Cat pictures

Let's see...  What is going on around here?  Not too much.  I took Chip to the vet's yesterday and then stopped by Tetsu's mother's.  It was too hot to leave Chip in the car so I took her inside while Tetsu's mother and I enjoyed an obento lunch.  We got to talking about all the animals that I have/have had, and how it is a good thing that Tetsu likes animals too. 

According to Tetsu's mother, when Tetsu was a child his father kept dogs and a badger, a snake and a monkey.  Quite a menagerie.  And Tetsu's mother was the one to take care of all these creatures so she is quite happy to be free from those chores and has no wish to have animals in her life again.

"I bet cats are easier to take care of than dogs...  They don't bark or need to be taken for a walk."

"As a matter of fact, one of my cats is right here and yes she's pretty quiet."

I brought Chip out for a few seconds to show but Tetsu's mother is a clean fanatic and I didn't want Chip peeing on her floor or anything so back in the travel cage Chip went to Tetsu' mother's relief.

I grew up with animals all around me too.  Dogs, puppies, cats, kittens.  I think my father felt that a house wasn't complete without at least one dog and two cats (so why we had 4 dogs and two cats I don't know.)  We also had a donkey for many years and one lone sheep.  Somewhere along the line I became a cat lady but I don't know when the cog went loose in my head. 

What are these cats thinking?  They were just lined up on the chair as if they'd been banned to a corner or something.  That is Mi, Cleo and Velvet there.

On another day Mi and Cleo and Vel were rolled up in a ball on the sofa.  Chip refuses to take part in any community cat activities.  She only cuddles with humans.

And here is sweet Vel contemplating a nap on the Pine Burr.

The great divide

It is April 30th already in Japan and that means I need to send out a fabric postcard to my mother.  I did think ahead and got the card made last week but forgot to send it off.  It is one of the simpler cards... made with the paper piecing technique, and the tulips along the roadsides were in full bloom when I started on it.  The tulips are gone now and I doubt that my mother even knows it was tulip season. 

Not one of my greatest cards though I do like the background fabric..  It is heavier than most of my fabrics but it still served the purpose...  I wish I could have gotten the direction right all over but it is basically upright...

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I have another quilt almost completely machine quilted...  Do you remember the Fruitti Tutti quilt?  Well that has been a long quilting process over the past few weeks.  I followed the arcs and extended them into the four patches to make circles again.  And then I filled the circles in with freehand loops.  Sorta flowery... (which was not my goal but that's what happened.)

My loops aren't very uniform as I didn't mark them at all...  I figured I could get six loops into each arc.  And sometimes I crowded myself out...  Ah well.  In the overall look of things it is satisfactory.

BUT WAIT!!!  I said ALMOST quilted!  You will notice that there are TWO quilted tops there lying side by side.  There's not supposed to be a divide...  Those two need to turn into one.  The quilt was just getting too big for me to maneuver in my little domestic machine so I took it apart and quilted up two pieces.  And now the big job will be to sew those two pieces into one.  A lot of matching up of seams, some ripping out of quilted loops as they are too close to the seam allowance.  I have done this before but before was able to leave the seam allowance path clear of quilting.  Not this time.  I had to quilt right up to the edge to keep my loopy rhythm.  I'll hand baste that seam when I can get at it and then sew it up and then connect the batting and finally the backing.  AND THEN I'll re-quilt what I've torn out.

With time and patience I can do this!

The beginning of Golden Week

Golden Week has started...  Actually that only means that Tetsu has the day off today, but he has to work tomorrow.  So he doesn't get he whole week off though he'll be home a couple days next week too.

So what do we do on our days off?  The plan was to do some gardening.  I really dislike fighting the traffic jams during the Japanese holidays and Golden Week is notorious for most of the population moving to or fro!  We decided to stay local and get the yard looking nice.  We had planned to work in the mornings then head to the pool and then lounge around for the rest of the day.

The plan lasted two hours if that!

The weather has warmed up enough to enjoy breakfast outside on non-rushed mornings, like holidays and Sundays.  Even though our very tiny patch of yard doesn't hold much, we do manage to keep a small table and two chairs there.  Here was Tetsu on Sunday before church.  I had gone upstairs to hang out the laundry and he looked so peaceful there I had him look up for a second.

This morning we had breakfast outside again and afterwards I left Tetsu to plant some flowers while I washed the dishes.  When I next saw him he had torn apart the storage shed that sits behind Choco's house!  Even though that wasn't part of the plan I am SOOOOOO happy that this area is getting cleaned out!  A storage shed is just a black hole for things to disappear into.

Tetsu keeps bringing things to the backdoor asking me if I know why we have certain things.  Dog knick-knacks ("Those aren't mine!  You must have made a donation at one of the convalescent home's bazaar's leftover tables."),  pseudo African masks (another bazaar purchase), ski pants ("Don't put those back in the storage shed!"), rusted golf clubs (someone gave them to Tetsu when we were first married.  He has never played golf in his life.)

So the garden and the flowers are in the same state that they were in early this morning and it is now early afternoon.  I think I heard Tetsu mumbling that he wanted to get some of this stuff to the dump by 2:00...

And don't think I've spent my morning playing around on the computer... I got down on my hands and knees and washed all the floors!  (I don't like mops.)  This is not exactly how I wanted to spend our Golden Week holiday but I'm not complaining!   Things are getting cleaned up!

Strawberry picking

Yesterday Tetsu and I went strawberry picking! 

I think the season is about over but there are still hot houses with banners flying enticing tourists to pick all you can eat.

We haven't been strawberry picking since the kids were little and it was a lovely, warm day (too warm in the hot house!) so we spent an hour eating strawberries to our hearts' content.  I don't think either of us are going to want to eat strawberries for awhile!

Houses and houses of hot houses...  rows and rows of strawberry plants.   There must be some way to know what is a sweet ripe strawberry as compared to a regular ripe strawberry but even after an hour I couldn't tell you.  Should I pick a big berry?  A small berry?  One still warm from the sunlight?  One hidden in the shade or under leaves?  Well most every strawberry was sugary sweet so it didn't really matter what I picked...

Strawberry pickers were given a little dish to hold the strawberry stems.

We were warned not to touch the bee hive that sat in the corner.

The bees are hard at work pollinating the strawberry plants.  (My friend who owns a pear orchard rents hives too to help pollinate her trees.)

When it got too hot in the hot house we just picked a dish of strawberries and went out to a bench to munch...  And then another trip inside for more strawberries.

Before long our fingers were dyed pink!  (and my white camera got a bit tinted too).

Great day and I got a week's dose of vitamin C.

To Whom It May Concern...

The Pine Burr Quilt is finished. 

It still needs a label but I'm sort of stuck for what to write...  I see that my very first Pine Burr block was started on January 14, 2013 for no real purpose but to keep my hands busy in the evening.  As the pile of blocks grew I came to think of this quilt as a hand made labor of love for one of my children.  I figured someday one of them was going to get married and instead of making them a quick quilt I'd be able to give them a mother's "heirloom".  I wondered if it would be finished before either of them made an announcement.  I also figured that the "early bird gets the worm" and when the latter child got married then they'd just have to settle for a machine made quilt... 

But neither child looks like they are planning to get married anytime soon so I've got a quilt made but I don't know what the label should say.

"To...  whom it may concern... with devotion and love from your mother"

Do I just this put this quilt aside for a someday wedding present or do I hand it over to one of my children now? 

When I decided that this was going to be a wedding present quilt I thought I was really making a monster quilt but it actually isn't big enough for even a double bed...  I really could have made a dozen more blocks for a larger bed cover but at the time this seemed like such a huge task that might not even get finished in my lifetime!  Now I look at it and think...  "Hmm..  Puny."  Maybe I should just send it on now... It would look nice on a single bed. 

The pattern was one from Yoko Saito's books and I actually made an applique border for it that I didn't like.  That border is in a box somewhere ready to be used on another quilt someday.  I really like the simplicity of the border that got put on and was happy to have a chance to do some fancy quilting.

Yoko's pattern called for a lot more quilting within the lattice and grid quilting inside the Pine Burr blocks but I'm calling it quits.  All those tiny triangles have been quilted and even if they don't photo well, this is a pretty densely quilted quilt.

As I was taking out all the basting threads I found two holes in the quilt where one of the cats, probably Mi, gnawed awhile.  Mi likes to chew on loose threads and she must have chewed up to the quilt.  I tried darning the holes but just made a bigger mess.  Maybe I'll applique a couple hearts or embroider in a ladybug or something....  (That actually is Chip there who spent quite a lot of time UNDER the quilt when it was being quilted.)

The quilt got put on Leiya's old bed just for photograpy purposes.  Take a picture and off it went!  An older quilt got spread in its place.  The Pine Burr is washed and fresh smelling and I don't want any cat fur (or worse) on it until it is given to whoever.

A return to tatting

I took a break from tatting in order to get that Pine Burr quilt quilted and bound (photos tomorrow), but now I am back to it and have time to sit in front of the TV in the evenings with my tatting shuttles.  Tatting is a fairly relaxing activity.  And small.  Quilting is relaxing too but pulling around that large quilt for a year (and having it take up space overflowing from my arm chair!) has been an exercise.

So this is my tatting effort this week.  Somehow the cross motif seems so appropriate to tatting lace.  The pattern is an easy one to remember... it doesn't change with ever round as some of the motifs do.  It took me about three evenings to do this one and I've got a dual colored one going on my shuttles now.

I guess I'll keep tatting until I think of another hand piecing/applique/embroidery/quilting project to do.

R-san's Pink Blossom quilt

I think the last time I showed R-san's quilt was when she was putting the binding on.  She has it all finished now and the last step will be the label.  We had planned to work on that today but schedules got interrupted so I guess I'll just show her quilt label-less (not that anyone else would know...)

A long time ago R-san had done some hand piecing on her own before she and Mrs. N started coming to my house.  After a lesson or two, they both jumped in head first and bought new sewing machines and since then have made small wall hangings and table runners etc.  Last year Mrs. N worked on a large bed cover for her daughter-in-law and R-san felt she was ready to make a bed cover for her then new-born granddaughter.  Not a baby quilt mind you, a full blown bed cover!

Last summer, before I went to the States, I left R-san with a bin of fabric strings that I've been collecting.  She bought more pink fabric to give her quilt an overall little girl feel and then she spent the summer sewing everything together into a beautiful Pineapple Blossom flimsy.  Everything was going along fine until she got to that quilting....  Free-motion, BIG quilt on a domestic machine.

Sometimes I wonder if I had an long-arm machine and offered to quilt for my friends if they would take me up on it...  I doubt I could have a business of it though because there are not enough Japanese piecers who appreciate machine quilting.  In Japan, a quilt is only your own if you've slaved over the piecing AND the quilting.  And I'd probably go perfectionist for my friends whereas I don't for myself, and drive myself crazy.  And having a long-arm machine is sort of a pipe-dream of mine... one that isn't about it happen.  But I do know that my two friends (a whole two!) sometimes wish they didn't have to do all this machine quilting but don't have the time to hand quilt.

Anyway, I MADE R-san do her machine quilting and steered her away from just straight lines.  She has lots and lots of flowers quilted in now and a lovely loopy border.  She is just tickled PINK with her quilt and seems very happy that she challenged herself to try some complicated machine quilting and persevered. 

R-san's little granddaughter is already walking and now and the report is that she is too is very excited about her Pink Blossom bed cover.  But R-san is not ready to give it up yet and is keeping it around her house for when the granddaughter visits.  Well, that's okay...  At least until a label gets sewn on. 

Maybe that's why R-san isn't coming today?  Subconsciously she doesn't want to give up her beautiful Pink Blossom quilt yet!

Another vegetable dish

How about another meal post.  Not that I'm claiming that these recipes will be successful.  This is just what we've been eating this week.

These were the vegetables that came in the farmers' co-op box.  Lettuce, gobou (burdock root) asparagus ,maitake mushrooms, komatsuna (greens) and spinach.

And the recipe that was included this week was for asparagus and maitake mushrooms.

• peel the tough end of the asparagus, cut into thirds and boil for one minute
• drain and then add enough water to cover the asparagus.  When boiling again add the mushrooms
• make a sauce of 1 tablespoon Chinese dashi (chicken broth or consomme powder can be used), 2 tablespoons soy sauce and a pinch of salt
• when simmered add a thin cornstarch (in Japan we use katakuriko) mixture and stir until thickened.  (I also added a dash of sesame seed oil as my chicken broth powder didn't taste too Chinese...)

This was a passable dish.  It could have used some chicken or pork slices or something but since I was making a separate chicken dish I followed the recipe as is.

 My chicken dish is one our family has always liked.  I marinate chicken tenders (I think they are called in English.  No bones.  In Japanese they are called sasami) in soy sauce and sake for 20 minutes or longer.  Next I coat them in katakuriko (or flour but I'm trying not to use flour anymore...) and dip in egg and then into sesame seeds.  Usually I will use a mixture of black and white sesame seeds but I didn't have any black on this day.  And then I cook the tenders on low heat in coconut oil.  The coconut oil is another recent adaption.  Of course regular salad oil is fine too but since I read the It Starts With Food book (and lost 15 pounds) I've switched to coconut oil and olive oil.

I served my two dishes with simmered tofu...  That's just tofu simmered with some seaweed, along with dipping sauce (bottled) and fresh ginger, more sesame seeds and chopped onions.  And yes, Tetsu and I ate the whole thing! I really thought I would have some left over chicken for the next day's lunch but we ate it all!

Early morning

This morning through blurry eyes, I misread the bedside clock and got up an hour early.  Oh well, I might as well make good use of the time and Choco and I went out for our walk (we left Tetsu sleeping).  So here is a minute by minute photo trip of our walk.

This is the sight that greets me every time I step out of the forest... a whole 30 seconds from my front door.  It is the same photo as that header on my blog that I haven't figured out how to change in two years...  You can see the tracks from how the tractor gets in and out of the flooded field.

 From another angle.  The nanohana are in full bloom around here!

 The other day Tetsu said to me,

"Well, we're coming into your favorite season of the year, Tanya."

Hmmm.  I had always thought of autumn as my favorite season but it is true that absolutely fall in love with Japan again in this slim period between when the farmers flood their rice fields and when they plant their rice sprouts.  I feel like I'm living on top of a mirror!

 A nothing factory in the distance (that I wasn't happy about when it was being built).  It looks pretty good reflected in the water.

 This house is a beauty nestled there near their own private forest with all the colorful bushes in front.

 Okay... so this is an everyday photo.  I like seeing the sparkling dew drops in the grass.

I took this photo to show the temperature difference in the early morning.  Mist rises off the flooded fields where the water is being freshly pumped from a well.  Though I didn't see him, I think the farmer must have been out here even earlier than me and started pumping water into his field.  The warmer underground water hits the cold early morning air.

 And here is a shed containing the pump and a gush of water coming into the field.

And this is going back into the forest... my house is behind those hot houses.  Don't you love the way the scudding clouds reflect in the water!  Choco and I were back home before 6:00 and Tetsu greeted us (me) with a pot of coffee.

"Why didn't you come back to bed when you realized you were an hour early?"

"Hayaoki ha sanmon no toku.  Waking up early brings three coins of profit."

I've learned my Japanese proverbs.