Older Lady

I ran across this You-Tube video one morning this week and nearly laughed out loud!

Older Ladies

"What are you smiling about?" said Tetsu as he looked up from his morning paper.

It was a bit difficult to translate but he got a laugh out of it too.  Maybe you have already seen this but if not, click on the link.  And I'm including the lyrics for my Japanese friends who might have a bit of trouble catching the words...

Older Ladies by Donnalou Stevens
Well, I ain’t 16, not a beauty queen.
My eyes are baggin’ and my skin is saggin’
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love.

I ain’t 20 either and I don’t care neither.
My hair is gray and I like it that way.
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love.

If you don’t think I rock, well we ain’t gonna roll.
If you don’t think I hung the moon, my hot just turned to cold.
If you wanna younger model, I wish you well, sweet pea.
Cuz if you can’t see what it is you’ve got,
Then you ain’t getting me.

I got cellulite and achin’ feet
My thighs kinda jiggle when I giggle and wiggle
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love

My tummy ain’t tucked or liposucked.
It’s a little poochy, but I still Hoochy Koochy
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love

See, I’m no longer desperate. I’ll only have a man
if he has the smarts to see how HOT that I still am.
If you want a younger model, I wish you well sweet pea.
If you can’t see what it is you have, you ain’t having me.

Older ladies, older ladies, older ladies… are DIVINE!!!

I gotta chicken neck and I love it, by heck
It makes a double chin whenever I grin
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love

Well I got little breasts that droop from my chest,
purt near down all the way to my nest.
And if that’s the reason that you don’t love me,
Maybe that’s not love

Older ladies, older ladies, older ladies… are DIVINE!!!
Older ladies, older ladies, older ladies… are DIVINE!!!

I really liked the movie the Calendar Girls from years ago, so I guess you know where my sense of humor lies.

Here are a couple of the older ladies in my house.  

This is Blanche who was made for me by Queenie Patch earlier this year.  Blanche seemed like a good name for an older lady.
And this older lady I made a few years ago and she graces my bathroom, reminding people that there are reasons (too much quilting going on) that my house isn't as tidy as it could be.

By the way, I became an even OLDER lady today...  I'm celebrating my 59th.  Yeah!

An organ concert

This weekend Tetsu took me to a pipe organ concert.  What a surprise!  And it was a surprise because until we walked into the concert hall I had no idea why we had come.  And the other reason it was a surprise is because Tetsu is the least musical person I know and I may be the second least musical... 

I wasn't always non-musical though, and listening to the concert brought back many childhood memories.

When I was eight, my mother decided it would be nice if I learned to play an instrument.  She was a music major in college and played the clarinet as well as the piano.  Her whole life, until she married, seemed to revolve around music!  But somehow my brother and I missed those genes and what training we had never developed into anything.  At eight I was started on a electronic organ with a double keyboard and a full pedal board.  My mother didn't think she could bear a child massacring a piano's fine tones and besides she wanted to learn to play an organ so that she could play a pipe organ someday.  (And in later years she did play the organ at her church as a summer substitute.)

But I never got very far on the organ though that wasn't because I didn't spend the time playing and practicing.  From the beginning I didn't much like playing hymns as I imagined God frowning down at me every time I missed a note.  And for some reason I don't remember I despised waltzes.  So that left me theme songs of the current movies...  Romeo and Juliet, Exodus, The Third Man Theme...  I did learn to appreciate Bach and mastered his Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  But for all that, I really never learned to read music which my teacher thought was amazing (in a good way) that I couldn't play a note until she played it for me first... and then finally I could follow the sheet music knowing what the piece was SUPPOSE TO sound like.

After an embarrassing complete musical hash at a recital I refused to play in public again.  It was that or I threatened to quit organ altogether.  (Such a fiesty child I was!)  And so from 8 until I went to college, I continued to play the organ and take lessons.  One reason I even chose the college I attended, Lewis and Clark College, was because of the beautiful suspended pipe organ in the Agnes Flanagan chapel that I wanted to play.  (The other reason I chose the college was because of its excellent overseas program... and participating in that has led me to where I am today.  Japan.)

I did get a chance to play the pipe organ at the college my first year there, but I soon began to pity the poor organ professor who daily dealt with serious music students or organ majors, and here I was barely able to read music.  After one year (or maybe it was term) I quit the organ and have never played nor wanted to play again.  (Agnes Flanagan Chapel photo from the Internet)

I really enjoyed the pipe organ concert this weekend, and especially interesting were the live screens giving the audience a close up view of the organist's hands and his pedal work.  (I've never seen that feature before.)

However, the brush with the organ world hasn't inspired me to see what latent skills might be in my head.  There wasn't a lot of skill there to begin with.

Quilting friends

My friends came over on Friday for a patchwork afternoon.  They are really getting through their projects!  R-san spent some time putting binding on a table runner that she made to practice machine quilting.  She'll have that finished by the time she comes again. 

And in the meantime both friends spent time practicing their machine quilting on the Building Block Quilt pattern.  I had cut out the fabric for them and they pieced the blocks and then traced the quilting pattern.  As predicted, the tracing gave some problems for one friend with the shoulder pain and I did it for her.  I really am going to have to buy a light box, or a glass table.  I don't have shoulder problems but it is tiring even for me to try and trace too long at a window!

Here are both friends at their machines quilting the first blocks.

"It is a practice piece.  It doesn't have to be perfect."

Mrs. N also had finished hand quilting her cushion cover and we made that into a cushion.  Tetsu saw this picture and thought it was a great addition to our sofa!  Unfortunately, it is not ours...  Maybe I'm going to have to make a cushion or two...

This was from a "lesson" on making bias tape and then sewing it into a Celtic design.  Mrs. N did all the sewing by hand so this has been in the making for a few months.  Take a closer look at the white background fabric.  Mrs. N is my cat mentor and she went for the subtle cat look. 

And here is Mrs. N machine quilting her BIG bed cover!!!  What an undertaking!  She has already stitched-in-the-ditch around all the mountains in this Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt.  On Friday she was working on some decorative stitching in the lighter areas.  Isn't this amazing?! 

When my friends were ready to go home Mrs. N lamented that if she took the quilt off her machine then she'd get confused and never get it back to the original quilting place again.  Well, I don't know if that's true, but sometimes it is a pain to take a quilt off a machine and then put it back on again.  Hmmm.  She could either spend a few days living at my house and using my dining room table OR...  she could bundle the whole thing up, machine and all, and take it home.  She chose to bundle it all up.  There is a sewing machine hidden in that plastic bundle!  (The sewing machine on the table is R-san's...  Both friends drag their machines back and forth to my house for each lesson...)

"If I leave for home now I can get the workmen at my house to carry my sewing machine bundle into the house for me!"

And off she went!

Pocket tissue cover

Yuma-kun came over last night... for English but we spent half of the time sewing.

"The student teacher at my school is leaving tomorrow.  I have to make something for her."

Yuma-kun says he HAS TO but he really just WANTS TO.  And that's what I love about Yuma-kun, that he always wants to give something to someone.  He has been that way since he first came in my door at 6 years old.  Although he drives everyone crazy, he is one of the most generous children I have ever known.

So with a heart like that, how can I refuse him and insist upon studying English?  But I do get a bit frazzled since Yuma-kun thinks I'm a magician or something and can pull a project out of my head within minutes.

"Make something!?  You have to give me chance to think about these things Yuma-kun.  I don't just have materials at my fingertips."

And he looks at me sceptically as we stand in my stuffed to overflowing sewing room.

Okay... how about a pocket tissue cover.  As I recall that doesn't take much time and I was sure I had beads somewhere...  Yuma-kun chose a bright "girly" piece of fabric and as I gave directions he started sewing.

"I can't do this.  YOU do it."

"This is not my student teacher.  You are the one who always wants to make something.  You are responsible for making it!"

And he did.  And at the end we still had 20 minutes leftover for English.  I worry about Yuma-kun's upcoming finals.  He isn't very good at spelling...  But he sure is happier sewing than writing answers in his English workbook.

Building Blocks

Thursday is my quiet day.  I probably need to go upstairs and clean the sewing room.  It is getting out of hand.  Too many scraps spilling out of their bins and if I'm not careful a cat will find a bin and think it is a litter box. 

The other day I purchased Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along pattern.  I feel as if I have a handle on machine quilting myself but I have been trying to teach two friends and they feel very leery about quilting their own hard sewn quilts in fear of ruining them.  I thought that this would be a good way to practice the different quilting techniques and gain confidence.  

Though Leah recommends using two solid colors for more visibility on the blocks I decided to go ahead with my own scraps... most of which are patterned.  Well, I don't want to spend too much money on this project.  Why buy more fabric?

I went ahead and cut enough fabric for three sets of the first block...  Two for my friends and one for me to make samples.  And I sewed my blocks together and marked the quilting lines.  Marking may be our downfall...  I don't have a light box and usually just tape the quilting pattern to the window and then tape the block on top of that for tracing.  But window tracing is tiresome work and I know one of my friends has shoulder and arm pain.  Is she going to be able to do this?  Should I sew the block for her?  Should I trace the quilting pattern for her?  That means she misses out on some major quilting steps which are not fun but are part of the process.  I guess I'll let her decide.

I doubt that we are going to make ALL of the blocks in Leah Day's pattern but maybe we'll get a few made and put the blocks together for a table runner quilt or a wall hanging.  My friends are coming tomorrow and I will spring this new idea on them then.  I hope they will be enthusiastic...

Kindergarten day

I'm off to the kindergarten in a few minutes.  I've been teaching English at this kindergarten since Takumi was 5 and he's, let's see... 29 now?  Doesn't that make me feel old!  And in truth, I do feel as if I should make way for someone else one of these days.  I get out of breath jumping up and down and being energetic in order to keep the children focused and involved in the English songs and fingerplays.

When Tetsu and I chose the kindergarten we were adamant that we wanted a Christian kindergarten for our children which isn't really that hard to find in Japan despite that the Christian population is very small.  Churches often have kindergartens attached to them.  And we wanted a small kindergarten and we wanted one that didn't focus on academics.  Often children in Japan enter kindergarten at age 3 which seems way too young for me so if they were going to be there we wanted Takumi and Leiya playing!

Lots of catching bugs and making colored water from berries and awards for things like being able to ride a unicycle or climb a pole.  I think it was a very good beginning for my children's education and I've been happy to lead the English "playtime" on Wednesday mornings all these years.  Still... as I say, I'm wondering when it will be time to fade out.

Last week the children in the 4 year old class had just finished making raindrop pictures (we're still in the rainy season).  So pretty with crayons and water colors.

And the older class was just starting lunch time in the room with a few children leading the before meal grace.  Most of these children (all of these children?) come from non-Christian families but who knows how their faith will develop because of the three or four precious years of knowing Jesus here.  Many of my Christian friends in Japan will tell me that though they became Christian in their later years, they had attended a Christian kindergarten which laid the foundation for a later commitment.

I'm off!  Maybe I'll drink an energy drink before I go!

Making a label

Yesterday I was asked how I made the labels using crayons so I made another label last night with step-by-step photos.

Okay... back to the transfer book though I have made labels just tracing a design from a magazine or a children's book.  For this label, though the transfer was light in some places, it worked better than the transfers from the day before.  What I think I'm going to have to do is just heavily trace the book's designs on regular paper and save them that way.  I think the transfers in this book are about to hit the dust!  (Unless someone knows how to revive transfers...)

Next I went over all the lines with a PIGMA Micron 01 fabric pen.  I think I bought it years ago at a fabric shop.  Or maybe at a stationery shop... I don't remember.  The lines are nice and thin.

Then I got out the crayons.  Yes!  Regular ol' Crayola crayons!  Years ago I had bought FABRIC crayons and used them for children's projects and I don't remember when I made the switch to Crayola.  I must have found the hint on the Internet.  I've used the Crayola crayons for fabric tinting ever since.  So here we have a colored in label...  Fairly darkly colored in too.

And then I set the colors by putting a piece of paper over the colored in parts and then ironing the whole thing on high heat.  The heat melts the wax and the wax gets absorbed into the paper.  Here you can see how a bit of the color has come off onto the paper (this side of the paper was side DOWN, directly on the label).

And then I hand washed the label very quickly, with soap and a bit of hand scrubbing.  I didn't notice any color bleeding but maybe the label is a bit lighter...  It is good enough for me.

And this is a sample of a quilt that I made nearly seven years ago...  This was the first entry on a 365 Challenge Quilt and at the beginning of each month I had colored in a mini-illustration with crayons.  The quilt has been washed numerous times and the color is still there after seven years.  Here too, it may be a bit lighter than when I first made it, but I really don't remember...

Okay... now I have a label made but no quilt to attach it to...
 

Labels

Not much going on recently.  I got two labels made for the quilts that I'm going to deliver soon.  I hate making labels.  Usually I just scribble my name and a date on a piece of fabric and whip stitch it onto a back corner of a quilt.  I remembered that I had a label transfer book somewhere and I got it out...

Cute labels but I don't much like the sayings on any of them...

"From my heart and hand"

"Linda, the Quilt Fairy has blessed this quilt 

with love and good fortune for it's owner for now 

and forever after!"

"When this you see Remember Me"

Hmm.  I don't think so.  A plain "Made for...  by Tanya" is just fine with me.

But I liked the little designs so I blocked out the saying with scrap paper and went ahead and did the iron transfer.  Unfortunately the book is so old that the transfer ink has about had it!  In some places I had to just guess when I went over the lines with a fabric pen.  (I've retouched the names on these pictures as the quilts are still a secret!)

Nice... but the cover of the book does use some color so I got out my crayons and colored in a bit.  And set it with the iron again so I hope it will all stay.  I've done this before on a quilt and the colors haven't washed out yet so I think I'm okay.

You'll notice I gave the date as July so I have to wait another week to deliver the quilts.

Hospital bazaar

Yesterday the patchwork group joined forces to go help out at the hospital bazaar that Mrs. Furui's volunteer group was having.  Let's see... I think 7 of us offered our services though by the time I got there there wasn't really much for me to do...  So I spent money instead of helping!

Some of the ladies left home at 7:30 (I had to wait until after crosswalk duty) and helped set up the small market in a corner under the hospital stairway.  A lot of small things being sold and some handmade clothing.

One volunteer does some wonderful things with paper and she had made reams of letter paper and envelopes, bookmarks and wrapping paper.  That corner was very popular.
Our group had made use of Liberty fabric scraps and made buttons and thumb tacks etc.  I'm afraid the buttons didn't go over as well as we'd hoped as not that many people are into sewing their own clothes these days I guess...  And maybe if we'd figured out a way to let people chose which buttons they wanted to buy, they would have been more popular.

But the Liberty necklaces that we made were selling quickly, as were the little Liberty stuffed animals.
And although my hair isn't long enough to use a ponytail band, I thought these tatted and beaded hair decorations just beautiful so I ought one for myself.  Or maybe it will go to Leiya...

The pom-poms made of leftover ribbon and lace were pretty  though I don't know how they could be put to use.

So I bought trinkets and stood around and chatted with people for a few hours.  All for a good hospital cause!

Sweet

Queenie Patch let me know that the NHK Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival Partnership quilt rules were announced and she encouraged me to join this year.  I've never ever sent in an entry to ANY quilt joint quilt project.  Can I really do it?  And the theme is SWEET...   What is sweet?  Candy?  Cupcakes?  Here is a link for Queenie's post...  And she is already finished with her block!

Well, I am too!  Though I'm not sure how "sweet" it is... 

I came up with honey...  That's pretty sweet.  But how to depict honey in a quilt block?  Honey bee hives?  Honey dripping from toast?  I don't know how I'd put that in fabric. 

I started with a paper pieced hexagon block...  in honey colors.  I haven't done English paper piecing in over 20 years.  Do I even remember how to do it?  And I computed how many hexagons I'd need and sewed them all together and got...  I don't know what, but it didn't look much like honey.

HOWEVER!  When Yuma-kun came over and spied my attempt on the design wall, he immediately saw the HONEYCOMB.

"Why are you making a honeycomb?"

That was encouraging.  Okay... a honeyCOMB is sweet too.  Maybe I don't need honey.

And remember a few weeks ago when I'd made a fabric card for my mother with a bee?  (Granted that was trying to be a bumble bee...) well, maybe I could thin the bumble bee down a bit and call it a honey bee.

So...  with a bit of imagination I fashioned a bunch of HONEY bees and machine appliqued them to the honeycomb. 

My interpretation of SWEET.

Some people are going to wonder why bees are sweet...  Do you think this will be accepted by the Partnership Quilt committee?

Pig farms

Oh dear... I seem to only have scenery pictures again.  I love taking my camera with me on our morning walks as just having it over my shoulder makes me look at things differently.  Someone warned me of that once, that carrying a camera makes you see common things from a new viewpoint.  So the mundane becomes interesting and sometimes photographable.

The morning mist rises from the countryside.  I seem to take this shot quite often during the year.  In the distance there is a pig farm and that was where Choco and I were headed (and beyond).

Along the way there were the misty morning sun, a spider web and some dew drenched wild flowers.

The dogwood is blooming profusely!  This Japanese dogwood tree was just LADEN with blossoms!  I could hardly see the leaves through all the flowers!

And here we are closer to the pig farm.  I'm not real fond of this farm...  well, I know what happens to the pigs eventually.  But I have never seen a person nor a pig on this farm though I can hear the pigs in their sterile barracks, and of course smell them.  Everything seems to be automated and the area around the parking lot is spread with lye or something in keeping with health regulations.  I hate to think of how many pigs go out of this farm...  The place is huge!

When we first moved to our house, there was a very small pig farm in the field behind us.  A grandfather of one of Takumi's friends ran the farm and he would spend most days mucking out the stalls.  I think he had about 100 pigs (which was considered small) and though the wind carried the pig smell to our house on some days, it was never an unpleasant smell (to me... some of my English kids would hold their noses).  There was a rickety shed that got electricity, and the old farmer would occasionally spend the night in the shed going out to the open air pig stalls to help the sows with their midnight birthing.  Once a huge pig escaped from its stall and the farmer and his daughter-in-law had to chase it around the fields.  I always thought what a hard life a pig farmer had.

After the farmer passed away, the pig farm closed down and later was rented out to another neighbor (the neighbor that gives me lettuce and radishes) and for awhile he raised rabbits.  But even that enterprise has folded and the old pig/rabbit stalls are abandoned, the feed silo rusted and overgrown. 

I think fondly back to the days when the kids and I would stop at the pig farm to see how the piglets were growing.  Something no one can do at the modern automated farm facilities...  Can you spot Takumi there in the middle?  He must have been about eight at the time...  Sort of cute...  as were the piglets!