Around the world!

Tetsu and I went on a trip around the world!  Well, it was around the world but maybe not a real trip.

In our city there is an "amusement park" called Tobu World Square with miniatures of famous architectural structures from around the world.  I occasionally get to this park when I have visitors who are spending some time in Nikko and it is a rather educational park though there aren't many changes from visit to visit.  This week the park started their night-time illuminated hours and the opening night was free (which is real savings as nearly $30 a head!).  Tetsu noticed the announcement in the local newspaper and at around 6:00 in the evening we bundled up and went to check out the park.

Here is the Tokyo Sky Tree model that Tetsu and I went to see in person last year.  The real Sky Tree is so huge that from a distance in the park one would almost believe we had been transplanted to Tokyo.

Tokyo Dome is the huge sports stadium in Tokyo that I don't have much connection with EXCEPT that this is where the Tokyo International Quilt Festival is held every year and I will be among all those little people going into the dome this coming January again.

It is rather poignant to look upon the city scenery of the Twin Towers which had been depicted in Tobu World Square even before their collapse on 9/11.  Of course all these famous landmarks wouldn't have been able to be seen together in real life but it is still moving to see the tall structures on the "New York" skyline.

The park was lit up with billions of LED lights, around the architecture, along the walkways, in magical tunnels.

Another view of the "US" with the White House in the foreground and Sky Tree and the Tokyo Tower in the background.

We visited the Egyptian pyramids.

The Parthenon.

The Vatican.

Oops.  Sorry.  My geography knowledge is limited...  Is this a structure in Russia?  I like seeing the little girl looking at the piece in wonder.

Another poignant piece, Notre Dame. 

The details on the buildings are amazing. 

Tower Bridge in London all lit up in bright colors.

Sorry, I didn't get the name of this structure but it was the newest addition the park just set up this summer.  It is a palace in Thailand.

The Taj Mahal.  Another interesting thing about the Tobu World Square is that some of the figures are dressed in native costumes.  Saris on the some of the women miniatures around the Taj Mahal.  Kimonos in the Japanese sections.  Burkas around the Arabian structures.

Some Buddhist monks in the Japanese section.

The Forbidden City in China.  At some of the exhibits, there are cars or trains or parades of people that move with the insertion of a coin.  The movement adds a bit of life and drama to the dioramas.

This was the closest I could get to an overall photo of the park.  Somewhere in all that is Big Ben, The Sagrada Familia, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Versailles, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall (actually I think I was standing on the Great Wall when I took this picture) and many many other world famous pieces of architect.

It was a fast tour of the world but very exciting and we could sleep in our own beds afterwards!

Binding

This is a follow up post on being a quilt mentor (or in my case, not being a quilt mentor).

A couple of posts ago I talked about the irresponsibility of just handing a block to a beginning quilter and telling her to applique and not really giving any instructions.  I brought my thoughts to Mrs. Furui and we reevaluated our patchwork group promising ourselves to teach more and encourage excellence.  OK.  We will try to do better.

On the other hand though, this day that our patchwork group was getting together, the purpose was to put binding on the applique quilt we've been working on and also to help one of our members put binding on a baby quilt she has been making for her grandson.  I had seen this friend/member a week before while she was still quilting (and I put in a few stitches for her while we had tea) and I said she was doing a fine job and that she should bring the quilted baby quilt on Friday and that we would all help her put on binding.

When this friend showed up on Friday with her baby quilt (after I'd just had the above discussion with Mrs. Furui) I was surprised and disconcerted to find that she had started putting on the binding herself... She had cut the binding strips widths and lengths she thought appropriate, sewn the strips on by machine and then tried to turn the binding under by finger-turn...  making sort of a mess... and she had eight strip ends flapping that were either too long or too short.  Sigh.  Mrs. Furui and I looked at each other.  The baby quilt owner looked panicked.

"I know, I know.  You told me to wait.  But I really want to take this to my daughter tomorrow and I thought if I got a head start on applying the binding that I'd be able to get the quilt finished faster.  But now I don't know what to do.  It's too hard to turn under the edges.  I don't know what to do with all the ends!  Help!"

So Mrs. Furui and I went into repair mode.  And to our defense, we have sewn bindings on with this friend before on many other previous quilts.  It just goes to show that "doing" something and "learning" something is different.  Some members are quite eager to help and do the tedious sewing but they don't really pay attention to the technique or put it into their own heads.  I do this all the time when computer glitches show up.  Tell me how to fix this!  But a week later I won't be able to do it again because I didn't really try to "learn" the method...  I just wanted to get things going again...

Mrs. Furui and I squared off the quilt edges (binding and all).  We ripped back all of the ends and re-cut and re-sewed.  We ironed a crease in the binding strips making it easier to turn the binding (not the way either of us would normally put on binding... we like double binding).  We even tacked the folded back edges so that the sewing would go much faster.

As we worked, even Mrs. Furui and I realized that though we are both veteran quilters, we don't put binding on the same.  We both like one long piece of binding (instead of four strips) but we sew our corners differently.  On this day I was on the sewing machine and so we sewed the corners my way.  I use Elmer's craft glue on my own bindings when I tack but Mrs. Furui uses fusible thread.  We did it her way as I hadn't brought Elmer's glue with me.

Finally we handed the quilt back to our friend to do the final hand sewing.  I'm pretty sure that she was able to finish up her quilt that night and take it to her daughter the next day.  She kept apologizing and apologizing for all the extra work she had made by trying to put on the binding herself but I said I admired her initiative (some quilters preface every new technique with "I'll never be able to do that.  Would you do it for me?") and pointed out that even Mrs. Furui and I have different ways of putting on binding and she could think of HER way as her way.

"Yeah!  After you've just spent two hours fixing the binding that I put on in MY don't-know-how way!"

It's true... if she'd just waited as we'd suggested, we could have taught her and she could have had a much easier time of it. 

My grandfather often said that just having the right tools for a job made it all that much easier.  I would add, learning a tried and true technique makes the job a lot easier too!
 

Random photos (again...)

It seems like I only have random photos these days...  I drive or walk by someplace and snap a picture but there isn't much of a story behind why...

Tetsu and I went to a nursery so that he could pick out flowers to plant before winter sets in (that's what he'd doing right now) and more than looking at flowers I enjoyed the pretty display of umbrellas over the many flats of plants. 

It always seems like flowers put under my care are doomed from the start and so instead of picking out plants I chased a butterfly around for awhile.

The other day driving back from pre-school I stopped by a local persimmon tree that is heavily weighted with persimmons.  I think I take a picture or two of this tree every other year or so because on alternate years it doesn't seem to bear much fruit.  This is a good year!

While taking pictures, two elderly men in a car stopped near me and asked if I was alright... maybe they thought I was having car trouble?  When I held up my camera they brought out their cameras too!  It seems that they too are locals and together we talked about camera settings and about how last year this tree hadn't had enough fruit to warrant being photographed but this year it is quite pretty.

They also said they had been up to Okunikko to hike and take pictures of the Noblewoman of Odashirogahara (my last post's pictures) and I showed them a couple of the pictures I'd taken last week and they showed me theirs.  It is nice to find something in common with strangers!

The mornings are colder and sometimes a pretty fog covers the countryside.

I've got my down jacket out already!  This must have been one of the mornings when John refused to go with us for a walk.  He is not an early riser and is usually grumpy in the mornings.  John is so much like a contrary teenager!

Often these days we are up before the sun.

This is a sweatshirt that I purchased for Tetsu from Bitmoji.  We all think Tetsu's bitmoji is hilarious because it looks just like him!   The shirt says "Leave it to me!" which pretty much sums up how Tetsu goes about life.  Sometimes I think he thinks he's superman!

Ha-ha!  My own personal superman!

Photo overload!

Nikko, where I live, and Oku Nikko, where the lakes are, are famous for the beautiful changing leaves during this season.  However depending on the weather, some years the leaves are more beautiful than others and this year isn't considered a good year for the autumn leaves.  It has been too warm and it is the sudden icy cold that brings out the red of the fall colors.

Nevertheless, Tetsu wanted to make a trip up the mountains to see what the autumn there was like this year and so last Saturday we left John at home (no dogs allowed on the protected hiking trails) and headed to the lake area and above.

Pretty but not spectacular.

A couple of our favorite trails were closed because of damage from the typhoons and rain that hit Japan earlier this month but there are many other trails to choose from and all of them are quite easy and can be done in everyday clothing.

Even so, most of the hikers look very professional with layers of socks and waterproof wear and things hanging from their backpacks and bells attached to warn off bears.  I felt like such an amateur but tennis shoes and an everyday bag got the job done.

(As an aside, there was a very pretty Chinese lady on the trail in vibrant orange high heels and matching lipstick and wearing a flowered skirt and silk flowered hat who asked me to take her picture.  She posed in many different poses while I snapped away, all with her facing the wilds of the mountains and pointing at unseen birds...  She was obviously doing a photoshoot for her blog or instagram or Twitter whatever.  We each have our own style...  I have Tetsu to take my photo whether I want it taken or not...)

Our goal this day was Odashirogahara which is a marsh in a mountain valley.  There were lots of yellow trees (birch) but no red.

I have been to this same spot other years where the opposite hillside has quite a number of avid photographers with their huge cameras set up on tripods and waiting for the marsh to become calm and glass-like.  There weren't many people there this day.

There is the "Noblewoman" of Odashirogahara, the one large birch tree that stands alone on the edge of the marsh.

Some of the other birch trees along the marsh.

 My photographer.

He doesn't take such great pictures of me... or maybe his subject just isn't very photogenic.  I should be looking away into the distance like my trail acquaintance.

We took the long way back to the parking lot resulting in about a three hour walk this day.  Through a forest of birch trees.

 Yes, it's autumn but not really that colorful.

 Maybe we were there too early this year?

Past a lot of moss on trees fallen long ago.

I guess this part of the trail doesn't get a lot of sunlight.

Should I give up on my funny hat?  At my age it is a little odd...

We can get caught up in the the details of leaves...

....and weeds.

 There was the occasional burst of color.

On the way down the mountain we got stuck in traffic.  I guess there were more people who wanted to see the leaves than I'd thought.  Where were they all?  We didn't see that many people on the trail that WE took.  I shot this picture on the hairpin curve of the one way Iroha road going down the mountain.  At one time it had been a two-way road and I remember bus guides having to get out of the buses at each hairpin curve to blow whistles and guide bus drivers past on-coming buses...

Near the bottom of the mountain we saw some construction above the road we were stopped on.  Look at that boulder that has been secured to keep it from crushing the traffic below it.  The workers next to the orange shovel car are in precarious enough a position but check out the bulldozer on the side of the mountain above the boulder.  It was resting at an impossible angle!  These workers have to have a lot of courage to do their jobs!

Pretty soon the leaves will be gone...  The autumn went quickly.