Random iPhone photos

Another random post.  I find it harder to get organized to talk about one thing....  And then I delay posting at all...  Do you see a change in your blogging habits? 

I do.  I gave up answering comments awhile ago.  I still have difficulties visiting other people's blogs because for some reason my blogger account doesn't sign in automatically and I have a rigamarole to get to it.  I gave up on Feedly and on Bloglovin' and am trying to use Blogger's reading list now...  My own blog posting changes probably have something to do with having Tetsu home all the time and my concentration wanes when the TV is on or when he is doing housecleaning and I'm on the computer (which he insists is okay but I feel guilty anyway...)  And I cannot walk John and whip out my camera at all (limiting photos to iPhone) and thus inspiration flees...  Excuses, excuses.

What is this?  It is a little box that Tetsu made out of cardboard.  It is trying to serve as a measure for the little wooden osake boxes that are often used in Japanese celebrations.  Though no one in our family drinks osake, the wooden boxes are interesting because they are square cups that one uses to toast an event and they are constructed without nails.  They also have a very nice woody aroma.  We got the idea that maybe as "party favors" we could take a supply of these boxes to Tony and Leiya's wedding and toast the couple Japanese style (with champagne?  Sprite?)  It might be interesting for non-Japanese guests.  I'm thinking we could put the origami cranes in them as decorations...  ANYWAY, how many of these wooden boxes can we get into our suitcases for all the guests?  Tetsu made a box to measurement and that's our suitcase in the background.  He figures he can get in 60 boxes...  We haven't yet decided if we are going to do this...  Weight and all to think about.  The Japanese/Chinese character on it says Kotobuki, "celebration" and can be wood burned onto the side of the box...

This is me in bed.  Well, it is me sandwiched between Cleo and Mi.  I guess I'm still asleep.  Tetsu probably had Chip in bed with him.  Don't we look cozy?

 Here we have Chip...

And Mi.  Their coloring is very similar but there are definitely differences.  Both cats were sitting on the dining room bench watching us eat dinner when I took these pictures.  They are very good about not begging and not getting on the table.  Just patiently watching.  Chip has big green eyes, Mi's eyes are always half closed.  Mi is also rather flat-faced while Chip has stronger features.  Tetsu still can't tell them apart from above.

I don't think I ever related the tale of me walking home from crosswalk duty one morning earlier this month and suddenly there was a crash and glass and plastic began flying around me!  A tall truck had gone by me and its side mirror had hit a tree branch that had slipped a bit into the street.  Probably the tree branch had been like that for awhile but it was higher than regular cars but just at the height of the truck side mirror.  The truck had probably edged to the side of the road when an oncoming car approached.  Gives you an idea of how narrow the main street in front of the neighborhood is!  At first I didn't know what had happened as the truck just went on its merry way and didn't stop.  Do I call the police to report an accident?  But no vehicles were around (the truck was gone).  I finally called a neighbor because I knew the husband had a chain saw.  He and his wife came out, I called Tetsu to say I'd be home late and he came too.  While the three of them worked on tree cutting and branch hauling, I directed traffic and enforced traffic safety!  I was in uniform and had the yellow traffic flag!  I might as well be helpful!

Terrible photo... Blowing it up makes it worse so I'm leaving it small. Yesterday morning I took John out for a potty run and heard a very quiet rusting in the brush across from our front door.  Cat?  Bird?  It was a badger!!!  A rather rough looking character who was trying to quietly evade meeting us.  He settled behind a log and stared at us for a long time and then quietly crept into the underbrush and disappeared.  John didn't notice the badger at all.  I remember Choco discovered a badger in the forest years ago and slipped her leash and went barking crazy.  I was screaming and trying to catch her, racing through the forest, darting out into the road, stopping cars as Choco burst through oblivious to traffic.  Of course she never caught the badger and I guess it (or its descendants) has lived back there peacefully all this time.

I've been looking for shoes to wear to Leiya's wedding.  All these unnecessary things that seem so important to get right!  Why should anyone care what kind of shoes I wear?  But I guess black tennis shoes don't go with that blue dress so I've been looking at shoes.  THESE ARE NOT THE SHOES I'M BUYING!!!  I have horrible bunions that make my feet look deformed and cause practically all shoes to be torture to wear (thus my tried and true black tennis shoes... same make and brand for the past 10 years!)  We went to a foot specialist to see if I could find shoes and there was this ONE pair that I could fit into.  $300!!!  No way!!!  I'll suffer through an evening of pain before I spend that amount of money for one day of dress-up!

And leaving you with a cute photo.  There is Mi again on my bed.  She fit right in with the other two stuffed animals.  My mother's Jesus Adores You bear and a woven one Tetsu once bought me at a challenged adult's center.  Everyone looks content!
 

Circle of Flowers

Just a quick post as I am supposed to take John to the vet in a few minutes for them to give him a bath today.  This was one of the doggie chores that we had planned to do ourselves but for anyone who knows John, none of us are up for that yet.  According to the vet, John gives up his rights once he steps into the clinic thus they are still doing the bath-time for us.

I have been staying downstairs most evenings, working on my Circle of Flowers!  It is coming along faster than I expected (I want this to be done by next January!  Still nearly a year away!)  I appliqued the second major flower in the ring... eight times.  Another flower with lots of those pesky little spikes!  This is really filling out well!

The pattern calls for a center "sun" in the middle of the ring of flowers but I'm not sure I'm going to go with that.  A center piece might detract from the flowers... but while I ponder that step I am going to work on the main flowers this week.  20 applique pieces for one flower!  Multiply that by eight?  I've got my sewing time laid out for me!

 Happy appliqueing!

Glade of flowers!

This morning Tetsu and I went out early with our cameras.  We realize that we haven't been able to get out very much the past few months probably because we don't feel we can leave John alone all day long.  When we had Choco, she was an outdoor dog and so though she probably wasn't happy about it, she got left in the yard all day and could do her business outside and maybe pass the time barking at birds and passersby.  The two times we tried taking John with us in the car he was very angry and ferocious and it seemed like we were just causing him more anxiety on top of whatever other issues he has...  Thus, we subconsciously stay close to home.  (And not to blame everything on John, it HAS been winter around here!)

Tetsu read about a pretty forest glade an hour or so away from us and so we took off around 7:00 this morning and had a nice drive through the countryside.  Unfortunately it was a really cold day, but we bundled up well and I even donned hiking boots thinking that we were going to be doing a lot of walking.  As it turned out, the glade is so far off in the mountains that there was a shuttle bus running from a parking area and we traveled by bus to the forest area and then walked through the well kept glade of....

 Mitsumata flowers... In English known as Edgeworthia Chrysantha (I looked it up).

 In English, Mitsumata means "trident" and the flowers all bloom in sections of three. 

 The whole forest floor was covered in Mitsumata bushes!

 Yep.  Three.

When in full bloom, the flowers are little yellow balls, the yellow petals unfurling near the bottom of the flower and pushing the earlier blossoms upward into the sun.  Today, depending on the angle, it looked like either a white sea of flowers (the blossoms facing downward) or a yellow sea where more of the flowers were in bloom.

White side...

A little bit of yellow on the underside...

Full bloom yellow!

It started to snow when we got to the forest!  The flowers were surprised too!  We thought spring was just around the corner!

Can you get a feel of the forest floor of yellow?

It was like a fairy wonderland.

It was nice that we'd gotten to the forest before more busloads of people got there but a few people in the picture gives you an idea of the perspective.

Looking up through the bushes.

 I am more often than not a stay-at-home, stick-in-the-mud type but I must admit that it is very nice to get out and about and enjoy seeing new things!

John got his walk around the neighborhood when we got home.
 

Origami paper folding

The date for Tony and Leiya's wedding is less than two months away now...  The other day Leiya texted me asking if I thought I could get origami paper cheaper in Japan than she could in America.  Japan has so much origami paper, in any supermarket, in any drugstore, that I was surprised that she asked and I offered to buy her some and send it to her...  But why?

I guess she is thinking that origami peace cranes would be a nice decoration at the wedding reception.

"I really don't think you are going to have time to be making origami favors for all of your guests."  (her vague idea)  "Tetsu and I will make cranes for you and bring them when we come!"

 "Thanks!  That would help out a lot!"

Tetsu and I immediately went to a huge stationery store in the next town over and I took pictures of the shelves of origami paper to send to Leiya.  Did she want polka dot origami?  Double sided origami? Traditional flowered origami?  Gold or silver origami?  Plaids, Animals, Origami that folded into kimonos?  into flowers?  into dinosaurs

Tetsu and I found some pretty faux tie-dyed origami paper and on our way home we stopped at a coffee shop and started folding paper cranes.

Paper crane folding is probably the ONLY origami that both Tetsu and I can do from memory...

Tetsu made fun of my stubby squared off fingers.  They are also very bendable and when holding my hand he often comments that it is like my fingers aren't jointed at all.  Good for doing origami and quilting.  Not great for fashionable nails...

We were both happy that we were able to recall all the steps in folding a crane.

Just in case, there was an instruction sheet provided in one of the packages.  Thirty-two steps to make one origami peace crane!

Ta-da!

I also had found some interesting origami paper made especially for crane folding and when finished, the crane has a block print replica on its back of famous Japanese scenery.

 The paper...

The completed crane.

I thought this very Japanese and there was an English explanation on the wing underside to boot!

A bit on the dark side however and they don't really go with whatever Leiya is planning for the wedding reception...  I guess I will continue making the black ones just to give away and Tetsu will make the tie-dyed ones. 

We also found some pretty traditional patterned paper and those will be the main ones to be used at the wedding reception.

It was a lovely coffee shop hour and I hope we make this a regular practice until all the cranes get folded!
 

Baby quilt finished!

Yeah!  A finished quilt to report!

I put the final stitches into the baby quilt that I have been making for my high school friend's new grandchild. The baby is already a month old so I'd better get this sent off to California as soon as possible!  I've been putting in a lot of hours hand quilting though since it is all stitch-in-the-ditch, it is hardly visible.

This is a quilt pattern from a Japanese book and Mrs. Furui and I made the same quilt nearly twenty years ago for a friend's baby.  It seems like such a pretty little quilt for a baby girl and I thought of the pattern immediately when my friend told me her daughter was expecting a little girl.

In January when I was at the Tokyo quilt show, I picked up a pack of 10 matching fabrics in pastel colors and I added one or two light colors from my own stash.

The border was one that Mrs. Furui and I had worked out before and I like the way the ribbon "flows" from the bows. 

I had run out of blue and green fabric thus only the pink and turquoise bows have ribbon flowing from them... in two directions.  I guess my friend won't mind or even notice.

I also found some very cute Peter Rabbit fabric for backing.  Now to get this packaged and sent off!

Selfies! Sorry!

I've got a bunch of lousy pictures today but I wanted to show you what I made and why I made it.

Last month when I went to the Women's Conference with Julie, there was a young woman there selling handmade goods from Onagawa, Miyagi which is a port town that was hit hard by the tsunami that destroyed the Japanese coast 8 years ago.  The goods were made by some of the women who live in Onagawa in hopes of raising money and keeping up the spirits of the people who still try to make their homes there.  Their group is called the Megumi Project.  Most of the handwork at the counter were items made from old kimonos... bags, scarves etc.

I was drawn to the scarf section as I do wear scarves but I already have quite a collection of scarves and hardly can say I need another.  Throughout the weekend I kept going back to the young woman's counter vacillating between my miserly tendencies and wanting to support the work.  Another friend whom I'd recently met, came to breakfast wearing one of the scarves saying that she had decided she would support the group and also have a scarf pattern to make her own scarves.  This sounded like a good idea to me and I soon made my way to the counter and chose a scarf that I had been eyeing all weekend long.

A scarf is a scarf right?  Well, the Megumi Project scarves are different because the one I bought also had sleeves... or maybe it is better to say that it is one big piece of cloth with sleeve holes.  Here... Let me show you what I bought.

A long piece of kimono fabric folded in half lengthwise with slits left open to put the arms through.  The fabric is light enough that it drapes around the neck and can be tied like a normal scarf, but with the arm slats, it also serves as a shrug.

The scarf I bought is rather somber with lots of different colored threads running through.  It looks pretty good with a sweater and jeans and I am extremely happy that I bought it!  I've already used it quite a lot just as a neck scarf!

In fact, I liked my scarf so much that I wondered if I could wear it with that blue dress I'm going to wear to Leiya's wedding... in case it cools off in the evening...  But alas, Marlene advises me that my beautiful scarf is rather on the casual side and that I would do better to wear something a bit more fancy.  Rats...  I really wanted to wear this scarf (well, as a shrug) just because it has a Japanese feel to it.  I'd like to keep a little of Leiya's Japanese culture in this wedding...

I went online to the Megumi Project website to see if there might be another scarf that I could purchase but I didn't find anything that really struck my fancy.  And then I got to thinking that maybe I could make my own with an old kimono especially since I had the pattern at my fingertips.  And when looking at the Megumi Project website (and they even have measurements posted!) I decided to try and make another of the scarves.  A longer one but made in the same pattern.  I rummaged around my closet to see if I had any old kimonos leftover from Tetsu's mother's closet...  Or maybe those are kimonos my friend left with me?  I'm actually not sure...  But I pulled one out that seemed elegant and had a general pattern (rather than embroidery just at the bottom which might not lend itself well to the shrug) and also that had a bit of blue in it that just might work with the blue dress.

So this was the kimono print.  It is on silk and there is a woven pattern in the silk itself...  First I ripped up the old kimono separating it into pieces.  The back, the front, the collar, the sleeves.  A kimono is basically rectangles of fabric made with the standard width of the weave.  I used the kimono back panel even leaving in the original center seam which joins the two widths of fabric.  Then I just sewed up the ends and left open a bit of the center seam at each end for the arm slits.  Done.

This is how long the original kimono fabric is from shoulder to hem.  When women wear kimono the length is adjusted by folding fabric over at the waist and holding it in place with the wide obi... thus the very long piece of fabric (and one size fits all in kimonos!)

Okay...  The fashion show starts.  (Wish I had a better model!)

Scarf.  It is just the long piece draped over my neck.  Of course like a normal scarf it can be doubled, tied into a bow etc.  I will probably use the scarf as a scarf most of the time.

And this is the shrug.  Actually it isn't much different from the blue one that I bought.  The back length is the same because both pieces are just two pieces of width of fabric.  This piece is longer though and so it puddles a bit more around my forearms...

And this is a twist because it can be worn as a short bolero.  I put one arm in the arm slit, pass the fabric around my back and loop it over the opposite shoulder then bring the second arm slit around the back to the first arm again!  That makes one fake shoulder!  That's kind if nifty!

This is the shawl look.  I put one arm in a slit, draped the fabric around the front of me, wrapped myself in it and brought the second slit to the first arm again.  Hmmm.  That's sort of an elegant look.  With a brooch to hold it in place it might work out nicely...

And this is called the French bolero.  One arm in a slit, wrap the fabric around my neck and then the other arm goes in the opposite slit.  I suppose I could wear a bolero and keep my neck warm at the same time...

Of course I can just ignore the slits completely, and just drape the fabric over my shoulders like a normal shawl.  This means there is a double thickness of kimono fabric.  Not particularly warm but maybe fancy enough in a pinch.

Oh well...  I went ahead and tried on the blue dress last night.  I guess I'll wear my mother's pearls.  Not as trendy as the ones I had tried on with the dress but they mean something.  And the shawl?  Well, I like that it has the Japanese feel...  I like that it picks up the blue...  Unless someone claims otherwise I'm assuming it came from Tetsu's mother's closet, so that has meaning for us also...  I hope the weather will be warm for us in Detroit in May...