The People's Choice - Wizards

Jo at Serendipidous Stitching is hosting a Stitch A Long the first Saturday of the month, with the topics chosen by her readers.  This month's topic is Wizards. 

I only have one - The Dragon Master by Dorothy Lesher

The Under-robe Ornament

When I was working on the DragonMaster, I liked the pattern of the under-robe and thought it would make a pretty ornament.

Using 28 count black evenweave fabric, gold Accentuate, red Kreinik #4 braid, and Needlepoint Inc. #895 purple, I made up this little ornament.  

The back did not photograph well, but it is black velvet.  I added a little piece of black ribbon for the hanger and Mill Hill seed beads for the edging.

I’m working on a second ornament now in threads that Ted chose.

DragonMaster Finish

Would you believe it is snowing here today?  It is! 

Here’s a photo of my little neighbor helping his mom dig out their car.

I finished the DragonMaster yesterday and Ted took these nice photos.

Now the SunDragon is begging me to work on him.

Our Day to Shovel

The residents of our apartment building take turns shoveling out the entry ways (there are two) in the mornings before people go out to work.  There is a schedule so you know when it is your turn.

We can’t read the names, but we know Ted’s name is the only one in katakana, the others are in kanji. Today is our day (January 23).

We went out at 6 am to shovel and luckily it only snowed a small amount overnight, and the snow that is falling is very fine. It didn't take very long.

I worked on the DragonMaster yesterday – the hair and beard and mustache and a little more on the Dragon’s wing.

Polite Greetings

When I meet someone on the street or when I’m at Haruki, I say Ohayou Gozaimasu (Good Morning) or Konnichiwa (Hello) and usually the person says the same back to me.  Sometimes people say more and I don’t know what they are saying.  One day an elderly woman said what I thought was Sequoia desu ne.  When I got home I told Ted what I thought she said.  He thought she was probably saying Sugoi not Sequoia and was talking about the snow.  That made sense and I should have recognized what she said because I know the word sugoi and everyone always talks about the snow.

At the university, students frequently greet me in English. I respond in English even if I don’t always know what they have said to me or if I have to try to figure out why they have said it to me.  Hello usually sounds like Hair-ro. The “L” sound isn’t easy for Japanese speakers.  My first name becomes Pamera. The other day I asked a student “How are you?” and he said “I have a cold, that’s a condition.”  It sounded odd, but I think he was trying to tell me he was ill as opposed to feeling cold.

Last week, the wife of one of Ted’s co-workers gave me a ride to Japanese class, even though she wasn't going to my class. My teacher gave me and another person a ride home. (Everyone continues to be very helpful).  Next week I will be walking to class.  Yesterday, I walked to the building where it is held, so I knew I could find it and so I could time how long it would take me to walk next week. Here are a few pictures from my walk.

Pachinko Parlor (Statue of Liberty on top)

Stitching update

I received this beautiful Japanese stitching kit as a birthday gift from my friends Kazu and Yoh.  The directions are in Japanese, but I think I can figure out what to do.  I haven’t started it yet, because I don’t have an iron and I need that for the first step.  I hope to go to the second hand store and look for an iron again this week.

I have been working on the DragonMaster.  I did a lot of couching to finish the sleeves and outline the robes.  I have also been working on the hair and the beard. I have a lot more to do, then work on the mustache on top of the beard once it is finished. Random stitches are harder than they look.

The Furnace

We don’t really have a furnace, but that’s what I call this toyu (kerosene) stove that heats our apartment.  At first I thought it was kind of scary, but not so much now.

 

Ted orders the toyu at the toyu store across the street from Haruki, then carries the four containers down to the apartment entry way, as do others in our building.  The next day, the truck comes and fills the containers.  If you have a car, you can take your containers and fill them up at the gas station, but we don’t, so the toyu truck comes to us.

Ted carries the filled containers up to our third floor apartment and uses a little pump to get the toyu from the containers to this big thing in the corner of the room with the stove.

It keeps the apartment warm.  We turn the furnace off when it gets warm and turn it on when it gets cool.  It seems kind of old fashioned, but that’s how people heat their homes here. It works.

Dragon Update

I still have more to do on the wing, but I was getting tired of all the couching, so I thought I’d work on the wizard for awhile.  I had quite a bit of the wizard done before.  Guess what?  More couching! The ends of the sleeves/cuffs are stitched like the dragon’s spine. It’s coming along slowly, but I am making progress.

The Entertainment Center

In our home in North Carolina, we had three televisions and DirectTV with hundreds of satellite channels. I used to record a lot of programs like Law & Order, CSI, and The Closer, then watch them with the commercials on fast forward.   We don’t have any television here, but I do sometimes watch Maru videos on YouTube on my computer.  I don’t miss the television.  This little box and the window are my new entertainment center.

It has a wireless connection to the outside to measure the temperature, in Fahrenheit, of course.  I want to go with metric and yen and the Japanese measurements, but I haven’t quite figured out how to think in Centigrade.  I heard someone say he didn’t know how to dress when it was -1 or -2.  He was talking about Centigrade, of course.  We were in the Indian restaurant the day after a cold night and the owner said it was -10 the night before, again Centigrade.  I know that means it was below freezing, but I don’t have any scale in my head to figure out just how cold that is.

I’m constantly watching the gadget to see if the temperature is going up or down.  If the humidity goes up, I think it must be snowing or about to start snowing. We have a railing out on the balcony where snow collects until it gets too high and falls off. I watch to see if it will fall in or out.  The snow can change from flurries to white out conditions very quickly, so I like to watch the window and keep tabs on the snow outside when I’m inside. 

The coldest I’ve seen on this gadget is 10 F.  The warmest, on a sunny day, was about 35 F.  Most day times it gets in the mid-20’s F. The weather here is quite entertaining.

Dragon stitching

I’m doing some compensation stitches and outlining – nothing much that is photo worthy.  Here is a picture of the DragonMaster’s designer and teacher, Dorothy Lesher, with her piece, taken at the class I took at Calloway Gardens School of Needle Arts in January 2010. For more information on Calloway Gardens School of Needle Arts, see http://www.callawaygardens.com/info/calendar/calendar.needlearts.event.aspx

Shogatsu

Shogatsu is the Japanese word for new year.  This is one of the most important holidays for Japanese and is a family holiday, much like Christmas is for Americans.  People travel to be with their families over the New Year holiday.  The parking area for our building is nearly empty and the only person I've seen is the art professor who lives on the first floor, because everyone is gone to their families elsewhere.

There are many traditions that go with the Japanese New Year celebrations. The end of December and the beginning of January is the busiest time for the post office because of the tradition of sending New Year’s post cards, like sending Christmas cards in the US.

(Correction - New Year’s Eve night we went to the Buddhist temple, not shrine, as I mistakenly wrote in my post yesterday.)

Firsts in the new year are important.  Hatsumode is the first visit to the Shrine in the new year, so Ted and I went on New Year’s Day also. Some shrines have millions of visitors.  It was very crowded and the line was long at the one we went to, which gave us plenty of time to observe. There was one section with food vendors of carnival type food.  The corn dog booth had “French Dogs” written in English on their sign.

The food court

Getting close

Coming and going

When we got to the shrine, there was trough for the five yen coin.  After throwing the coin, you clap twice, bow twice, and say a short prayer. 

There was another place where you could buy your fortune, called Omikuji, which predicts how you will do in business and love in the next year.  If the prediction is bad, you tie it to a tree on the shrine grounds to prevent it from coming true. To be on the safe side, we tied ours on the rack because we didn’t know if it was good or bad.

My fortune

Ted's fortune

In another area was the purification pool, where you could wash away the previous year, so we did that too.

We saw one little dog in line and he barked at us.  The funny thing was that the dog barked in English and not Japanese.

Dragon Update

I’ve been working on the wing, and although I still have a lot to do, it’s coming along.

Happy New Year – the year of the Dragon!