More randomness...

I notice that my blog posts recently are no longer theme oriented.  It used to be that I'd be inspired to write about cats one day and scenery the next, a patchwork project on another day, a meal cooked or a family anecdote.  Now they all seem to get lumped together as Random.

So another random...

We had such a surprise yesterday when...

"John?  Is that you John?"

I had made an appointment to have John shampooed and trimmed at our vet office.  It has been nearly a year since his last trimming and he was looking very shaggy and hot not to mention all the dog fur that was flying about the house.  The trimmer asked me what I wanted her to do.

"My husband says to just shave it all off!"  (Tetsu is appalled with how much cat and dog fur we find in all the corners.)  

"Just give him a cool cut for the summer and maybe he will last for another year.  (By the way, my vet has granted John free trimming services because we adopted him from them.  I don't really want to take advantage of their kindness.)

A different dog met us after his beauty treatment!  But he does look sleek and cool and rather whimsical with his broom-like tail.  He was very happy to see us but he still growls and snaps like always so it really is John!

If John didn't have ears, he might look like my...  

...dinosaurs!

I finished up another set of dinosaurs this week.  My weekly goal is to sew dinosaurs on Wednesdays and I had hoped the dinosaur part of this quilt would be done in four weeks...  I sewed 6 hours on Wednesday and still hadn't finished the latest tyrannosauruses... but I did manage to get them done yesterday (Thursday) after an hour's work...  Colorful!  The green one and the grayish one aren't as visible as some of the others but I sort of expected that...

Scenery...

We came home from the pool the other evening and were met by the most beautiful sunset!

Tetsu stopped the car along the road to let me out with my camera and then we chased the sunset to the scenery in front of Mt. Nantai.

Mt. Nantai is the Mt. Fuji of Nikko.  Not quite as symmetrical or famous but still beautiful.

The colors just kept getting deeper and deeper!

Pages in the bullet journal

I thought I'd show you what has been going on in my bullet journal.  It seems to evolve and I change things around each month.  This month I've given up a daily schedule because not much changes from day to day but for the past couple of months I've been trying to include a sketch or a doodle everyday which is actually a lot more work than I thought it would be!  It is hard to find things within my abilities to draw!

Yesterday Tetsu and I got our first Covid-19 vaccination!  It was an easy process and very well organized.  Both of us now have sore arms but no other ill effects.

My Celtic Knots art class has progressed to lesson 12.  We have been drawing Celtic crosses and I did two again, one for my daily bullet journal, one for the art book.  The pink one ended up in the art book and the blue one is in my bullet journal.  Please note that for the blue cross's border I added a ribbon motif...  Straight from a pattern from one of my old quilts!  

This was actually a suggested pattern from the teacher for around the cross but I just tried out a block in my bullet journal.

Though the Celtic Knots class is done in mostly colored pencils, I occasionally have been trying to do water colors though it doesn't really go on my thin bullet journal pages very well.  One day I tried sketching a corner of Tetsu's garden and then colored it with the pencils (on the left) and the next day I resketched the same corner and tried out water colors!  I feel like I have some control over the pencils but paints either come out bright and cheerful or end up in disaster.

I guess it was a rainy day this day!

I'm hoping that some of the pages will catch my eye if I ever flip back through these in the future.

Dinosaur quilt progress and family

I now have 6 Brachiosauruses ready for Luka's quilt!  Only 12 more dinosaurs to go...

They are rather cute...  The next sewing spree will be Tyrannosauruses.

If nothing else, this quilt is a lesson in organization.  For this Bracciousaurs, I layered 6 dinosaur fabrics and roller cut them out as one and then labled each set with a letter of the alphabet.  The green and the black fabrics have 6 layers there also.  Then it is a process of just peeling off each layer in turn and sewing them together as per instructions.  

I also got clever and did NOT want to draw sewing lines on all the small squares that needed to be sewn on the diagonal so I put down washi tape on my sewing machine bed and just laid the corners from needle to tape.  It worked and saved ever so much time!

Luka and family went to Kentucky for a day trip I guess.  With daddy...

... and with Mommy.

Takumi's family now includes Hazy the dog and he and she have a lot of love for each other going.  So nice for both human and doggie!

Stick-in-the-mud

M-san is making great strides with her quilting and Friday she had a flimsy ready to take home and quilt!

M-san has been coming to my house to do patchwork for a little over a year now.  Friday we were reminiscing about what she has made so far.  She did a Happy Village quilt which wasn't a great way to introduce someone to patchwork as it is really a fabric collage but I think she had the most fun with that project because she could create as she went along.

I got her started making a coffee cup quilt and she made so many coffee cup blocks I don't know what all they turned into.  Coasters, table mats, table runner and of course a wall hanging.

M-san bought a quilting book and started making blocks with curves because it was a pretty block (yeah!  but difficult!)  We ironed out some of the rough edges though and she got a nice table mat from that advanced attempt.

Let's see..  M-san made a small bird collage from a McKenna pattern that I had.  That was quick and easy.

Ah, yes...  M-san got a cheery star quilt made too!

In January, when I was starting a paper piecing quilt for my niece, M-san decided to try her hand at that too and she made about 5 paper piecing blocks and then decided it was hard getting her head around.  She made a table runner with that and since we'd cut up more of her blue fabric into these diamond shapes, we came up with this triangle quilt.  

I don't know where she put it but it was hang-able.

One day when I was showing M-san the depths of my sewing room, I came across my old box of orphan blocks... all the blocks and borders I try out first before committing to making a full quilt, and she was fascinated by all the shapes and sizes and levels of difficulty.

"If you can do something with these, go ahead and take it!  It is just taking up closet space for me and I have no plans to do anything with this hodge-podge!"

"Really?  Can I take them home?"

M-san seems to be making small things again from all my many blocks and I hope she is giving them away to friends and family because she is going to have an awful lot of coasters and table mats.  She says she enjoys using them (trying to make them useful would overwhelm me at this point.)

Through all this, though M-san takes home hand piecing and hand quilting, she comes to my house to do machine work especially honing her skills in machine quilting.  (This is her hand quilting.)

Right now she is researching what quilting foot might fit the sewing machine she has at home so that she can practice without always using my machine.  (This is her machine quilting!)

I told M-san whether she wanted to not, she was going to make an Irish Chain quilt just because I think it is a good step into the method of sewing strips together and cutting them up and putting them back together again.  I also had a whole set of left-over fabrics from a kit we had used when I was still going to Mrs. Furui's house.  M-san didn't have a choice.  

"You are going to make an Irish Chain quilt and these are the fabrics I want you to use."

It saves M-san from buying fabric for a quilt she isn't even sure she wants to make, and it helps use up some of my stash.  (Rats.  There's still a lot left over...)  Can you believe how she can squat like that to do basting!  I couldn't do then even in my younger days!

So, three weeks of sewing and Friday the sandwiched flimsy went home with her and M-san will be quilting for the next month (in the heat of summer!)

We have a lot of fun together.  I get to show off, she is generous with her praise, we talk mostly in English and if nothing else she is learning a few new phrases.  We laughed on Friday as we ran out of bobbin thread or something...  

"Murphy's Law again!" says M-san.  Murphy's Law seems to come up a lot when we are sewing...

Another one she said she remembered was "Stick-in-the-mud".  Maybe I was trying to explain about a person who is rather boring and never wants to go out to do anything exciting...  

"I would prefer to stay at home and sew than go out somewhere... I'm just a Stick-in-the-mud."  

M-san claims she is a Stick-in-the-mud too, and maybe so if there is nothing more exciting to do than spend every Friday afternoon in my sewing room...

I'm very proud of her though and she is a joy to teach!

Letting it all out!

Leiya suggested I show more details of my sewing room to my blog friends.  I think you've seen most of it over the years but for anyone new, here is a clockwise view of my sewing room... which used to be Leiya's bedroom.

The three bedrooms in our house are all upstairs and Leiya's was in the north-east corner of the house.  When she lived here I had yellow curtains in the windows but I've opted for a no frills look.  There is enough junk in this room already!  Also, when Leiya lived here the floors were carpeted but five years ago Tetsu had the whole house renovated with wooden floors.  That was a good decision.

So here we are walking into the room.  It is a six mat tatami room, the way rooms are measured in Japan, and it held one bed and a desk rather nicely but not much more.  It is definitely not large by American standards.  

Now the room holds numerous shelves, a very large ironing table, a writing desk that doubles as a sewing machine table and a design wall.

That design wall is rather clever if I do say so myself because one year when we gave up on having a traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and paper window shades, I removed the shades and stored them for awhile and then got the idea to staple white flannel on them and tack them up onto my wall.  The paper shades (called shoji) were for the sliding glass door in the Japanese room so they are quite large but also very light.  I still have two more shades (hidden now behind my desk) but I have no more wall to put up design boards so they have not been put to use.

This is what is up on my design board right now.  I have made a One Word block for the past six years but I don't really know what I'm going to do with them.  Up on the wall they at least remind me of what I tried to stay focused on over time.  That star block wasn't particularly successful so there it is waiting to be put to use somewhere...  (I also have a JESUS block up there...  trying to camouflage the word Jesus... always with us, not always seen.)  The coffee cup block is trying to decide if it will go to someone who is moving into a new apartment.  I had thought it a nice housewarming gift but then remembered the friend was rather upset that her recent relationships hadn't worked out...  Maybe two coffee cups with a heart between them ISN'T the right gift for her... There is a rack to the left that is overflowing with quilting gloves...

And then of course we have the beginnings of the Dinosaur Quilt!!!  That brown dinosaur is just a trial run.  He's not going to end up in the final quilt.  But all the "plants" are!  I finished the flora part of this quilt.  Ferns and vines and cycads.  

Next to the door is an odd shelf that holds a CD player (hardly ever used now), and some of my quilts.  The two wall hangings are an embroidery piece of Noah's Ark (it was a Block of the Month pattern) and the paper piecing piece was for my mother but I brought it back from the States after we closed up her living quarters...  The boxes piled high there on the right are scraps of batiks and the top block is M-san's box to keep her latest project which she works on on Fridays.  I think my water colors are there too.  Do you like my smiling wastebasket?  This odd piece of furniture was made by Tetsu out of two by fours.  I think the original purpose was to be in the kitchen but I said I couldn't house dishes and glassware in it and it made the trek to my sewing room to be put to use...  (Did I mention that Tetsu doesn't measure when he gets out hammers and nails.  He just pounds until things fit together...  Then I make use of them as best I can.)

That is hardly fair of me because actually Tetsu made me this fantastic (and very heavy) ironing table.  It is quite long and very wide and though I change the top cloth every year or so as it get stained, it is a wonderful table for ironing large pieces of fabric or ironing many pieces at one time.  I have my cordless iron there on top, and underneath are my drawers of fabric.  I manage to keep my stash down to these three drawers.  Way in the back are three cases of old quilts that I keep folded and pull out during different seasons.  Can you spot my kids' wedding pictures.  Tony and Leiya on the left, Takumi and Julieta in the larger one.

At the end of the ironing table is a cart with more scraps, embroidery thread and some Block of the Month patterns (that I think I've already made but I can't throw them away).

My cutting table is a second hand desk I once bought and nowadays it also doubles as my journaling table.  The boxes on the floor are my organization set-up for the dinosaus... under the table is a quilting hoop and an electric heater.  My computer sits on this desk... just b-a-r-e-l-y within reach of our wi-fi... I have a plastic cover on it (and EVERYTHING on this desk goes under the plastic cover!) because some stupid cat pees on things it finds on the table!!!  The computer has been saved three times from an unfortunate smelly fate!  I guess you can't see in this picture but to the right of the table are all my Omnigrid rulers.  All shapes and sizes and in inches and also centimeters.

The machine table started out as a small writing table that fit under the main desk (both are blue as you can see).  This enabled the machine to be a bit lower and much easier to push quilts through it.  And when I was drooling over acrylic quilting tables, Tetsu asked what I needed and he made a quilting table (cut out the part for the sewing machine to fit into) and we set it up partly on the writing table and partly on the plastic drawer set (which holds beads and knitting needles and glue guns and felt etc.)  The quilting table has made quilting a possibility and if I push the whole thing away from the wall, the quilt will go behind the table without bunching up.  I thought Tetsu was a genius when he designed this for me!  To the left you can see part of my ruler collection, a cherry blossom quilt based on a greeting card I once bought...  In the bay window are my colored pencils for drawing.  I had to move the extra chair in because when M-san comes to use the sewing machine there was no where for me to sit except on the ironing table...

This monstrosity is another of Tetsu's wonky carpentry creations.  Notice that the shelves stick out on both sides.  I keep books here and threads and glues.  

The baskets house scraps and have been labeled as 2 in squares, 2 1/2 inch squares, 3 1/2 inch squares, 2 inch square pairs, strings and on and on.  Supposedly I am using these scraps but they seem to overflow each time I come into the sewing room.  There are embroidery hoops and double pointed knitting needles hanging there, a rack that holds my scissors and roller cutters.  I've got freezer paper stuffed here and heat and bond paper too...  In the drawers are larger scraps and binding scraps and batting scraps.  What a hodge podge!  Behind the door is my mostly unused guitar.

On top of the monstrosity is a roll of batting and on the lower shelves are ribbons I've saved and Pounce quilting templates are on the wall.  I also see my little one picture at a time printer that Takumi once gave me (with extra paper and ink sheets) and I use that monthly to print out pictures for my bullet journal.

Oh well, I might as well reveal all!  This is the inside of the closet.  I've got old kimonos in one plastic bin, yarn in another.  The pile there seems to be Christmas quilts and practice blocks for trying out quilting patterns.  The cardboard rolls are left over from heat and bond paper rolls and they are nice and sturdy so I can't throw them out... (I also have some even sturdier longer rolls from the batting rolls).

 Like the dregs from a teacup, can you tell my fortune from all the miscellany that I have accumulated and use?   It all makes me smile (except when it is strewn all over the room) and helps make my quilting, sewing, knitting, blogging, journaling, drawing life much easier.

I can't end this with a picture of my closet...

Here is my stumpwork sewing room angel watching over my work.

Random things

Let's see...  What's new around here?  

Tetsu and I had an appointment for being vaccinated at the end of July but we got notice that the date has been pushed up to the middle of this month!  Yeah!  I think the Japanese government is trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible before the Olympic Games and so all clinics and hospitals are rushing to get patients vaccinated.  I even read a notice on my doctor's door today when I went in to get a prescription filled, that he will only be seeing patients from 9:00 to 10:00 every morning and then in the afternoon again leaving the other hours of the morning for vaccinations.  (Yes, in Japan we don't usually make appointments to see our regular doctor.  We just show up in the waiting room and wait our turn...)

Takumi's birthday was yesterday (actually the day before yesterday for me... ) His birthday is the third of June and I sent him a scoby.  Actually I sent him a kombucha kit.  This is very confusing to Japanese because kombucha is a Japanese word which means tea made of seaweed but kombucha in the health food stores of the US means a fermented tea drink that has kombucha bacteria that makes the tea fizzy... I think that's what the scoby is... I don't really know...  All I know is that I have bought bottles of kombucha in the States at health food stores and Trader Joe's and I really liked it.  Takumi and Julieta are rather health conscious so I thought it might interest them...  sort of like starting a science project...  We'll see if they get any kombucha made or not!

I went over to Mrs. Furui's today to pick up the fabric I'd ordered.  Can you believe I paid like $180 for some fabric (background fabric and backing) for the quilt I'm planning to make for Luka?!  I, who is normally extremely thrifty, hardly think twice about paying that much for fabric!  (Well, I'm thinking about it but it doesn't stop me.)  I'm ready to start the Elizabeth Hartman's Dinosaur Quilt and I needed background fabric.  I found some that I liked in Mrs. Furui's latest sample pack and I took the plunge and ordered enough (and a bit more).  I also found some fun backing fabric so... what the heck... I ordered that too!

This past week I've been second guessing my choice of fabric.  

 "Oh my...  All the quilts I've seen made with Elizabeth Hartman's Dinosaur quilt have used neutral colors...  White, beige, gray, blue.  I've chosen a wild, very bright patterned GREEN!  What was I thinking!  What am I going to do with all that fabric if it doesn't go with the other fabrics I've readied?"

So I picked up the green fabric today and it is so beautiful...  But yes, very bright and very patterned...  Well, maybe my dinosaurs will be hiding in green foliage...  

I brought it home and laid out a very few of the batiks that I'm going to use...  I still like it...  I guess I'm going to go for it!

This is going to be the very wild backing fabric!

Mrs. Furui was rather entranced with the dinosaur pattern and as she also has a new grandson she is now trying to pull her own fabrics to make the same quilt though quite a bit smaller.  I will keep you updated on whether she gets started on that or not...

Let's see if I can get this video of the recipient of the dinosaur quilt (Luka) posted.  Grandma's privilege to boast about her grandchildren!  Maybe Luka will be a beat-boxer!  If you watch it, make sure you have the sound on.  You will also hear Tony making noises in the background.