17 in 2017 - May Report

Mary's background is finished and I'm working on the gold frame.  Little by little....

May Cat is done - five of the 12 black cats.

To see all of my 17 in 2017 projects, check out this page.  To see the progress other participants have made, check it out here.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2018 Partnership Quilt Project

Thanks to Queenie for posting this information on her blog.  I'm posting it again here!  I've made blocks the last few years and finally was able to attend the Quilt Festival for the first time this year.  If you decide to send a block, please let me know so I can look for your when I go to the festival next January!

It is time to make a quilt block for NHK's Partnership Quilt Project at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2018, to be held in Tokyo Dome in January next year.

More information can be found on the official website.

The theme this time is TREE OF LIFE.

For anyone who wants to send in and donate a block to this charity quilt project, here are the rules:

• one block per person
• 15 cm x 15 cm for the motif, add a seam allowance of 1-2 cm on all sides
• flimsy block, i.e. no wadding, no quilting
• your name should be written with pen in the seam allowance of the lower right hand corner
• your block should have reached NHK by 31st July, 2017
• enclose a note with your name, address, tel no, email address
• (for entries within Japan) if you also enclose a pre stamped Japanese postcard (62 yen) with your name and address filled in, it will be returned to you with the number of which quilt your block has been added to
• send to:

Partnership Quilt
NHK Sutekini Handmade
2-2-1 Jinnan
Shibuya-ku

Tokyo 150-8001
Japan

Monday Morning Star Count - Temperature Hexie Quilt

I've seen various examples of temperature afghans or quilts on other blogs in the last year or so.  Last week Sarah from Sarah Did It! wrote about starting a temperature Hexie Quilt.  (You can check out the link to her blog to see her introduction to the project. )

Even though I have a million other things to work on, I decided I would give this a go. Each day's high temperature will be represented by one hexagon.  Seven hexagons in a flower shape will be one week, with Sunday as the center, Monday at the top and continuing around counter-clockwise.  I will applique each hexagon flower to a background fabric block and join the 52 weeks plus an extra in each corner to make the 56 block quilt.  

This is my temperature/color (Farenheit) scheme: 

100 + Brown 

90-99 Red  

80-89 Orange 

70-79 Yellow  

60-69 Green  

50-59 Blue 

40-49 Purple 

30-39 Pink 

20-29 White 

10-19 Black 

I will be using fabric from my stash, so this will be a scrappy type color quilt - any fabric with those colors will be acceptable.

I thought checking the temperature each day might be difficult, so I've decided to check the almanac feature on Weather.com for my town, rather than try to figure out the temperature myself each day. I wasn't sure on what day to start the quilt, but since I was using the almanac, I decided to start with the month of May (actually April 30th, since I am doing Sunday - Saturday for my week). 

Week 1 April 30 - May 6 

74, 77, 67, 68, 69, 73, 75

Week 2 May 7 - 13 

76, 81, 73, 66, 80, 77, 66

Week 3 May 14 - 20 

73, 70, 72, 69, 71, 75, 80

Week 4 May 21 - 27 

81, 78, 77, 74, 74, 70, 80

I like these temperature hexagons already!

Come back next week - I hope to show more of the Tree Wall Hanging.

Earrings and a New Start

The stitchers worked on connecting the earring parts they made the last time. 

They each chose their own colors and beads and made up the patterns of the danglies.  

After that, we made a new start on our next project - crazy quilt bags or hussifs.  Three are choosing to make round drawstring bags and two are designing fold up types with pockets.  

This is going to be a great project.  Stay tuned!

Golden Week Adventures 2017 - Hamamatsu Kite Festival

This is the last of my Golden Week Adventure posts.  I took about a million photos that day, so it has taken me awhile to go through them. My friends and I got on the train at different stations, but met up in the last train car to go to Hamamatsu for the festival. The three day festival attracts approximately two million people over three days. The festival originated over 440 years ago when the then Lord of Hijuma Castle, who ruled Hamamtsu and the surrounding area, raised a kite in celebration of the birth of his first son. In this region of Japan, there is still the tradition of raising a kite with the name of one's child to celebrate the birth.

From the Hamamatsu train station, we took a bus to the area near the Nakatajima Sand Dunes where the kites were flown. It was very crowded and the kites were quite large.  It was exciting to see all that was happening. In addition to the kites to celebrate the birth of children, there are many kites representing different neighborhood groups.  These group kites battle each other in the sky, entangling the 5 mm thick hemp kite lines in an attempt to cut through the other kite's lines using friction. Each group has matching jackets and a bugle and drum band to give signals and cause excitement.

After eating lunch and watching the kites, we headed back to the festival area near the train station.  There were so many things going on!  

Dancing  

Music performances 

Street performers 

There were many of these gotenyatai (palace-like floats), which were in the night parade. Volunteers encouraged us to take our photo wearing the traditional jackets. 

It was a fun day and I hope to attend this festival again next year!