More Quilt Ideas Worth Borrowing

Big Bird belongs to a quilting guild based in Jacksonville, Florida. Two of her quilts are group efforts.

The white rectangles in the quilt shown above contain handwritten messages from guild members. Big Bird chose a flamingo-patterned border to further remind her of her Florida quilting pals.

After the guild members swapped floral blocks, they each created a quilt like the one shown above. Doesn't it remind you of looking through a window at a garden? It inspires me but I'm not yet sure whether I'm inspired to spend more time learning how to quilt or designing a garden. Just in case it's the former, I think I ought to mosey out to a fabric store and invest in a few more meters of flowered fabric.

"Fandango"

"Fandango" was made out of scraps of fabric left over from Big Bird's previous quilts. It reminds me of a bookcase from Dr. Seuss's perspective.

The post-it note Big Bird used to mark the magazine page showing a picture of "Fandango" is shaped like a molar.  Big Bird is married to a Navy dentist.  I have yet to see any cute post-it notes for the emergency medicine crowd.

Miss Piggy Wants to Steal All These Quilts

Big Bird treated us to coffee and a show-and-tell before our quilting bee this week. She's made 25 quilts so far with two more in the works. At right, she's holding the first quilt she constructed.

Some of her quilts have been featured in quilting magazines; we're trying to talk her into submitting some of the others to the juries that choose quilts for exhibit at the Tokyo and Yokohama quilt shows.



"Water Lilies"

For the "Water Lilies" quilt she used fabric with a turtle pattern for the small blocks circling each lily pad.

"Asian Blocks"

The quilt above features large blocks of fabric with Asian themes like chrysanthemums, carp, and kabuki actors.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I plan to share some more pictures of her work when I get home from the Machida shrine sale tomorrow.

Americans and Japanese Unite for Charity Quilting Bee

Big Bird invited some of her friends to make a quilt for a family victimized by the March 11 tsunami. Big Bird has a lot of experience when it comes to organizing charity quilting bees. When she and her husband were stationed in Okinawa a few years ago, Big Bird and her friends (left) made twenty-two quilts that were sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda for distribution to the wounded warriors there.

Today eight ladies - four Japanese quilters, two American quilters, Weather Explorer, and Bossy - cut fabric scraps into strips and sewed them onto squares of muslin.  Big Bird says we'll need about 120 of those squares to make our quilt.  We didn't meet that goal today since one of the seamstresses spent more time threading her sewing machine and winding bobbins than actually sewing, but we're well on our way. 

Big Bird zipped through a complete square at intervals so quick and regular Henry Ford must have been smiling in his grave. Ouizer is also a snappy seamstress when she isn't breaking out in song, invariably a peppy pop tune from the 1960s. A seasoned Catholic nun would never in a million years put Ouizer and Bossy within twenty feet of each other.

Weather Explorer, manning the ironing board, got quite a workout returning mis-sewn squares to Bossy who spent half the day picking out stitches while helping Ouizer remember the lyrics to "Build Me Up, Buttercup" and the other half of the day plotting embezzlement.  She wanted to smuggle half the donated fabric home in her tote bag.

Hiroki (not pictured) was the photographer for this group shot.  Standing:  Bossy, Weather, Reiko.  Seated: Hisayo, Big Bird, Ouizer, and Miki.  That perky blue ascot around Bossy's neck is a nifty tubular towel filled with ice.  She found it at the 100 Yen store and it did the trick in making her feel cool on a scorchingly hot day.  She needs to get more of these.

A Little Surge of Craftiness

Besides hydrangeas and books, I'm counting on the Knitwits and my new quilting pals to get me through this summer deployment.

Brittany is one of our newest and certainly our youngest Knitwit.  Betty introduced her to knitting this week while her mother worked on mastering crocheting at the other end of the table.  I'm trying to finish the socks I started last fall.  Socks are a lot easier to deal with this time of year than that heavy wool cardigan.  The last time I worked on the cardigan I felt like I was holding a 75-pound lamb on my lap.

Have I mentioned that Ouizer is helping Weather and I make t-shirt quilts?  Weather's creation features Rock and Roll Half Marathon t-shirts and I'm cutting up all the ratty t-shirts in the Ancient Mariner's drawer, the ones he should have retired ages ago.  It was meant to be a Father's Day surprise but I missed that deadline.  Christmas is looking possible.  

Ouiser shows us how to attach a border

This serger binds and cuts the edges.  It is an expensive, scary machine.

Don't slice off your fingers, Weather!

After our lesson this week we visited a local department store to select fabric for our borders. I bought plain red fabric for my borders and red-and-blue paisley fabric for no good reason other than I liked it. Weather's border fabric features fish and I'm starting to think I need a little piece of that too.

What I don't need, in case the Ancient Mariner is reading this, is a serger. They sound like jackhammers and would be just as dangerous in my hands.

A Case of Inordinate, Immoderate, Overweening Pride: The First Quilt Blocks

The quilt blocks for the Tsunami Relief Exhibit were handed over to Shinagawa-san yesterday morning. Now they are hanging in the lobby of the Mercure Hotel in Yokosuka. All three of them! Every little mistake glares at me and all the big mistakes make me cringe. But it was a fun learning experience and I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment right now. Simply meeting a deadline is out of character for me.

Woven Ribbons

Moon Over Mount Fuji

Sailors Within Squares

On the back of each block I wrote "Tomodachi" (friendship) and my name.

Of course my work pales in comparison with everyone else's.

Weather Explorer included a Japanese flag and sewed shiny beads on her first quilt block.

Shinagawa-san's labor of love is entirely hand-stitched.

Fukutani-san created a bride and groom from PET bottles!

Fukutani-san's satin and velvet purse

The Ancient Mariner and I are heading into town for Thai food now. Maybe we'll just happen to stroll through the lobby of the Mercure Hotel and glance ever so casually at the quilt exhibit.

One of Us Had a Semi-Productive Day

It was a coin's toss whether the USS Blue Ridge would make it back to Yokosuka today, but the Ancient Mariner finally stumbled through the door shortly before 10:00 pm. Pip can't remember the last time Dad's stayed up past his bedtime. This would be Dad's bedtime, not Pip's.

While waiting for my ship to come in, I made some progress on those pesky quilt blocks.

Batting and backing were attached to the Woven Ribbons block, and some actual quilting attempted.  I cut the backing extra large in hopes of using the excess to bind the block to avoid a trip into town for bias tape.

Mount Fuji has been appliqued over the moon which I see is not centered properly.  I still have to add batting and backing and figure out how to bind this block but first I have to find my seam ripper thingy to eradicate that awful checked border.  What was I thinking?

If You Build It, They Don't Come

Betty, one of my favorite young Knitwits, has a bartending job now and can no longer attend our Thursday evening Knitwits' gathering so we've instituted a Monday night session. After a month, it's still just Betty and Peevish holding down the front table at Starbucks on Monday nights but we're not complaining.

Her running commentary on her love life was the perfect counterpoint to the tedium of hand-appliqueing that moon to my quilt square tonight. She even threaded my needle for me. Life doesn't get much better than this.

While I track down red thread so I can add the mountain to the square, you can look at a couple of Betty's current knitting projects.

A pink mesh shopping bag.  Pink is Betty's signature color.

A garter that's as wispy as a spider's web

As for Typhoon Songda, the good news is a stiff wind from China sent it packing for the Pacific before it reached us. The bad news is the Seventh Fleet might not get home tomorrow. Apparently they had to go so far east and south to avoid the typhoon, they are now more than a day away from us. The Ancient Mariner is not a happy camper tonight.

Wait until he sees all I have accomplished in his absence!

Quilting in the Rain

Intermittent torrential downpours were the only signs of Typhoon Songda today. It was a perfect day for skimming the manual that came with my sewing machine and rooting through the closet for all the supplies needed to whip together a quilt square for the tsunami relief exhibit.

An internet search for "easy 12-inch quilt blocks" netted ten possibilities. The one that looked easiest by far is called "Moon Over the Mountain" and reminds me of Mount Fuji. Using my new compass, I drew a careful circle. Using my best scissors, I managed to cut out the circle. My cutting skills have not improved one iota since my kindergarten years.

Since I hadn't taken the time to read through the instructions before tackling this project, the circle was pinned to the square before I realized I was supposed to attach it by hand, by the old-fashioned needle-and-thread method. This sent me scurrying back to the internet for detailed instructions.  The technique looked tedious so I set "Moon Over Mount Fuji" aside and moved on to the next pattern.

"Moon Over Mount Fuji": Day One

"Squares within Squares" was fairly simple. I used a sailor-patterned fabric for the center square and, regrettably, batting a lady in DC was giving away free a few years ago. The batting was lumpy and my semi-finished product looks more like a flat pillow than a quilt square. Yet it will do in a pinch. I've decided to postpone perfectionism until I have a few more squares under my belt.

"Sailors within Squares": will quilt further as time permits, probably not

"Woven Ribbons" was next on the docket. I managed to piece it together before the light gave out. Tomorrow or the next day I'll add batting and backing.  Or maybe the day after that. 

"Woven Ribbons" incorporating Shonan bandana

In the meantime, maybe I'll take a few minutes to peruse "The Magic of Quiltmaking: A Beginner's Guide" which I just now remembered buying at one of the quilt shows last fall. Too bad I didn't remember this sooner.  Or maybe I'll start researching those expensive high-intensity craft lights on the internet. If I'm going to stick with this new hobby, I need proper tools, right?

I'm Going to Make a Saturday Evening Post Quilt When I Grow Up

My Japanese friends take lots of classes.  Some study flower arranging (Ikebana), Ishii likes sashiko, and three of them -- Otsuka, Shinagawa, and Togo -- are drawn to quilting.  Last weekend I went to the Yokosuka Culture Hall to see the quilters' annual exhibit.  It was amazing.

The students were tasked with creating quilt versions of magazine covers by an incredible Japanese illustrator, Rokuro Taniuchi (1921-1981).  Taniuchi produced more than 1,000 covers for Shincho, a weekly magazine published in Yokosuka, and much of his work now belongs to the Yokosuka Art Museum.  His work is whimsical.  I foresee a trip to the Yokosuka Art Museum in my future.

Shinagawa appliqued the child's shadow on her quilt.

Those are little devils (oni) hanging on that tree.

The Taniuchi quilts were the focal point of the exhibit but there were other interesting pieces in the back of the gallery.  I especially liked what my friends came up with when their teacher tasked them with making quilt squares featuring houses.


Otsuka-san made the dark blue house on the lower right (left). She enrolled in the quilting class after I took up knitting and, yes, my one pair of mittens and three mufflers seem paltry compared to what she's managed to produce during our respective novitiates. The standard house pattern she chose reminds me of the little wooden houses I've been collecting since Matt was a baby.

Togo-san made the two squares in the upper half of the picture at right. She has a penchant for Hawaiian fabric. I think she's been taking the class for about a year longer than Otsuka, hence the addition of driveways.

Shinagawa-san created the four squares shown above. These squares depict her brother's house viewed from the four different points of the compass during the four seasons of the year. How clever is that? She plans to present these squares to her brother when the exhibit ends. If any of my brothers desire a similar gift from a sister, they will have to move to a teepee or log cabin first.

The two major pieces pictured above were fashioned by a friend of my friends. Her name is Yumiko, her husband is a retired Japanese naval officer, and she taught my Oakleaf friends calligraphy a few years ago. Meeting and chatting with Yumiko was a highlight of my day and probably year as well.

Yumiko is a talented calligrapher and quilter but she told me that classical Japanese literature is her greatest passion. She belongs to a group that studies the classics and produces a journal twice a year. The most recent issue of this journal includes an article she wrote about famous literary sites she visited in Shiga Prefecture near Kyoto. There are a dozen or so photographs accompanying the article and Yumiko decided to use three of those photographs as templates for quilt squares while her classmates were stitching together houses. The teacher not only approved this project but gave Yumiko an obi to use for a background. The finished product is on the right in the picture above.

Please note the orange tiger square in the lower left corner of the picture.  Shinagawa-san made that and used one of her father's neckties as the border.  Stuff like this makes my sentimental heart sing.

Maybe you can see the orange tiger square better in this picture I took of Yumiko standing next to the Tale of the Genji quilt she made a few years ago. The Tale of the Genji, as you probably know, is the pinnacle of Japanese classical literature. Yumiko's quilt depicts her vision of a scene wherein the hero is strumming his feelings to his wife who has just chopped off all her hair in anticipation of becoming a nun.

Or that's how I understood what Yumiko was telling me. Looks like I ought to tackle The Tale of the Genji, assuming I ever get to the end of Ulysses . . .

Yumiko made this Compass Quilt for her son, to help him find direction in his life.

Yumiko gave me a copy of her journal article as I was exiting the quilt show.  Yesterday I shared the article with Dr. T.  He was duly impressed and pulled out his trusty Atlas to show me the location of Shiga Prefecture.  Now I sense two trips in my future:  the Yokosuka Art Museum and Shiga prefecture.

This is Absolutely, Positively the Last Theme Party I'm Throwing This Year!

Way back in September I promised the Seventh Fleet Officer Spouse Association (C7FOSA) they could meet at my house in February. They said I could pick the theme. Eek! I have no idea why military wives are so fond of theme parties and, frankly, I feel uncomfortable about expending more time and energy entertaining my fellow spouses than I put into celebrating family milestones.

The party is this Friday, the 12th. They were expecting a Valentine's theme but I'm forcing them to celebrate American Presidents instead because (a) February 12 is Abraham Lincoln's birthday, (b) history tickles me, (c) the big box of patriotic party supplies fell on my head when I was digging in the cupboard for the Valentine's stuff, and (d) I am desperate to unload the 20+ presidential bookmarks I intended to send to grandnieces and -nephews for Christmas until I realized that I don't want to be remembered as the "Aunt Who Gives Boring Educational Gifts."

So. I have four days to throw this party together, dear friends and family, and could use a little help. My guests are expecting to lunch on Herbert Hoover's 'A Chicken in Every Pot' Pie -- a rare stroke of genius on my part since it means I can utilize my trusty pot pie recipe AND eliminates the cherry pie expectation (which is a good thing because I still haven't mastered the subterfuge of shifting a frozen pie from its aluminum plate to one that screams 'homemade').

They are also expecting a Martha Washington Cherry Trifle -- what in the world was I thinking? -- so if anyone (that means you, Erin) can direct me to a trifle recipe that uses cherries or cherry pie filling or any sort of red fruit that might pass for cherries, I would be deeper in your debt that I am already.

I also need a presidential sort of name for a salad (either tossed or fruit, your choice) but try to avoid Carter and Reagan if you can because I'm using them for snacks (peanuts and jelly beans, of course).

Also, presidential trivia questions would be greatly appreciated. I promise to make it worth your while. All the outstanding prizes for previous contests are now sitting in the trunk of my car, the crucial first step toward the post office, just to prove my utter seriousness.

As for my quilt square, since someone was polite enough to inquire about it, the kits I bought at the Tokyo Dome last month all sport Japanese themes (there's that pesky word again) and require me to master teeny-tiny handstitching to applique little fabric pictures.

Hisayo insisted I start with the Setsubun square since it's a February holiday. I will be amazed if I finish it by next February but stranger things have happened.

Finally, thanks to Betty, I now own everything I need to knit my first pair of socks. The needles are as thin as spaghetti and pointed on both ends. We can use them to skewer shishkebobs if this sock thing doesn't pan out. As for the yarn, I could have walked two blocks down Blue Street and bought six pairs of socks for the price of that skein so be sure to feign appropriate gratitude if you unwrap a pair of somethings that vaguely resemble socks come December.

At least it won't be a presidential bookmark.

Socks and a Sensei: Hmmm

All the Japanese women I know make a similar sound when pondering. Usually it's the equivalent of 'hmmm' but seems to mean 'uh-oh' when directed at me. It's a remarkably prolonged sound, slowly rising in pitch. If you want to try this at home, close your mouth, hum through your nose for a few seconds, and then end with a question mark. Better yet, give a listen to the thermometer rising on the Dudek's JDRF fundraising page.

I had ample opportunity to reflect on this sound today during my first quilting lesson.

Yes, that's right: quilting lesson. Hisayo (center) spotted my fabric stash during that Mardi Gras party last week and offered to be my sensei (teacher). As I was wiggling like a rainbow trout trying to spit out a hook, Hiroko (left) jumped in with an offer to drive me to Hisayo's house in Uraga. Hiroko lives in Tokyo, meaning her offer was the equivalent of a Detroit resident offering to toodle over to Jackson just to give my sister a lift to Albion.

How could I say no? Being invited to visit a Japanese home is a rare honor. I just had no idea we were going to be sewing for five hours, or that Hisayo was going to make us a four-course lunch, or that Hiroko was bringing a special cake, or that they were going to be making that sound every time they checked my "work".

Meanwhile, the Knitwits have decided we will all start knitting socks next week. Socks? I'm just three feet into my second scarf here, ladies! Betty volunteered to escort me to the yarn shop to make sure I get the proper equipment. I couldn't help but notice that no one else was deemed stupid enough to require supervision. I think they might be comparing notes with Hisayo.