Starting a new year

This year started with a lot of zooming. On the first, I hurried home from church for a zoom gathering with my kids ... spread from the east coast to the west coast of the states, and across the pond to Japan.

On Monday the zooming was with church friends, spread from Malaysia to the eastern US, and Tuesday it was with cousins and nieces and nephews living in the states. While viewing the screens of squares and faces, I was reminded  of a nine-patch. I had been marking and cutting squares of a number of scraps, and sitting right at my right side were two tins of two-inch squares, so full of pieces that the lids wouldn't go on. I think Mr. Zoom was calling out for me to fix the problem,  so I began arranging and sewing blocks while zooming. Wednesday and Friday added more finishes.

I think usually, nine-patches have the darker squares in the center and corners. I began with the alternate setting, and when I laid them  out, I liked the results. making contrasting blocks would give a checkerboard effect, but I like the way this looks,

I have hardly made a dent in the number of blocks, still in those tins. I do have a few that probably would not work in a 9-patch, but might be nice set with solids in a border. I think that I will wait before sewing these all together in order to balance the colors.

Years ago, I gave up on new year's resolutions, and began picking a focus year for the year. Last year was "purpose", and I was wondering what to choose for this year, when the word chose me instead. Jan1st, as I headed off to church, a neighbor shouted out "Happy new year" in english, and as I was rushing home for the zoom date, another neighbor stopped while passing by on his bike, to give me a high-five and wishes in english. The overflowing of love from family and friends calls out for gratitude, which will be a fine focus for this year.

Cleaning out the dust bunnies from under the eves at the head of my futon, I made room for the bunnies and a few owls to enjoy the new year and the reminder they bring of friends past and present and happy events.

I hope my blogging friends will also enjoy a year full of happiness and gratitude.

Done at last

Not a very bright picture as the sun was still behind the buildings this morning. Maybe I will try again later in the week. I began this as part of the "Nine Patch Adventure" on the "Celebrate Hand Quilting" facebook page.  Maybe back in November of last year.

Finished last night, October 1st, the size is 71 inches by 88 inches and I was hoping to use up lots of two-inch blocks in my scrap tin. Looking at my tin now, I have hardly made a dent in the stash.

This is a detail of all that blue quilting.

I don't think it did much to hide the variety of white and off-white fabrics.

The quilting in the blue border hardly shows at all ...

... but if you look closely you could find a few rather long stitches that were accidents when I was trying to pass the needle through to the next row instead of stopping and starting over.

Anyway, a man riding by on a fast horse would probably miss those bloopers.

Thursday the tiny flowers on the kinmokusei (sweet olive) burst in bloom throughout the neighbourhood.

I had passed this small potted tree on Wednesday and seen the tiny buds looking like pimples on the branches and wondered when they would bloom.

Usually it is the sweet smell that gets you to look up into the trees but this year ... maybe because of the rainy summer or heat ?? the trees have out-done their usual performance and if a flower that tiny could be termed "showy", they have made the grade. So ... fall marches in, bit by bit. Happy October!

Set your goals and shoot high

It has been a while since my last post.

Sometimes life gets in the way.

Last Friday was my first pack meeting of the school year.  With the large turnover of people in the Tokyo area, we say goodbye to cubs and parents and leaders every spring. Our first meeting is run with crossed fingers, wondering how many new families will show up ...
How many new youth ... will anyone step forward to fill the leader gaps?

So ... the plan was, I take over the kids and the parents meet with the committee and leaders to go over all that "stuff" ... fees, schedules, uniforms, books, activities, recruiting, etc.

So ... I had the kids sit in a circle in one corner of the room and gave the other half to the adults.
We went over the 12 points of the Scout Law and how we might apply them to our little project ... just things like "helpful" (some things may take four hands),  "courteous" ( do we snatch the scissors away from the guy next to us or might we say, can I use those when you are through?) Thrifty? well, this is a recycle project. Clean, yes, in the end there we must leave the room cleaner than we found it.

I had prepared the milk cartons, cutting, folding, and taping the box and punching holes in the needed places. The kids could choose a box, a colored rubber band and a skinny tan rubber band, a toothpick, a plastic spoon, and a set if chopsticks.

The process was ... break chopsticks in two.
choose the one with the widest top and tape the colored rubber band to the wide end with the yellow tape. ... Tape the plastic spoon to the other end of that chopstick and then pull the end of the colored band through the hole on the end of the box. (I brought a crochet hook to use if it was needed) ...Put the toothpick through the end of the colored rubber band that had been pulled through, pull it tight and tape the toothpick in place.
The second thin rubber band was used to lash the first chopstick (spoon face down) to the first one that was half-way through the holes at the forward end.
Then the second chopstick was pushed through the other side and adjustments were made in position and length of the spoon-stick below the lashing.

I had brought pom-poms for the kids to practice shooting their catapult as they finished while I helped those who needed help with the lashing or adjusting.
When everyone had finished, I called everyone back to the circle and we discussed how we could use these creations to make a game that would be fun for everyone. (we had three sisters joining the activity, one of them a three-year-old ... who actually did a good job of keeping up).

Our second set of ammunition was mini marshmallows. When the parents were finished, we formed our closing circle, and because we pass a squeeze around the circle, the catapults were placed by the owner's feet while the reflection and announcements were finished. (We managed to fill the empty positions with new leaders stepping up) The reward for following these instructions was a hand full of mini-marshmallows to take home (or eat as the case may be).

With the prep-work, teaching, meetings, and plenty else going on, not a lot of quilting got done.

Nikko and I had to go off to the little fabric store near the far station to get more blue thread just to finish the inner triangles.

The other day I finished the round and since I had all that new thread, I decided on blue for the outer triangles.

I have to say, having quilted so many of these triangles already, the speed has picked up considerably.

I mark two or three at a time and then move the hoop to the next set. I am using a pen with ink that disappears with water, but in this humidity, it often fades before I get to the spot.

The outer border will be quilted with white. I am hoping by the time I get there I will have figured out a good way to mark the floral with the pattern I have in mind.

Red Spider lilies are one of the harbingers of autumn.
They come up before the leaves and are hardly noticed until they burst in joyous bloom along the borders of rice paddies and forests.

I was surprised to walk around the back street and see these pale pink lilies blooming in the raised bed between our house and the street.

Maybe they wanted to get their show time before the red ones take over.
I glanced in the front pot to see if I might have missed them coming, but they have yet to even poke up through the soil.                                

 Early morning onigiri delivery has begun with my delivery on Monday. Nikko was glad to greet and be greeted by her Shibuya friends. Work is stacking up for the rest of the week. My son has been working out the mailbox issues. Mr Google is still in battle gear but I have not thrown out yahoo so who knows when the next challenge will appear.

Blue or white? What do you think?

With a seemingly constant parade of typhoons coming through, the rain has managed to collect in multiple spots and has become breeding grounds for hoards of mosquitoes.

Unlike the blood-sucking helicopters of Minnesota, Japanese mosquitoes are very tiny. If you can keep from scratching a new bite, it quickly goes away but that is easier said than done.

During summer camp, I was asked to teach the insect study merit badge and one of the requirements was to raise an insect from larvae to adult. In a weeks time, the only insect I can think of is a mosquito and I had scouts running through the woods, scooping in puddles for wigglers.

Well, how long does it take to raise a mosquito?
On my table I have a cup of water with a paintbrush standing in it. I am using a purple Chako Ace pen to mark the blocks for quilting. The purple ink will disappear with time (especially in Tokyo humidity) but a swipe with the wet brush will make it go faster.

Sunday morning, when I dipped the brush in the cup, there was a wiggler in the water. I decided to leave it and see how long it would take to reach adulthood. In three days it shed it's skin and the fourth day it flew out in my face when I removed the cloth on top. By now it has probably bitten me more than once and laid eggs in some other container.

I see beautiful pictures on blogs of people's porches and decks, set with comfy chairs and tables. Well, no room on this tiny property, but even if there was, who would want to sit out and feed those little buggers. Not me!

So .... keeping inside with a few mosquitoes was the best plan of the week and now the center area of the nine-patch is all quilted and I am thinking of how to do the inner border.

I came up with this design which I have drawn on using the marking pen. I think it fits with the rest of the quilting and won't be too fussy to do. (I really don't like a lot of stopping and starting.

At this point, I am thinking of using the blue thread on the inner triangle and white on the outer one. I will probably quilt a simple cable in the outer blue border because I don't think anything fussy will show in the print.

I would really like to quilt both triangles while they are in the hoop so that when I work my way back to where I started, that inner border will be done. So ... I sit and ponder ... all blue? or blue and white?
My blue thread is almost gone.
My purpose for using the blue was to calm the variety of whites .
The whites in the border are all the same fabric.
Guess I'll take Nikko for a walk while I think this over ... not that I haven't had weeks to mull the next step. What do you think?

How to avoid wet feet

Two quilt shows in one month!

the first one was at Odakyu Department Store in Machida.

Being near my daughter's home, we agreed to meet up with both daughter and granddaughter and Norie's Mother-in-law.

Though I took my camera, no photographs were allowed. These quilts were not all new but the works of a number of " Top Quilters" ... which, in Japan, usually are teachers with many followers or "deshi".

The second show was held at Ikebukuro Seibu Department Store. ( the end of one train line that runs from my area into town).

This was the 13th of these shows and it, too was the work of 100 "Top Quilters".

Again there were some quilts I have seen before in other shows, but is was a nice show with a variety of quilts ... the majority hand quilted.

Again no photos other than one small section showing things quilters had created for keeping their tools in order.

There were special pocketed bags for carrying the goodies and storing them.

There were small wall quilts with the display and a roped off area for viewers so as not to get too close.

Of course, though there was a small sign on the wall at each display, the writing was small and one might need a telephoto lens or binoculars to see who made the display and what the comments said.

Between my chatelaine and my thread racks I probably don't need to copy any of these ideas but it was nice to see I am not the only organization freak.

Maybe I need to coordinate my carrying bag with my quilts.



Well, everything I make ends up scrappy so perhaps I am coordinated.

Here we have some nice restful tones.

Seen anything yet that inspires you to get more organized?

Here are some small hangings that suggest seasons in Japan.


Most are summer with fireflies and flowers but I do see an autumn pumpkin and some hina dolls.

No way to make out the sign on the wall.

I guess as an owl-lover I should add this one too.


I have a printed panel with almost this same design only all in blue prints.

One of these days I have planned to turn it into a table runner but If I had wall space, this might also be an alternative.

There were lots of small shops at both shows and it was fun to wander around and check out the goodies for sale. I did see some things I wished I owned but actually do not need or even have room for.


I visited this show at the end of a very busy week with school starting up, there were all kinds of teacher meetings and lots of prep work.

My nine-patch quilting was limited to just one or two blocks a day and some days I half slept as I sat with the hoop in my lap.

Friday I finished off all the quilting around the small nine-patch areas. My next move was to quilt in the ditch around all the remaining two-inch blocks down to the first inner border.

From Yesterday I decided on a design to use in the inner blocks.

Since it was a space only two inches square, I modified the pattern I have been using in the neighbouring blocks.

I am still using the blue thread ... though I may need to buy a new spool before long.

In this photo you can see four different shades of white. Maybe the blue hides the differences a bit but it also shows up the unevenness of my stitches.

At any rate, I doubt this quilt will ever face judges in a show so it is safe.

I have just a few more of these blocks to quilt and then I have to come up with a plan for the ones next to the border.

I am thinking of a diagonal pattern to meet the corner blocks.

Then next will be the triangles in the inner boarder. Those whites are all the same but I will probably use the blue thread there ... at least to the inner border. Maybe the outer triangles could go to white because the outer boarder will be quilted with white and since the fabric pattern is busy, may not show much or at all.

My outdoor plants have been quite happy the last two weeks with lots of rain passing through. Today a typhoon was expected but, as with the last one, it seems to have brushed past our area leaving only the bordering rain and gusts. Since one of my number one hates is wet feet in wet shoes, this is a good excuse to stay inside and catch up on some quilting.

Not part of the plan

I was not really planning to work on quilting during the hot days of summer. In fact, I have another piece I should be working on and have yet to begin.

And ... that is the reason I have 19 of these blocks quilted .

The project I should be working on is a banner to hang in the church entryway on "Rally Day" at the end of this month. The design was sent to me about a month ago ... some stuff needing to be appliqued on a yellow background. Within a week, I had gone to the local shop and found a meter of very pretty yellow fabric, bought it, and brought it home.

THEN... I began cleaning up the house to host my quilt group.

I was very careful when moving items to sort and organize them so I would be able to find them again. The yellow fabric sat folded on the back of the sofa since it was my next project and I needed the reminder to get it started.  So, what happened to it? THAT is a mystery I have been taking weeks to solve and I am no closer now than when I began.

I have taken every room apart and put it back together again. I sit with the hoop in my lap trying to think of one more place where I haven't looked. My house is NOT that big. I have looked in or under or behind every piece of furniture, box, bin, bag, you name it, and that bright yellow fabric is nowhere to be found. So, I sit and quilt and ask myself where else it might be. I honestly can't think of any place I have not looked.

The quilt top has 16 blocks left to quilt before I have to figure out the border areas. There is no hurry to get it done. SO....
Now I must bite the bullet and get to that banner. I am not going to go out and buy more fabric! It will probably show up the minute I put the last stitch in that banner. I do have some yellow fabrics and I will just figure out how to make use of what I have. I need a sun in the center and thought I would piece one with the giant dahlia design. I used to have a pattern that I traced from a quilting friend and used for a round table cloth. After going through all my files of patterns, I have not been able to find that either.

I have tons of quilt magazines and pattern books, so I began going through them looking for that pattern. Do you think I could find one? After several more days of sitting on the floor in front of my bookcase going through every book, not one pattern for the giant dahlia. Does this banner really want to get done?

Well, I am not going to go back to quilt one more block until I have this thing in progress. I found a pattern for a mariner's compass. Maybe it could pass for a sun design and I should just go with that.
Well, today is the day. Next week will disappear with Vacation Bible School. Five days of train rides might be productive but I just have to get started the minute I close this laptop!

An Ojiisan in the neighbourhood had a number of cacti with large buds.

When Norie and I stopped to admire them, he said they would open at night and probably in a few days.

A few nights later, I took Nikko for her evening walk past his place. As he had said, he moved all the cacti out in a row in front of his former shop.

They had just begun to open. There was a light breeze but just enough to make photography difficult. Still, I got this picture without a flash.

Nikko and I went back a few hours later to admire them all in a row.

In the shadow of the lamp post they didn't make much of a picture but they sure were worth the night time jaunt.

Yesterday I passed by again and noticed there is a bud coming up on another of the plants. Hurray for the "odd-one-out". There it sits with it's friends, waiting for it's one time to shine.

And, after seeing how much I enjoyed that hosta flower from my neighbour's garden,

two more flower stalks have popped up .

Everything in it's own time....
And banner time is now

with or without yellow fabric or patterns!
No more excuses.

Not one more quilt stitch until those pieces are marked and cut!

Plan as you go .....?

This is the fabric I selected for the nine-patch border.

It is darker than the small sashing but has some of the same blue ... kind of an all-over non-directional print that will be easy to join at the corners.

Following some good advice, I took the quilt in progress up and laid it out on the bed to see how much I might need to add to make it fit well.

It will probably not need much of a border for that bed other than to make it look finished.

The quilt itself has piecing that is one or two, inch blocks and the small nine-patches are three inches.
I will have to think about the quilting as part of the plan. The stitching won't really show against this print so making a wide border that needs lots of quilting doesn't make much sense unless I needed the quilt to be much bigger.

Laid out here is three inches and I could make it four inches.  it might be a bit difficult to mark a fancy quilt pattern on this print but I could do something simple like hearts or a zig-zag. I could probably squeeze out another one-inch strip of that light blue print for an outer border ... with a lot of piecing ... (those scraps have no particular plan to fill).

And ... talk about "Plan as you go" ..
Maybe all my quilts could have that name.

While looking through my kid-friendly bin, I found a pack of already cut hexagons left over from an I Spy quilt.

I have made three of these, two for family and one as a baby quilt for the friend who is getting the just finished baby quilt. I don't remember which these were left over from as I think one was a bigger size cut.
Anyway, I decided these will go well with the left-over fabric from the last quilt. I like to have some take-along work so have begun to sew these into larger hexagon blocks.

I could keep these as is and add yellow triangles in between if I need to make it bigger. I still have no idea how big the pieces I have will make it. (that would involve more math than I am capable of).

I certainly have enough kid-friendly prints to cut more and my templates were in the baggy with the pieces.

I could also just add a section between each of the big pieces in the end, keeping it take along work for a longer time.

Once it gets too big, I really can't work on it during a train ride.
(or sitting in a meeting)

Since this is for a little boy who is already about three or four months old, I don't want to dilly-dally too long. I enjoy the journey but I do have to think a bit about the destination.
(At one point I-Spy quilts become less fun).
I think by the time my kids were six months old they were using words ... some were actually using sentences by then ... so I think this planning has to get moving so I can keep moving too.

Should something begin to look like a UFO ... it is only still in the planning stage.

Busy days

The days are just flying by to the point I dread looking at my date book.

Of course some of those days were lots of fun.
On the 16th, Norie and I met with my good friend, Shigeko to take in a museum exhibit.

Shegeko always finds outstanding exhibits to see and this one was excellent.

The  National Art Center, Tokyo hosted an exibition of "The Best Selection of the Ohara Museum of Art".

There were seven rooms filled with ancient art from Asia, going through early modern art from EL GRECO, Manet, Rodin, Degas, Renoir, Matisse, etc.

The collection had outstanding works and those of Japanese artists influenced by modern art.

I was also impressed with the large number and variety of viewers, all ages from young to old, canes and wheelchairs, jeans, fashionable, Fancy kimono, dress kimono ... both women and men ... dress suits and casual. Not a weekend, but the middle of the day and the middle of the week. Japanese and foreigners ...  good English descriptions in each room ... Definitely the highlight of the week.

Other events included a meeting of my old quilt group, Tokyo Merit Badge day ... First-class trail in the morning and collections merit badge in the afternoon. It is always fun to see what kind of things teenage boys collect and share their passion.

Sunday the choir sang two services with practice between and after and though there was a St. Paddy's parade, I was off to lunch with a friend. I was a bit disappointed not to get to meet up with the Tokyo Piping Society in which I was a member for many years.

The quilting is nearing the end on the baby quilt but I will need a guest bed shortly and the nine-patch blocks were all laid out on top. I was afraid if I didn't get those blocks together, I would have to put them back in the box and it would be ages before I could arrange them.

So, above is what I have made so far. The blocks are each only 6 inches square so it is obvious this size is too small for a bed. Now I will think whether I should make more blocks or  find some other way to increase the size. I have been thinking of making a border of nine-patches set on point. Maybe adding several borders using up more of my cut squares.... I really have not put much of a dent in my collection.

Well, the rest of the week is busy too, Choir sings for the Maundy Thursday service and our small choir is singing at the Good Friday Service, a beautiful piece, "Crucifixus" by Lotti, eight parts, and eight voices ... 2 parts for each section and I have the first tenor. This is the second time our small group has sung special music and I feel so blessed to be included.  Special Easter music will follow and then we will be busy with final plans for my husband's memorial service.

Summer Snow visits the Bloggers Theme contest.

This week's theme is nine patches and certainly that is one of my favorite blocks.

As I mentioned in the previous post,
I have been cutting scraps into 1,2,3,and 4 and a half inch squares and collecting them in tins for later use. Because many scraps are small strips, the one-inch box is always overflowing.

As a way to use some of the pieces I had been given by friends, I made lots of nine-patch blocks using darks and lights. I had no particular plan in mind but I found a white fabric with small flowers that went well as a background and pieced them into snowballs. This is an interesting collection of fabrics both old and new and many are cut with animals, always thinking of napping quilts for a child. (Having been a non-napper myself).

This is one of my earlier quilts made with no purpose other than the fun in making it. I have given many of the quilts from this era away and have no digital photos of them so I decided while I have the chance I will take out a few of what I have left for portraits. As long as this one fit the theme for the week, I thought,"why not"!

This quilt was shown in 'American Patchwork & Quilting' 6/1/94 and also in 1995 Volume 7 'Quilts Japan'.


As I mentioned, I have been cutting little blocks from a box of gifted scraps. This selection is the one and a half inch box. It is crammed to the top and I am wondering how many more nine-patches might come from here. It was somewhat of a relief to switch gears to this + and x block.

The 14th block is almost finished. I still have no plan for them other than, like the snowball quilt, to have fun putting them together. I took them with me to my quilt group on Friday and my friends had fun arranging and re-arranging them and thinking of how they might go together. I'm sure that like those nine-patches so long ago, they will reveal their plan in time.

There are some interesting quilts in this weeks contest. The quilting gallery button will take you there to see what others are showing.



I still could use some suggestions of what to do with the sewed strips. Un-sew them? re-cut them and use them as larger blocks? I will never be able to sew them by machine. Maybe a car seat cover for Nikko?

Have a nice weekend.