It's a finish!

Do you think I'll get kicked out of the Slowpoke Quilters?  Begun on September 28th, I think this is the fastest I have managed to put something this size together either by hand or machine.

Of course, those child-friendly hexagons were all cut and marked and that was not only the inspiration, but a time-saver.

The size is about 47 x 48 inches ... about as square as I could get with hexagons.

I added writing in the turquoise strip ...
"I Spy .. a teddy bear, a kitty sitting on a chair,
 A boat, a truck, a car, a train,
 A lion with a fluffy mane,
 Fish with bubbles, fish with flowers,
The face of a clock showing hours,
Postage stamps to send the mail,
A lizard with a curly tail,
Bugs that fly and buzz and crawl,
 A ripened pumpkin in the Fall,
An elephant, some yummy fruit, a froggy playing on a flute.  Love in every stitch ..October 2012

The backing is made of tenugui. I had to add a dragon for a dragon-year baby and this was the only one that didn't look too scary in my collection. I thought the maple leaf print would be good for fall and the other two are typical Japanese prints

Here it is ... hanging on the park fence among the goya

Your botanic lesson for today...
A male flower...

A female flower...

The "fruit"...

This is on the park-side of the fence so I am not sure if it will be picked by the plant owner or by a park visitor or just left to ripen and drop seeds.

Where often the vine seems used for shade, this one may be providing some privacy for the house-owner adjoining the park.
Looks like a win-win to me and that wall of green gives a feeling of "cool", something we can use on these hot humid days of early fall.

And, in my own "garden", The favorite of the season...
the "Higanbana".

"Higan" is the Autumnal Equinox, which is an important Buddhist festival for the dead. The flowers are often found planted around cemeteries, rice paddies, and edges of fields.

Lycoris radiata, belongs to the family, Amarrillidaceae.
The genus name comes from Lycoris, the beautiful Greek Goddess of the Sea.

The flowers come first, poking up rather quickly on their stems and burst into bloom before you have even noticed them among the shrubbery. The leaves will come later after the flowers fade.
I have read that the bulb is poisonous.

My red ones are sharing a pot with a pineapple lily.
Some people don't like these in their garden because of the association with death. One of the common names is "Shibito-bana", literally, flower of the dead.

Obviously, I do not have those hang-ups. I love seeing them in the fall as a harbinger of cooler days to come.

As an aside, I grew up in a home where plants were often referred to by their Latin names. When my own children were growing up, I was shocked to hear the headmaster of their school state that using those Latin names was a way scientists talked in order to sound snobbish.
I have told my children and my Scouts not to be afraid of those Latin names, they are the true names of the plant. Once you know that Latin name, you can see how it is related to other plants all over the world. ... even more than looking at the leaves or bark of a tree, once you find that name, you can get a big "Ahah" moment. You even find out how many trees and flowers have common names that are mis-leading.... like the hundreds of trees called "cedar".
(and that goes for birds too which are sometimes victims of mis-naming).

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. Yes, and my dad loved roses,  but he passed the love of nature to all his children and a certain curiosity to learn the rest of the story. Thanks Dad!

And now... the rest of the story...

The batik quilt is done ... kind of.

Yesterday morning, when I went to check my e-mails, there was a message from Cheryl, one of my blogging buddies, that my blog was GONE. Well, I went to check it out and, sure enough, Google had blocked it because of some activity that had taken place which had not been explained. I was asked to leave my "cell phone e-mail address" in order to get a code so I could get my blogs and dashboard and all the rest back. Yeah, right! They were going to send me this code within ten minutes. Now, I am sure everyone carries a cell phone and can use it to get text messages. I do have that app on my "smart phone" but had never used it. Husband Paul went to his computer and pulled up the forms and sent out the information. Well, at 11pm there was no code and it was already past my bed time so I fired off an e-mail to my fine guru of a son (the one who got me into this in the first place) and when I woke in the morning, there were his soothing words and everything was back to normal. I think he can talk googleese better than I.

Anyway, there was no way to waste time catching up on blog-reading, so I bit the bullet and finished the binding on the Batik quilt. Gosh, that was a LONG way around! 225  cm square. I will have to figure it out in inches later.

This quilt began  with a kit, given me by my good friend, Marion Fox, two years ago when I was visiting her while at my son's in D.C. after the Jamboree. I had just finished a project of a table cloth for my son and she said I would need something to do for the rest of the trip. The name of the kit called this "Round and round". It was meant to alternate one large block with four smaller ones but I have yet to use a pattern as intended. When I got back to Tokyo, I pulled out some of my own batik stash and made enough blocks for a double sized quilt. I intended this quilt to go to my #4 daughter, Kimie, as I had not yet made her a wedding quilt.

Last March, a few days after the quake, Kimie came with her daughter, Irene, for a week's visit. At that time, the kind rice-store lady offered me the use of her big tatami room floor to lay out the blocks. She even dug out some toys to keep Irene busy while we moved blocks around the room.

From then on, every time I passed the rice store, which is at the corner of my street, my friend would step out of the store to ask if I was finished yet. I promised her she would be the first to see it when I did, and today I could keep that promise. Of course, half the neighborhood of little shops ran out to share the good news and oogle the results and get a running description of my last 50 years ... kids... teaching ,,, scouts...the whole works. You do nothing in secret in this community!

I could not afford my prefered border material so I bought this Kathy Nakajima print and added the flower centers and colored thread to make this border work. The flower quilting is repeated in the blocks. I have decided to call this quilt "Round and round the garden"

This picture is not very clear, but since my daughter is a teacher of young children, I decided to back the quilt with tenugui of Japanese children's games. I had collected these a number of years ago and been saving them for a special quilt.

Here are stilts and hoops and kendama, a singing game, and some others you might be able to guess.

I could almost say I am completely happy with the way this quilt turned out BUT.....
You may not remember, that at the end of last summer, I made a hanging for out church. At that time, I took out some old bias tape I had been saving for making stained glass blocks, and to my dismay, every one of those packages of black tape had completely disintegrated. I was able to take them back to the store and have them replaced but I thought that was just a one-of-a-kind event.

Saddly, when I was turning the bias to the reverse side, I found that in several places, where the black dye was darkest on the bamboo yukata fabric, the same thing had happened.

Just below the v there is a one-inch split in the fabric. I began looking at other places where the dye is darkest and this is not the only place. I am NOT going to take out all this work, that is for sure. I thought of cutting green bamboo leaves and appliqueing them over the slits but one of my friends at camp suggested I repeat the colored dots I used for the flower centers. I think that would be a lot easier and tie the front and back together.

I had a whole roll of this bamboo print and have used it in other places, mostly backs of quilts. Those have been washed a few times and have no problems so I suppose the dye sitting un-washed on this vintage fabric was the problem. I think I will ever be suspicious of black fabric from now on.

This is a disappointing end to a two-year project and I wonder how my blogging friends would deal with the situation. In a week I leave for the states and this quilt is asking to go to Kimie. I sure don't want it to become her problem. As is, it will have to be washed right off. Dirt from camp... dog hair ... and a husband with allergies... and my washing machine is too small to do the job. This is one time I might say, "It isn't over 'till it's over"! If you don't hear from me, you will know what I am doing with my time.

No more cleaning frenzies

Today's post has nothing new. It may be a long, long, time before I have something completed to show and a picture of a few more quilted blocks on the batik quilt might not excite anyone other than the daughter getting it when finished.

The time has come for a bit of washing of the quilt that covers the smaller sofa and since I had no digital picture, I decided to take it to the park for a photo. This is a challenge quilt. One former member of our little quilt group returned to Japan for a visit and brought a gift of five fat quarters to each of the group members. These were, a dark blue star print, a blue and tan figured fabric, a red with small white dots, a red and tan check print and a green and tan check print. The members of our group decided we would add one fabric of our own and make a quilted object.

At that time I had a rather small quilt covering my smaller sofa which is quite worn. This seemed like a good opportunity to add some medium brown and make a larger quilt to take its place.

I had no particular plan in mind when I made the center blocks other than to see how this random arrangement might work out. Since I wanted the quilt to be large enough to be useful, I added a wide border and used the five fabrics in an applique. I did a fairly good job of using all the fabric as there was very little, if any, left over. The blue print with stars has faded in the bit of sun that comes through the window part of the year but it is holding up with the rough treatment that a sofa quilt gets.



The reverse side is a collection of Japanese tenugui in botanical prints.
The island with the camellia is Oshima, not far from Tokyo and famous for the large beautiful camellia trees and products made from camellia oil. Many of these represent seasons. Snow on the camellia, the seven autumn plants, pine, plum, cherry and other less familiar plants.

When I first came to live in Japan, we rented a small "apato" not far from where we live now. It had a small entryway with a kitchen sink on one side and a lavatory on the other and a tiny bit of counter to hold a one-burner stove. (no hot water in those days and no bath or shower). There were two rooms. One four and a half mat room and one six mat room. (One tatami mat is about 3'x6') There was also a closet for storing things. Life was quite simple. We had a small folding table about two feet high and five zabuton which are cushions for sitting on. At night we folded up the table and put out thin sleeping mats which had been stored in the cupboard during the day. The only other furniture I brought from the states was a cedar chest that had belonged to my Great Aunt and a bureau that had come west to Ohio in an ox pulled wagon with Great Great Grandfather when Ohio was still the "Western Region". As was the custom in Japan, and still is today, One entered the house and left one's shoes at the entry. Slippers were used in the "kitchen" and toilet but walking on tatami mats was in bare or stocking feet.

Today one finds fewer and fewer rooms with tatami and a room barely larger than that first apartment contains two sofas, two large chairs, a good sized coffee table, a corner table, a large cabinet with a TV, a dish hutch, a desk, a table with six chairs, a buffet and a bookcase. Also a dog kennel, a highchair, a foot stool, several lamps,...are you getting the picture? The problem is, walking through this house in bare feet ... especially when in a cleaning frenzy... is DANGEROUS.

After the quilt group left I went to the clinic for rehab hoping to see an end to the broken toe saga. Alas, the x-ray showed the toe not yet healed and the one next to it had been broken tripping over stuff while trying to tidy the house. This time there is a half cast and it is a lot less painful but flip-flop weather is over. The house went back to its pre-cleaned state before I returned from the clinic and today I tripped over bags of stuff just carrying the ladder through the house. At least four toes are safely covered with the cast. You may think I am a clutz but in this house.... only Nikko moves with ease.

My birthday is coming. For the last three years when asked what I wanted for my birthday, I asked for a system of putting things away (I don't count things in bags as away) so that the place would be neat and tidy and I could feel free to invite my friends over. My son-in-law made wonderful file drawers where things could be organized and I offered to make labels for the files. My daughter spent a long time over the weekend going through the piles and sorting things into labeled bags so they could be put away, but today there is so much junk piled in front of those drawers you couldn't open them if you wanted to. I fear I will always live in an obstacle course.



On the way to the park to take a picture, Nikko met a neighborhood cat that she would like to have as a friend.

As she stood, tongue lolling, tail wagging, with a eager whimper issuing forth from her smiling face, THIS is the greeting she got.

"I see you. I hear you, but don't you DARE take one step further in my direction or I'll bop you on the kisser"


Yes, Nikko, my mother warned me there would be days like this.

As a further report on the Eagle slide, during the ceremony, the "Eagle Charge" came from a former member of the troop by way of a video as that youth is now in New Zealand. Dressed in his full uniform, that Scout was also wearing an eagle slide. And this week I received notice of one of my former Scouts who is working on his project as the last requirement for the rank of Eagle. Yeaaay!

A test of patience

Deciding not to spend money on fabric for the back of the batik quilt, I took out the pile of tenugui showing all kinds of children's games. My fourth daughter is an early-childhood teacher and I'm sure she will get a kick out of this collection of tenugui. Friday I made use of the floor space at my quilt friend's house to arrange the selection and began sewing the towels together by hand. There was a bit of a trick to this because the towels are not all the same length or width. Choosing pairs, I sewed them into strips which are close to the same length. This puts the center seam at different points down the center but one of the quilt ladies thought if I press the center seams open, the mis-match will probably not show much after quilting. That seems like the best plan of attack.


After joining the rows, I find that this section is still too narrow for the backing. Rather than add more of the children's towels sideways, I decided to use yukata fabric for the outside edges. I have a lovely floral but it is on dark blue and I think the bamboo on white looks a bit better.

With no place to spread out and arrange the borders, I spread a tarp on the street outside my house so I could figure out a plan. The tarp was too narrow so the yukata fabric is on the street. A light spring breeze kept turning the corners and before I was finished I had to fold it over several times to allow bikes to pass. The section of road behind the camera is only the size of the green tarp, about two meters. For that reason, at least, I did not have to deal with cars.

After looking at the size of the backing, it appears the towel section is too long by about half the width of a row of tenugui. Rather than trim the lower row of children, I decided to remove the second row from the bottom since those children are a bit larger in size. Then I re-positioned the bottom row and added the bamboo to the lower edge as well as the sides. I will not feel as bad about cutting off part of the bamboo as I would spoiling the children in play.

The thing is, now that I sit and look at this picture, I recall the yukata fabric I used for the border of the kaleidoscope quilt (a kind of braided link design) that is just about the width that I need and I bet I have just enough already cut too. Then, again, that might be just a bit too strong a pattern. Un-sewing and re-sewing seams of several meters takes a lot longer by hand so I want to be sure before I go that far. This is the time I really wish for a very large empty room.

The art of the Japanese Tenugui

In earlier posts I have sometimes shown a quilt backing which has been composed of Japanese tenugui or cotton towels. Indeed, many of the quilts I have made use tenugui either on the back or as part of the design. Sometimes I get questions about tenugui so today I thought it would be fun to show and tell more than you may wish to know about the art of tenugui, and indeed, it is an art.

I have sometimes referred to tenugui to be seen along the lines of postage stamps. Although I was a poor student of history and geography, I loved to collect postage stamps. They were like tiny travel posters showing the nature, historical events, places and people that defined a country.
Each country puts out lovely commemorative issues and they may be used on letters as regular postage or kept as collectors items. We can learn a lot by examining these stamps and they are small enough to be stored in albums.

Tenugui are rectangular cotton hand towels. They were sometimes distributed as gifts by shops or firms commemorating their opening and may contain addresses or the phone number of the shop. The tenugui of yesterday has gradually been replaced by terrycloth towels and handkerchiefs and many of today's tenugui are pure art to be looked at as well as used. We used to have a tenugui of the Tokyo Tower that had been framed and hung as a picture by my Father-in-law. Sometimes they are sewed into bags or cushions or noren, a strip curtain dividing rooms. They are often used as stage props in kabuki, rakugo (comical storytelling), and Japanese dancing.

The process by which these towels are made is as fascinating as the towels themselves. Both Yukata (a cotton summer kimono) and tenugui are dyed as a strip of fabric. That bolt or roll is anywhere from thirteen and a half to about fifteen inches in width. The cloth is stenciled with a kind of paste that works much like wax in batik. It is done in sections and folded back over itself like an accordion. The length might vary depending on the ultimate use but one roll is usually enough to make one yukata with some bit left over.

After each application of paste, the dye is put on top of the pile of fabric over a vat of the same width and sucked through the pile. Then the excess dye and paste are washed out, and the fabric dried and re-wound for further dying or cutting into lengths.



The price can range from around five hundred yen for a two color towel of simple design to thousands of yen for real works of art.
The series of childrens' games on my last post cost around one thousand two hundred per towel a few years back when the dollar/yen was about 100 yen to the dollar.

The small kaleidoscope quilt has five towels on the back. The writing on the red one is a poem or song. The other four show a sense of humor, such as advice on manners and replies to requests and the like.


I have photographed some un-cut towels and you can see how each section is the reverse of the one before. If the design includes writing, one has to be careful to put the right side facing up as it is impossible to tell one side from the other by just looking at the pattern.

The two top towels have a design depicting strips of cloth being stretched out to dry. The blue and white towel can be folded in half lengthwise and then accordion folded to form a cloth book. This piece of art shows the variety of ways to use a tenugui, from a blindfold for a children's game, a head scarf, exercising, fishing, bathing and even picking fruit. The towel with many people is of a festival. The people are carrying portable shrines and they are all wearing tenugui as hachimaki or headbands to keep the perspiration from their eyes. The lower towel with the red character says "matsuri" or festival and that is the type of towel most often worn as a hachimaki.


Here are a few more forms of towel containing writing. The top is advice on how to live a long life. Actually, it is a list of funny excuses to give when your maker comes to call you home. The dark blue is writing by someone having reached the auspicious age of 88. The iris on white is the name of a Sumo wrestler who may have presented these to his fans upon being promoted to a higher rank. The beige towels show some folk art.

This year many of the places selling the towels had a selection of rabbits as this is the rabbit year by the oriental zodiac. Several quilts I have made for my grandchildren feature zodiac animal towels on the back. On one I asked family members to sign their names on their animal.

Just like stash, these towels tend to grow in numbers in dark places. Unlike postage stamps they take up more room. I have a set of three plastic stacking drawers and in true librarian fashion, the towels are folded and placed by topic. They might be festivals like those above, famous kabuki scenes, sumo wrestlers' hand prints, scenes from famous places, flowers of various seasons, and just like postage stamps, interesting bits of culture. Some may find their way to the backs of quilts. Others are old that have been given me by people clearing out their cupboards. I once made a purple quilt for my SIL who loves purple and just went through the pile pulling out any towel with purple for the back. Most of those were from Japanese dance school recitals or kabuki actors assuming a family name.

The cloth tends to be more loosely woven that modern print cotton. It is surprisingly durable and the colors are fast. It is quite soft and less likely to slide off a child's bed. Because of the variety of lengths and widths it is not easy to piece into one large back. It can be pieced along with yukata fabric but is noticeably different from regular cotton prints in texture. I would offer some to anyone interested if they thought they might be able to find a use for it. Then, again, I still have three cat panels looking for a home.

The back has gotten its act together.

Well, today the backing of the quilt is finally done. In the end I had to let the towels decide where they should go. Because of the variety of makers, there is more often than not a variety in both width and length of each towel. Also, because of the way they are dyed, like batik, there is no difference in front or reverse side EXCEPT where there is writing ... and many of the towels are made for commemorative purposes so writing is part of the design. Not knowing which side is up could make for a backward bit of reading.

Next challenge will be piecing the batting. I'm hoping I will have enough to do the job. Anyway, it will have to wait a bit because all of my day tomorrow is taken up with choir, church, Scouts, and family.

revelations

A search of my storage box reveals that I have more than enough towels to back the quilt.

There are lots of Kabuki related ones and a few Scout related ones and even a list of the names of the 47 ronin ... how samurai can you get?

Second discovery is that if I remove all the furniture and the ladder to the loft, I can make enough space to lay the quilt out for basting. That was a pressing worry.

I would like to arrange the towels so there is no up or down...left or right. There is some variety of width and length depending on the maker which makes it a little tricky too. Too bad all my daughters live so far away as they are good at making those decisions for me.

Paul's "Big Boy" Quilt 2008

Started in April as a carry-along project, I went through my stash of greens and blues. I assembled 3 sizes into a 5" block and those were again combined to make a 10" block.

Designed to be sewed together, they just didn't work when laid out on Sue and Pete's living-room floor in June. At Sue and Cyndi's suggestion, the navy sashing and a blue+green border were added and Kimie helped with the arrangement during her July visit.


It didn't look like much of a "kids" quilt so I decided to use the zodiac animal towels for the reverse side. Paul made a trip to Ginza to pick up a dragon for the top border since little Paul is a dragon. To make the backing large enough I added a strip of dragonfly yukata fabric.

The idea is to have the family members sign their names and birthdays on the animals. I drafted the quilting design and made the templates. The idea was to have and interlocking pattern. I hope this will make up for his baby quilt which had become too small now that he has a big bed. 76" x 86" (193cm x 218.5 cm)

Maile's Quilt 2007

Star Runner 2003

Yukata Kaliedescope 2003

Who Let the Cats Out? 2003

Feathered Hearts and Stars 2003

Ben's Alphabet Quilt 2002

Kimie's Star Quilt 2001

Amish Tulips 2001

Sayonara Quilt 1998

Ohio Star too far East too long