I Think I'm Done

I stitched on this most of the day and I think I’m done with the embellishing.  If my neighbor is done with hers when she comes over this week, we’ll work on making them into the penny purses.  If she is still working on hers, I may add a few more stitches to mine.  We’ll see.

Here are some photos of the whole piece and a few close-ups. I've used a few of the TAST stitches I've recently learned. The size is about 10 ½ inches by 6 inches.

Every Day I Stitch

Everyday I’m thankful that I get to stitch.

Here’s what the yo-yos look like – not much different that the last time you saw it, but I really am making progress on joining them together. I don’t know how many different fabrics I have in this.  Some fabrics I cut 20 or 25 circles and others only one or two.  (The panda is guarding the yo-yos to make sure they don’t get out of line when I’m not looking.)

 

I haven’t forgotten about the mystery bag, although the only time I’ve worked on it lately is between classes once a week when I go to Sapporo. I still have a lot to do on this project.

 

My neighbor and I are still working on our penny purses.  She brought hers over this week with stitches on every seam, probably thinking she was done. She saw some new stitches on mine she wanted to add to hers, so we tried them out on the doodle cloth and stitched some more.  She took hers home to add more stitches and we’ll get together again next week.  I forgot to take her picture, but here is what mine looks like for now.

 

I hate to put my needle down at night and am happy to pick it up again in the morning.

A Quilt Pin and Books in English

You may recall that I won a quilt pin from Jessica’s giveaway on her Life Under Quilts blog. (I wrote about it on my post here). Yesterday I received a package from her – the quilt pin and four books in English!  Thank you, Jessica!

 

I don’t think she will mind my telling you that her book Quilting on the Go goes on sale June 11, 2013, wherever books are sold, and that it is available for preorder.

Waiting for Spring

The Bridge Park was part of my walking route yesterday.  It’s still looking pretty gloomy with not a single cherry tree in bloom yet.

 

That big white area is snow that has yet to melt.

Last year I posted pictures on May 12th of this park in bloom. I know it will be beautiful again soon.

TAST 66 - Coral Stitch

This week’s TAST stitch (from Sharon B’s Pintangle blog) is the coral stitch, also known as coral knot, German knot stitch, knotted stitch, beaded stitch, and snail trail.  Here are my samples - the yellow variegated is #5 perle, the gray is #8 perle. The red is also #5 perle, showing uneven spacing with a vertical knot stitch and even spacing with a vertical knot stitch.
 

I’ve been working on the yo-yo’s and am on the seventh set of two.  I think this is going to take awhile.

Two By Two

I have all the lines of eight done and have just started stitching one line of eight to another line of eight. I am pinning the lines together on this step so I don’t end up with the whole thing being terribly out of line. That's the plan anyway.

 

When I get that done, I will stitch the two lines to the next two lines, and so on.

Is the Weekend Over?

After two long holiday weekends, a two day weekend seems short. We had a nice weekend, as short as it was.

Saturday afternoon, Ted gave a presentation to the local International Exchange Society.

 

Later, we shopped for some garden seeds, and we hope to be planting soon.

 

Sunday was a bit gloomy, but I went out for a walk on a path near where we live. This is what I saw along the way.

 

Oh, and I did stitch a bit.  I’ve begun putting the yo-yo’s together in lines of eight. After I get all the lines stitched, I’ll stitch one line to the next. So far, so good.

Adding Some Beads and a Few Buttons

The yo-yo shawl project continues.  I made a few more covered rings.  Next, I made five tiny yo-yo’s and stitched them on bigger yo-yos.

 

I’ve added some beads and a few buttons, but not many.
 

 

I continue to rearrange.  Maybe I’ll be ready to start putting them together soon.

The Easter Bunny Pushed Me Down in the Mud

People in Hokkaido seem to equate “Easter” with “Spring” and not the Christian event that I think of. The children’s English school where I teach had an Easter egg hunt at a nearby park this week for each class of students. The school doesn’t allow photos so I’ll just have to tell you about the fun instead of showing you.  It was more like a treasure hunt, where the students followed clues (in English) that were in plastic colored eggs. As you can imagine, this was quite exciting for the students, especially the five year olds.  As we were all running down the muddy path from one egg clue to the next, I tripped and fell flat out in the mud. I’m not sure how it happened, but I suspect the Easter Bunny pushed me.  The five year olds are very fast and were ahead of me when I fell, so there were no witnesses to what really happened.

I may have already written about how you take your shoes off at the door and sit on the floor at this school.  Well, I couldn’t sit down when we returned to the school because I was all muddy.  I continued to be muddy for the older children’s class and egg hunt, the walk back to the station, and the return trip home on the bus.  I’ve washed the pants three times and they aren’t clean yet. I'll work on cleaning the jacket next.  Who knew teaching English was so messy?

In my university class, I’ve been using a fluency activity I learned at the JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) meeting, called 4-2-1. Half of the class are designated as speakers and half listeners.  I give them each the choice of 10 very easy topics, such as my sports team, animals at the zoo, television programs I like, etc.  The speakers each choose a topic and  talk on the same topic three times with three different listeners, for four minutes the first time, two minutes the second time, and for one minute the last time. The listeners can only listen. They can’t ask questions or make corrections.  I walk around and listen and keep the time.  By the third time (in the shortest time frame), they are much more confident with their talk and there are fewer pauses. We do this twice each class, giving each student a chance to be the speaker and the listener.   When I hear the same pronunciation problems or grammar mistakes from several students I can incorporate that into the next lesson without correcting anyone individually. If more than a few people choose the same topic in a class, I remove that topic from the selection for the next time, so they can talk about and hear different subjects.  I think they are starting to look forward to this activity each class.

This week after class, Alicia and I worked on a scrapbook album instead of stitching. She was surprised to be able to finish the album (except for the journaling she will do at home) in one afternoon using the power layout technique I taught her. Next week we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled stitching projects.

Some Bananas, A Panda, and A Bunch of Crazy Stitches

My neighbor and I have been working on a penny purse project.  We spent some time working on a doodle cloth, trying out basic stitches and combining them with other stitches.  Then we worked on the patchwork part.  She was gone last week for Golden Week and brought me back omeyage - these banana treats and a Panda that came from the National Zoo in Tokyo.

 

This week we began “embellishing”, which is my favorite part of a crazy quilt project.  There aren’t any rules and you can use whatever you like. If you don’t like what you’ve done, you add more to it to change it into something else. She may be finished with her crazy stitches by next week, but I always have a hard time knowing when to stop. I think we are off to a great start.