The Leaves are Done

We’re enjoying a nice weekend at home.  Yesterday afternoon we caught up with our friends Vicky and Shelby for lunch at Bombay Blue, then hung out at home talking with them.  I stitched all evening and finished the blanket stitch around the leaves.

 

 

Today we are going to the International Exchange Society’s New Year Pot Luck, which should be fun with good food.

 

13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival

Please check out Queenie's Needlework blog to see NHK partnership quilt #17 that has my block in it and read more about this great event. I posted about my block here. This was my first attempt at epp hexagons.

 

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Leaf Progress

The table runner is coming along.  For the backing, I pieced together some of the fabrics from the front. The binding is a dark red with oak leaves fabric.

I have five leaves stitched down and have begun working on the sixth.

 

In the comments on the last post about this project, Margaret wondered if my new machine could stitch the equivalent of a blanket stitch.  It can, but there are so many fiddling little curves, I didn’t think I could do it and make it look nice.  Queenie asked about the glue in the steam a seam product and if it made it hard to stitch.  Steam a seam is fairly light and easy to stitch through.  I had used another product (I don’t know the name) on another quilt years ago and was not happy using it.  It was thick and the needle ended up sticky, so it was hard to stitch.

13th Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival
I don't get to attend this year, but I'm happy to read all about it at Queenie's Needlework Blog. Check out part one of her reports here.

I Need Some of Those Ruby* Slippers

I live in Iwamizawa and the circle that Iwamizawa sits in gets more snow than anywhere else.  We had a ton of snow last week, followed by a few days with no new snow fall. On the days it doesn’t snow, people are busy digging out and giant trucks are busy hauling away the snow from the streets.  It’s hard for them to keep up.  Wouldn’t you know, the day I have to go to Sapporo, I looked out and saw we had gotten about five or six inches of new snow overnight and it was still falling.

That rectangle on the left is the roof of the bike garage.  No bikes can come out until spring, maybe summer.

 

I got to the bus stop with time to spare, but the time for the bus came and went and there was no bus.

 

This is very unusual in Japan, where public transportation is on time. The bus finally arrived 20 minutes late. There weren’t many vehicles on the road.

 

When the bus driver announced we wouldn’t be taking the kosokudoro (expressway) because of the snow, I was thinking I should have stayed home. It took me 2 ½ hours to get to Sapporo by the back roads and I was 45 minutes late for Japanese class. It was really no surprise that the sky was blue and the sun was shining in Sapporo. Snow did begin to fall before class ended and my friend and classmate Jamie said I could stay with her if I wasn’t able to get home later. I was concerned that if it was snowing in Sapporo, it would be dumping snow at my house.

So, fast forward through the rest of the day, I finished teaching at the children’s English school and walked the 30 minutes to the bus station, only to find out that all busses to my town had been cancelled. There were no other cancellations, just the busses to my town. It was starting to look like there'd be a pajama party at Jamie’s, but I thought maybe the trains would still be running, so I walked as fast as I could from the Chuo bus station to the train station.  Luckily, we are learning the verb ending for “want to” in Japanese class. I was able to tell the man in the information booth (in Japanese) that I wanted to go to Iwamizawa and ask about the train. He said yes, one local train and wrote down 20:11, 10, 810, which meant the time, the track, and the cost. (Local train means it stops at every station).  I bought a ticket from the machine and ran up the stairs to the track.  Long story short (I know, too late), I got home that night.

I really need a pair of Dorothy’s slippers so I can click the heels together – there’s no place like home…..

 

*If you’ve read the Oz series by L. Frank Baum, you know the slippers were really silver, not ruby.

Tuesday Group Starts Something New

Our little group is now three because the fourth one had a baby in December and is busy right now.  She will join us again when the baby is a little older and the snow a little less.  We look forward to having her back.

Last week one of our members finished her hardanger sachet and this week the other member is almost finished.  It was time for them to start a new project and I will start working on an old project again.  I began this Knot Garden a few years ago at a Royal School of Needlework class.  I’ve only put a few stitches in since coming to Japan and I have been wanting to get back to work on it.  My two stitching friends want to work on a smaller (much smaller) version of the garden.  While they are making their own little gardens, I will work on mine.  They will be drawing their own gardens on the canvas and choosing their own stitches.  I think this will be fun for all of us.

My own neglected knot garden

Work in Progress Wednesday - Heads or Tails?

Both!  I worked on both the head and the tail of the Moon Dragon this week.

 

I'm linking up with Sharon B's Pintangle blog.  Check out the works in progress of other stitchers!

 

Autumn Leaves in Winter

I worked on this table runner a bit the last few days.  I finished cutting out the leaves and pressed them to the background with steam a seam.  The next step is to stitch around each leaf with a blanket stitch.

Monday Morning Star Count - 258

 

I had to join two long strips to free up some hexagons to make more flowers.

 

 

This took a long time, but I still was able to make seven more flowers this week.

 

I’m linking up with Jessica’s epp show at Life Under Quilts.  Check out the other epp projects and join in yourself!

My New Sewing Machine

Friday was the first day it didn’t snow, so Ted and I decided to get out in the car to run some errands and go out to lunch.  Besides the post office, the hyaku en shop, and Corona for lunch, we looked at sewing machines at three different stores.  I wanted to buy a basic, inexpensive machine. This is the machine I decided on.

 

I can’t read the instruction booklet, but having owned and used sewing machines in the past, I thought I could figure it out.  There is a little diagram right on the machine showing how to thread it. 

 

My first little project is going to be an applique table runner.  For the base, I cut 40 squares, four inches on a side from five different tan fabrics.  I followed JJ’s tutorial on how to quickly piece squares on her Pragamatic Patchwork blog. Check out the link - it really is quick and easy!

 

Now I’m working on cutting out ten fall leaves.  I hope to have more to show soon.

University Cross Country Ski Class

Art Musuems in Ubud, Bali

While staying in Ubud, we visited three art museums.

Museum Puri Lukisan

The Puri Lukisan was fairly close to our hotel and was where I took the first batik class. It is the oldest art museum in Ubud, with the mission to preserve, develop and document modern-traditional Balinese art. The museum is made up of three buildings of artworks and beautiful gardens and grounds, plus a restaurant.

Neka Art Museum

The Neka Museum was also made up of several buildings plus some beautiful gardens.  Ted returned to this museum alone, when I was at a batik class, see the special exhibition, Keris in Culture: Traditional Daggers in the Arts.

 

ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art)

The ARMA is a museum and a center for visual and performing arts. It was the newest of the three we visited and photographs were not allowed inside.

 

Bali is an area rich in visual art and we were fortunate to get a taste of it at these three musuems.