Blocked

I seem to have reached a road block on sewing. I'm not getting anything done. Now that COULD be because I don't know what I should be doing, so I thought I should jot down my end of the year sewing "To Do" list here.

• Finish Tetsu's vest (this is not sewing but part of my handwork projects and right now takes priority over all else).

• Get the Bargello quilted. I absolutely know that the Bargello has been the major source of my sewing block. I just don't know what to do and there it stays, up on my wall. I don't want to do overall quilting. I don't want to do stitch-in-the-ditch. I want to do feathers but have no idea of how to start with a "blank" canvas. If I could just find some direction I might get motivated again. I've spent hours and hours looking through the Internet and old magazines. The ideas I like are way beyond my ability or have been done by long-arming.

• Finish a few stars for our swap game. I've been lax in that department. By the way, the last person cut out the fabric to sew together into stars and I offered to piece them for her. Hum... Someone needs to be reminded that we're aiming for a 1/4 inch seam allowance! I'm left with about 1/8th of an inch!

• Hand quilt the Bunny Hill applique quilt. Remember that one? It is still folded on the shelf!

• Decide on a layout for MY stars in the swap game. Being not very creatively minded (especially this month) I just stare at these blocks too.

• Put the Alabama Beauty quilt together. Oh my goodness, those poor blocks have been lost in the sewing room for months!!!

I'm sure there are more things struggling to get out of their boxes but off the top of my head those are the 6 I'm determined to finish. Obviously not all this year though... Too bad.

Today I'm going upstairs and start quilting the Bargello!!! I'm tired of waiting for some muse to whisper in my ear. Just Do Something!!!

Tuesday Mornings

On Tuesday mornings I have a class of four ladies who come for English. Recently we are reading and discussing the book "Where the Heart Is" by Billie Letts. In years past we have read "To Kill a Mockingbird","The Phantom Tollbooth", "Sidetracked Home-Executives", "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle", "American Pie", "Holes" and "The Last Lecture". I guess I'm the one who chooses the books and we've certainly had a variety.

The ladies come from quite far away. They car pool and drive about 30 minutes to my house. Sometimes (like last week) we go out to lunch together. Once a year we try to go away for a day of sightseeing and once we even had a stay overnight! These ladies have been coming to my house weekly for over 10 years. Maybe closer to 15! I have a feeling that I learn more from them than they do from me...

For the first hour of "class" we chat (in English) about our past week. Places we've gone, arguments with husbands, funny incidents in our lives. A couple of us have sought out advice on child raising and more recently about living with aging parents. The "more mature" ladies, who have already traveled this road, are gentle counselors. Finally, during the second hour, we "study".

On my part, I make a pot of coffee and try to supply something to nibble on. This morning I'm making an apple crisp. But more often than not, my friends will bring rice crackers or cakes from their outings or chocolates that they've been given. I remember years ago when my children were still around, Takumi saying,

"Tuesdays are great. You always have some good leftovers from your Tuesday class!"

Tuesdays are not good for dieting but are a warm and happy time!

I'm posting the Apple Crisp recipe today... maybe for Leiya. She's been asking about things she can cook. This comes straight from Betty Crocker so it is nothing special. I added almond slices just because I had them... Looks like I used dark brown sugar rather than brown sugar. No, I didn't burn it!

Apple Crisp

4 cups sliced apples
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup margarine

Heat oven to 370 °. Arrange apples in pan. Mix remaining ingredients and sprinkle over apples.

Bake 30 minutes until apples are tender. Serve with cream or ice cream.

Quilt exhibit

On Saturday, Tetsu found mention of a quilt exhibit about an hour away from us and we set out to see what it was about. It turned out to be a very small exhibit but the quilts and embroidery were fantastic. I'm afraid I didn't get the name of the group but one quilt (with all the flowers and insects) made it to the Tokyo Quilt Festival last year. I did ask if I could take pictures and was given permission.

I loved this golden tree! (I must have a thing for trees this year).

The leaves were tiny but oh so perfect!

And the embroidered acorns and leaves around the border were a nice touch.

The Christmas scenes embroidered on wool were so elegant. And don't you like the way those two quilts are hung! Branches!

This quilt was the one that went to the Tokyo Quilt Festival. The lighting wasn't great for photography but the spotlight really set off the quilt.

Each flower was beautifully appliqued and there were insects embroidered on the covered buttons here and there. A row of ants along the bottom too!

Ah... How tempted I am to get out an embroidery needle. But no! I remind myself that I decided my eyes no longer do embroidery! Stick to quilting Tanya!

A quiet week

I have quietly not been getting any sewing done recently. My sewing room sits upstairs abandoned. Instead, Tetsu has been devoting his free time to me and our GPS enhanced car and we drive off and around. This is nice for the two of us but doesn't give me a block of time to sew much anymore... That's actually okay because I'm still plodding away on Tetsu's Christmas vest whenever I sit in front of the TV.

I've also been down and out because there are more cats and kittens in my neighborhood this week. My neighbor down the street was depressed herself when she came to tell me that a stray cat she had been feeding escorted a litter of kittens to her front porch this week. What can I say? I warned her about feeding the stray without getting it neutered. I offered to help pay for the neutering if she could catch the kitty but she said it was too skittish. So now she has four cats to contend with. And I've offered to help pay for neutering those too. I just don't want to go and get my heart involved, so I'm staying away from that end of the street. And then another cat showed up in the lot next to ours. That sent me to bed for three hours. If I reach out to feed or neuter or whatever then I can't put the cat back outdoors later. (This has always been the plan with ALL my cats and they ALL ended up being indoor cats.) Please Lord, help those kitties find families, but please don't consider mine!

So that is one reason I've been a quiet blogger this week. And another reason why Tetsu has been taking me out to enjoy ourselves elsewhere.

Miscellaneous news. I heard from the kindergarten principle that the bazaar raffle alone pulled over $2000 for the kindergarten. Alone! The years when Mrs. Furui and I were running the raffle we were THRILLED when we could hand over more than $500 to the kindergarten! Of course that raffle has really grown and there were over 70 prizes that day (coasters, pin cushions, tapestries) and as I said before, the mother's group quilt was fantastic, too. (Notice the too. I think our contribution was pretty fantastic also.) But still, for a smallish kindergarten with less than 100 families and a three hour raffle, that is pretty amazing!

Tetsu and I bought a heater this week. We are heading into winter. Our house is always cold. Our last kerosene heater was giving out on us. And after March's earthquake there were many people without electricity for a week or more. Even Mrs. Furui's neighborhood had no electricity for 24 hours after the earthquake. The government had the scheduled blackouts for a couple of weeks in order to save electricity and we huddled in blankets with with bottle warmers. (We may be faced with more this winter.) So electric appliances didn't work, but even our kerosene heater which ignites by electricity didn't work. This week Tetsu suggested a free standing kerosene heater that emits heat in all directions and doesn't need electricity.

There are merits and demerits to this heater. Of course, we still have kerosene fumes (which I've never been happy about). And I worried that the cats wouldn't realize the top of the heater is hot and might burn themselves. (They used to be able to sit on top of the electric kerosene heater.) So far they seem to understand that a heater is not a sitting place. We can keep a kettle or a pot of stew on the heater and cook dinner or have tea at hand while heating the house. However in the event of another earthquake I then I have to worry about boiling water or soup.... But the house stays warmer! And the moisture in the air hopefully keeps cold germs at bay.

And last but not least, the cats like the new heater!

Lake Chuzenji and Senjogahara

Some scenery pictures today. Tetsu and I went up to Lake Chuzenji which is a famous resort area in Japan. It wasn't cold but I wore my down jacket anyway.

Lake Chuzenji is only 30 minutes from our house but getting to it entails going up a winding mountain road, also famous in Japan. I posted about that before here, and you can see some some fantastic professional photographs of the curvy road up the mountain on that past post.

Because the autumn season is so popular it is hard to beat the traffic up the mountain so Tetsu and I left a bit before 6:00 am. We drove up to a point overlooking the lake and then spent two hours walking around the moors of the area.

At 7:00 there were only the hard-nosed hikers and photographers out, but by 9:00 there were busloads and busloads of people!

Farther up the mountain past other lakes and waterfalls, there was a "Phantom Lake" which appeared in the Senjo Moor about a month ago. Normally this area is a moor, not a lake, but what with all the rain and typhoons in September a lake appears every few years. (Not every year.)

This is what everyone was out to see and photograph!

Most hikers were carrying huge telescopic lens cameras and were climbing up the side of the hill to get a good shot. The lone white birch there is a particularly loved landmark called the Noblewoman who stands alone on the misty moor.

This was the best I could do with my little Sony Cyber-shot. Still, not bad!

Cat house door

Tetsu spent most of his day off making a cat door. He grumbles about how much time and money and effort he puts in for these cats but he doesn't really have any other wonky project in line and the cats don't complain about a little crookedness. I guess I don't either.

Hammer, hammer, saw, saw, sand paper, sand paper. (Notice, no measuring.)

By afternoon Tetsu had made a very nice fit-in-the-sliding-door-cat-door. The goal (for Tetsu) was to allow the cats to come in and out of the house... into a warm room, through the cat door and move directly into the cat cage... Keeping Toi and Patora separate from the other frightened kitties.

Of course I pointed out that if the cats can go freely through the cat door, that meant that the cold air (and right now mosquitoes) could come through the door too. So the cat cage wasn't going to be all that warm for the kitties and the room was going to be freezing for the humans. That did not dissuade Tetsu. He still thought this the best arrangement. He is the carpenter, not me!

When I came back from the pre-school, there was the cat door. The entrance is tight... Toi better not get any fatter than he already is.

"Great job, Tetsu!"

After a few minutes of relaxation we noticed cats running in all directions as Patora stalked into the room. It didn't take her long to figure out how to get up and over the cage door entrance. Tetsu pounded another board in place and sat back down.

"Hiss, spit, growl!"

Patora AND Toi are in the house! Toi isn't the smartest of kitties but if he can figure out how to get past the cat cage then I guess the cat door has not been a success.

I caught both cats, pushed them in the cage and dropped a blanket over all for the night. I also closed the paper window screens hoping to keep the room a couple of degrees warmer.

This morning Toi and Patora got let back into their cat house (by hand... not using the cat door). They managed to shred the paper screen while we were sleeping.

Tetsu's wonky carpenter project was NOT successful this time... He has promised to work on it again on his next day off...

Not my stuff

Do you remember going to a friend's house when you were a youngster and helping her wash the dishes? I do. I remember helping her do her chores and coming home and telling my mother how much fun I had at Candy's house washing dishes. And my mother would respond,

"Why is it you can have fun doing dishes at someone else's house but you complain and mope and do a sloppy job when I ask you to wash the dishes at home?"

"I don't know, but it is fun to clean someone else's house, not my own."

Today Tetsu has the day off. This morning he started in cleaning my kitchen. Cupboards, drawers... Now, I know that I will be happy when I come home and find a new to me kitchen. But I really would like to point out the piles of his books by the futon, the Japanese room closet that holds plastic bags of the stuff he emptied from his car, his clothes stuffed in a cubby that seem to be multiplying.

I can hear Tetsu whistling as he cleans my kitchen. He is having fun. Do you suppose I should just change my attitude and clean up his stuff and pretend this is not my house?