than she expected.  With two more quilts to go I bought the spray baste and the ease with which the quilts got basted (in seconds) immediately made Marcy a spray basting fan!  And you know...  when I'd finished quilting the three quilts, the two spray basted ones looked MUCH better than the thread basted one...  For those photo quilts the spray takes away the poof you get with just thread basting (and which distorted the photos a bit).  Live and learn.

Then a few years ago I had knee surgery and for quite a few months I couldn't crawl around the floor.  The plus to that situation was that my quilting friends did all my basting for me!  But one shouldn't stretch friendship too far so I needed to find a way to do my own basting again.  A blog friend told me about board basting and that has been another life saver!  Nowadays I often baste large quilts on my kitchen table with thread using two long boards.  The "inventor" (?) of board basting, Sharon Schamber, uses a tailor's stitch to baste and that too has really worked well for me.

One last "hint".  When I'm basting with thread I like to use "cheater needles".  You know, the ones where you don't have to thread the needle and instead just pull the thread down through the end...  Though I'd never use a cheater needle to quilt (too long, too thick) I don't like wasting my time poking basting thread through my needle eyes (and my OWN eyes are not so great anymore!) so the cheater needles have been very convenient.  They are also great when burying the ends of threads after machine quilting.

And I guess while I'm talking about tools, though these aren't used for basting, they are ever-present when I am hand quilting.  The square thing is called Aunt Becky and I use it under the quilt to poke the quilting needle back to the top of the quilt.  It takes some practice to use but I have found it makes my stitches smaller.  Most of my friends can't get used to it at all though...  And I must have a recessed thimble for my top hand's middle finger.  The pink thing is always on my right forefinger and helps pull the quilting needle through the quilt after putting in four or five stitches...  And you saw my quilting hoop...  the one Cleo has made a nest in...

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

For years I have driven past this wall when I go to visit Tetsu's mother.  It was probably part of a building at one time but now it is just a stone wall.  In spring however, the leaves grow up and around it making it a wonderful natural frame for... something.  I can imagine a photo shoot of a newly married couple standing there or a regal cat sitting on the ledge.

When I went by last week I noticed the leaves were at their peak and though there was no central focal point I had a few minutes so I left the car running and took a picture.
The back side isn't so beautiful... garbage bins and blue tarps... sort of ruins the romance of the photo but I suppose most pictures are like that.

By the way, when I drove by this week someone had put up a plywood construction building in that back lot!  All these years that there has been nothing there and just the week after I stop there is an ugly building there now!  Something pushed me to get the shot just in time!  Good thing I didn't wait for a romantic couple or a cat!

Continuing road trip

With a morning ferry ride under our belts we didn't have anything else planned for the day and going home brought visions of napping in front of the TV.  Instead we continued on up the mountains and through a tunnel to the neighboring prefecture.  No plans, no expectations.  Just driving.

There was still snow on the ground and it looked like it was snowing in the mountains above us.  The road has just been opened this month after been closed for the winter season.

We found souvenir shops that WEREN'T selling these cute cats...  There were just decorations here and there around the shelves.  They are made of slices of large bamboo poles.  I took the picture because I want to make some someday.  It seemed fairly easy...  Cut a bamboo pole piece, cut out a V for ears and then paint a face inside...  Someday...

We found a valley with 300 carp banners flying.

And a private Skunk Cabbage meadow.

There was a marsh of cresson and a sign inviting passersby to take all they wanted (plastic bag included).

At a rest stop I found another English sign that someone needs to correct. 

And we finally turned around and headed home going back along the same road and back to Lake Chuzenji.

The lake was bathed in a the light of a sunset.  A rather nice day.

Ferry ride

Our weekend ended up being touristy again.  I think Tetsu feels he has an obligation to keep my camera busy. 

A couple of weeks ago (when he was running out of ideas) Tetsu asked me what I wanted to see...  Well, we've lived in Nikko nearly 25 years and visited Lake Chuzenji countless times, but I've never ridden on the sightseeing ferry.  That might be nice...  but it is closed during the winter and as Lake Chuzenji is at the top of a mountain, even now the season is cold...  Probably nothing much to see in the way of flowers or greenery.

Even so, we headed up the mountain on Saturday morning arriving at the lake at 10:00.  Although the lake resort area was probably doing a booming business during Golden Week, the tourists were pretty sparse this weekend.  There ended up being a whole 10 of us on the ferry...

 The pedal boats and fishing boats weren't being rented out yet either...

Here comes our ferry!  It makes an hour spin around the lake with a recording pointing out the sites.  No English though.  (But interestingly enough there was a young foreign girl on deck hauling in ropes and telling passengers to watch their step.  Maybe when necessary she can translate?)

 Actually Tetsu looked like he could have been part of the crew this day.

It was so cold and windy that all 10 passengers stayed inside the ferry with no one stepping out on the deck.  Tetsu says our pictures look like we are inside a big bus.  Nope.  This was the ferry.

 No green on the hillsides yet.

 And the far off mountain range still has a lot of snow.

Well, that was a nice spin around.  Not too exciting but leisurely and relaxing.  Tetsu marked that off his list of places to take Tanya.

When we got back to the dock, there was a sign on the ticket window saying:

"We apologize for the inconvenience but because of strong winds, 

the ferry tour has been canceled until further notice."

I guess we had just made the last ride of the day!  Whew!  Glad we got on after making the drive up to the lake specially for the ferry ride. 

 Canceled.

A quilt maker

Yuma-kun has started Jr. high school and he isn't getting here as early as he used to.  He used to come at 5:30 or earlier for a 7:00 English class.  That was why we were getting so much cooking and sewing done!  But these days he arrives for English at 7:00 on the dot after riding his bicycle 40 minutes home from school.  He has lots of complaints about jr. high school.  The upper-classmen are bullies, the bicycle ride to and from school is long and dangerous, the club activity is too intense, the English teachers have bad pronunciation. 

I don't know about 'bad' but the Japanese teachers probably have an accent and I think his foreign English teacher is not American so her pronunciation is different from mine.  All I can say is that I AM a foreigner and as far as I know my pronunciation is natural.  That's not to criticize that some other teacher's pronunciation as being wrong, just different and he will have to live with it!  (Yuma-kun was telling ME how I should pronounce things according to his teacher...  "I am the foreigner!!!  I am right!!!)

Anyway, Yuma-kun's quilt lay in my closet not getting finished.  So close and yet still undone!  I had suggested he come during Golden Week but he had club activities.  Yuma-kun arrived on Thursday with no English homework (I don't know why) and so we dumped an hour of English to sew the binding on his quilt.

"I've gotta get this done today.  I want to take it home."

"I don't think we can complete it tonight.  You still have to sew down the binding and Tetsu will be home soon and I've got to get him dinner."

"No!  I've gotta get it done this week!  My teacher is coming for a house visit (teachers once a year visit their students' homes for 30 minutes or so) and I want to show her!"

Well, I can see how he'd be proud to show off his quilt but he's been dragging his feet along this past month and now suddenly he wants to spend the night sewing on his quilt!

"I'll use the sewing machine alone while you feed Tetsu-san dinner."

I made it plain that I couldn't work on it with him that evening and asked him to come over Friday evening (leaving his club activities early.)  And Friday Yuma-kun arrived early to put the finishing touches on his quilt.

Wrestling with that big ol' quilt at the sewing machine.

 "This is too heavy and too big!  I can't do it!"

"You were the one who wanted to make a big quilt.  This is what you have to do to make something big.  The harder it is to do, the more satisfaction you'll get when it is done."

Yuma-kun persevered.

 And DONE!!!

There was a bit of repair work to be done by me (one seam didn't catch the fabrics) and the binding stitching was started and restarted and pushed and pulled so much that it is practically zig-zag.  And Yuma-kun opted to leave the basting stitches on the back of the quilt along the edges instead of picking them all out from under the zig-zag stitches he used to sew on the binding.

What I'm saying is that this will never win any prizes...  Except in Yuma-kun's heart and mine.

 One very proud boy!  Yuma T.  Age 12 years old.  A quilt maker!