Friday I traveled to Izu Kogen, at the invitation of the carving teacher I previously took a couple of classes. If you are interested in Buddhist wood carving, please contact Mr. Hitoshi Yamazaki.
The statues in this section of the exhibit were carved by Mr. Yamazaki. Not only were these statues interesting to look at, but he explained many things about the carvings and Buddhism in English for us!
The statues in this section of the exhibit are carved by student carvers.
The exhibition is being held at Art Gallery Sauin inside the Izu Kogen Station for a few more days: May 22, 23, 25, 28, 30, from 10 am - 4 pm, and admission is free. I highly recommend checking it out!
Monday, I was in Shizuoka City, walking on a street I hadn’t walked down before. I saw a park to my right and decided to take a look around. It was such a pretty place.
I might visit this place again.
Hawaiian quilt table cover progress
New Start - Bristol Bag Etui from Willing Hands 2, Betsy Morgan
I started basting the shapes on the linen.
Japanese Pattern 45
We met on Sunday and worked on our Hawaiian projects. I haven’t worked on mine much, while everyone else made a lot of progress. I plan to work on mine more before we meet again. I’m not very happy with my appliqué technique, but I will try harder.
I didn’t take many pictures because I was so caught up with trying to understand what was being talked about. One topic was thimbles and how to use them. I don’t use a thimble when quilting, so I was no help. We viewed a YouTube video, but I don’t know if it helped anyone. That led to pronouncing thimble.“TH” is a difficult sound for many Japanese speakers. (I often hear Sank you, for Thank you.) I tried to give other examples of words with TH, and a new word for everyone was Thumb, which turned out to be funny.
This stitcher(above) has finished her appliqué and is preparing to sandwich hers to make it into a wall hanging.
The other three stitchers are making cushions. The stitcher on the left is making a two color, two sided cushion. I will try to remember to take a picture next time.
Tea time was delicious, with souvenirs from various Golden Week travels. If you are wondering if we ate all of this in one sitting, we didn’t. We all had some for later or for breakfast.
I’m already looking forward to our next get together.
This is Year 5 of the temperature quilts. I added pink side panels, and it now measures about 62”x58”, which is smaller than the other temperature quilts. I’ll think about it a few days, but I’m leaning toward leaving it this size.
Yesterday, before lunch, I went out for a walk. I like to go to the train stations and walk up and down the stairs a couple of times. Although I’ve been to this station hundreds of times, I never noticed there was a fabric store near it.
The store is fairly large, on the first floor of a taller building. It’s primarily a fabric store, but it also sells DMC floss and other embroidery supplies. After looking around the store, I stopped at the rolls of quilt batting. The only store clerk came over to see if I needed help, and he spoke English!
I hadn’t planned on buying batting, but the man helped me figure out how much I needed, then measured and cut it generously. I am very pleased I found the store and now have the batting to quilt the year 5 quilt. I’m sure I will be visiting this store again!
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There are four climbing routes up the 3,776 meter Mt. Fuji. Three routes are in Shizuoka Prefecture, and one, Yoshida Trail, in Yamanashi Prefecture. Beginning this year, climbers wanting to climb Mt. Fuji via the Yoshida Trail must agree to terms, including wearing warm clothing and proper footwear. Access to the trail will be denied for noncompliance. This new rule and others come due to an increase in foreign visitors and overcrowding. Local governments are trying to address issues ahead of the summer climbing season, which begins in early July and ends September 10th.
I’m sad that there are more and more rules, but it seems they are needed. On April 22nd, a climber called police and was airlifted from the peak of Mt. Fuji after he lost some of his climbing equipment while climbing the Fujinomiya Trail in Shizuoka Prefecture and fell sick with nausea. (Note: the mountain was closed to climbers at that time, being open from July 10th to September 10th.) Five days later, he had to be rescued from the mountain AGAIN when he returned to find his cell phone and succumbed to altitude sickness again. The man, who has not been publicly identified, is a 27 year old university student and Chinese national who lives in Tokyo, according to police. It is unknown whether he was able to find his phone.
Lizzie Kate autumn ornament
Here is the December ornament in this Lizzie Kate series, that I stitched a few years ago.
The Imperial Household Agency Reported the Emperor Emeritus has been admitted to the University of Tokyo Hospital for a heart examination. A regular checkup in April revealed a possible myocardial ischemia, a condition in which blood flow from the coronary arteries to the heart muscle is insufficient. The 91 year old Emperor Emeritus has had no symptoms.
I will watch for additional information on his condition.
Lizzie Kate Ornament - the stitching is finished, now it needs to be made into an ornament. I changed “November” to “autumn”. The squirrel charm came with the pattern.
Scarf progress - filling in some of the open spaces
Japanese Pattern 44
