Big Top

This is the biggest quilt top I have ever made. It measures 70"x100" which is roughly 1.7m x 2.5m.

I have no idea what to do with it. It seems silly to quilt it while I am here as then I'll need to transport the bulkier finished version of it back home again. So I have decided to leave it like this and decide what to do with it whenever I arrive back in the UK.

Patchwork Distractions

There are various ups and downs here at present so to distract myself I have been going gung ho on this big'un.

 

That is a double mattress on its side that it is draped over, so you can tell that it is quite wide. And it was when I draped it there that I realised I had perhaps overestimated the number of blocks required.

I have always liked zig zag quilts but loath patchwork with triangles so loved this idea of working on the diagonal when I came across it on Pinterest. I was trying to think when I cut out the pieces, since this is a project I brought with me from the UK, at which time only about half the colour/white squares were sewn and trimmed to size. It turns out it was a year ago exactly give or take a couple of weeks. I linked to the tutorial in that post.

 

I can still remember making the colour piles out of all my fat quarters and looking at them against the green carpet. It would be clean only for a minute or two after I'd finished hoovering and then all the bits of thread would start accumulating again. I've been thinking about that flat a lot recently. I really liked it and felt very at home there. I recently downloaded a 'Home Sweet Home' pattern to make for a friend. It all makes you think.

A History of Pooch, the World Cup and Me

Pooch is a football fanatic. By day he supports Manchester United, but on special occasions he supports England. Pooch and I met in 2004 and by our first World Cup as a couple (2006) we were living together in relative harmony. I was blogging back then and graphed the amount of time the two of us spent together each day when not sleeping during that period.

In 2010 we were in Istanbul on holiday for much of it, and I had got used to Pooch's obsession, helped by the beauty of the city.

In 2014, after a divorce and getting remarried, we are in Tokyo so have missed any UK build up there might have been although I understand that had been quite low key. However, Pooch's passion is not diminished and his preparations have been single minded. This saw both of us in a seedy sports bar in Roppongi - an area of Tokyo kind of like Soho in the 80s - at 7am the day of the first England game. The key difference to previous occasions we had watched a match together was that in this bar a lot of people had clearly been there all night and a lot were clearly asleep.

They woke up when England appeared to score in the first five minutes and Pooch let out a roar like an attacking Wampa (Star Wars reference). Sadly England lost the game, and the following one, and are now out of the World Cup.

The point, however, is that at some point during these tournaments Pooch feels mildly guilty about the amount of time he is spending on football and the subsequent neglect of his wife and tries to make amends by offering to do something he wouldn't normally. This time it was going to a Cat Cafe. Pooch always says he is allergic to cats so I had expected him to sit in a corner and look grumpy, but to be fair he sat down next to a cat and was straight in there.

Then he saw Bruiser. I had of course told him about him (Pooch about Bruiser, not vice versa) and those of you with good memories will remember that Bruiser hates everyone and everything. Here he is on a previous visit.

Pooch immediately felt a connection to an animal his true equal in grumpiness.

Naturally Bruiser resented the affection and took a swipe at him. This did not deter Pooch who spent the rest of our time there talking to and occasionally risking a stroke of Bruiser's crazily thick fur. When we left he then proposed an amendment to our agreement to get a cat once we own our own home (an agreement that has been tortuously arrived at over 10 years) - that when we do get a cat it should be a grumpy one like Bruiser. To round off the outing we then went to a Japanese ice cream shop I've eyed up on previous visits to Ebisu. Partly because you can get ice cream that looks like a bear.

Neither of us went for the bear in the end but we did get some amazing flavours like melon, water melon, brown sugar, tomato, macha and milk. The texture was less creamy than english ice cream and slightly more like a granita, but still extremely delicious. The day was hot and humid so the melon in particular was very refreshing!

To finish, some of you may have noticed the new blog design.

My previous effort failed magnificently when the header I'd created was too short which left me with that odd pale plue design for ages. I much prefer this one. Let me know what you think!

Edit: Pooch complained at my using pictures of him on my blog despite having been fine with this on many other occasions. I've therefore removed his face from the photos.

Finally Found What I'm Looking For

You would have thought that a city the size of Tokyo would have a patchwork shop. Fabric shops, of which there are many, are good but they aren't the same. They lack the precuts, the notions, the patterns, the knowledge. I spent a morning trying to track down one called Palette last week but to no avail. I widened my search and came across Quilt Party in Chiba.

Image from here on Wikipedia.
Tokyo is area 13 and Chiba is 12, so to get from central Tokyo to central Chiba you have to go all the way around the top of the bay, which takes about 70 minutes on public transport. My point being, this is not my local shop, but was definitely worth the trip! Sadly photos were a no no but look at my haul. First the 'american' fabrics - by which I mean ones I've seen available outside Japan.

Then we have modern japanese fabrics:

And finally the traditional japanese fabrics - these are the ones I specifically went for and that I have seen so much of in quilt magazines and books here.

I had a go at a colour circle.

I love these colours. They are so different from what you get in the UK and elsewhere. I was trying to describe the palette to Noriko, who is pukka Japanese but not a quilter, but knew as soon as I used the word 'murky' that I'd failed. I have in mind a dresden quilt but I am just enjoying looking at them at the moment.

Meanwhile in my more usual colour palette I have finally got the handles attached to this bag.

I finished the patchwork (which is on both sides) aaaaaages ago but had been balking at attaching the lining and handles in such a way as to not cock up either. This is my first time using these solid wood handles (I got these secondhand at the Salvation Army Bazaar a month or so ago) and it took a long time for my brain to work it all out to my satisfaction.

While I was enjoying my moment I realised I'd forgotten to add an inside pocket - but I decided not to cry about it. The lining is these two sashiko-ish placemats I also found at the Sally Army.

I have two more hexagon projects that need finishing but these are much smaller.

My next project awaits though and will use my final purchase from Quilt Party.

This is a completely new shape for me. I tackled clamshells earlier in the year and made my camera pouch from them. I haven't yet decided what the applecores will become but I am sure that something will present itself in due course.

A Spot of Making

The two Sew Together bags I blogged about last week are now finished.

The buttons disguise where my patchwork came out just a teeny bit short and didn't meet the binding.

Not that it takes much to prompt me to add a button to something. The velvet one is a present.

She's going on holiday at the weekend so I thought it might come in handy.

I'm not sure what to use mine for yet.

I deliberately used colours outside my usual palette but while I'm very happy with it, it is a little more butch than I'd usually go for. I think it's the black.

I also found a moment to spit out another frame bag so I could recheck the process for my workshop next month.

The organiser is thrilled and I am pretty happy with it.

Lastly, this is what I am most proud of this week:

I know Rachel is also sprouting and in fact is a week or so ahead of me. Things 'growing' is something that has always fascinated me. Babies to adults, crystals in jars, tomatoes - it is all as one in the part of my mind labelled "wow". I am fully aware of all the science behind it but still....wow. That one was only about a day old and had gone from this in that time:

Can you see it? Where the yellow flower had just dropped off and there's a tiny little bump? Amazing. I mean - cells, water, nutrition, but still...so cool.

Hydrangea and Iris at Hondo-Ji Temple

This is somewhere I saw on Rurousha who gives me all my tips about which gardens to visit and when. It was truly beautiful. The moment when you come out of the first set of buildings (various shrines and memorials to former chief monks) and see the iris's is really something. A few photos.

This is the view from that moment...

It was a very lovely way to spend a morning.

Teacher Byrne

I had a meeting this week with the woman who organised the Yukata Classes. I had offered to teach classes on various sewing, knitting or crochet topics plus said we could use my flat for the lessons if it was on a weekday. Along she came to see my various creations and also check the flat was suitable.

I had laid out various projects on the dining table for her to see and she was immediately drawn to the metal frame purses.

She said traditional bags to go with Yukatas were often like this but larger with a handle - was it possible to make one of those?

Hmmm, hummmm, ummmm... I pondered. Oh hang on, I think I have some like that in the bedroom.

I had completely forgotten about these when I was selecting things to show her. Turns out this is exactly what she wanted. She particularly adored the patchwork one but I made it clear it would have to be a single fabric piece to get the workshop done in a day. So...I'll be teaching a metal frame handbag making workshop in July preceded by a shopping outing to Shinjuku for a frame and fabric for the lining and outer - to be chosen by the attendees using guidance from me. I am off there on Monday to scope out the prices of various bits so she can work out the costs of the class. Exciting!

Patchwork Progress

Unusually for me I bought a pattern - for the Sew Together Bag (pattern here on Craftsy). I had been admiring several on Flickr, including this one:

But rather than just using two fabrics I thought I'd mix it up a little bit. Here are my outer fabrics for the two bags I am making.

The unusually sophisticated orange and teal one is for me and the other for a friend about to go on a holiday. And of course I then needed zips.

I think zips are second on my list of favourite fastenings, second only to buttons.

The pattern has been consistently criticised for a lack of pictures so it irks me that it is still $12. Despite years of criticism the author has decided to do nothing about the feedback, but then when people are prepared to pay $12 for a single pattern why do you need to listen to them? Fortunately there is a sew along with multiple photos from earlier in the year. I hope to make progress on these over the weekend.

The blue and white EPP quilt for Mater progresses. Last time I checked in I'd done 52 stars. I've now completed all 93 and started sewing together the hexagon section. The pattern is my own and looks like this:

And I eventually decided to go dark to light ish rather than random on the layout. I see lots of bloggers who have a 'design wall' made of felt or something which they can stick blocks up on to see whether a layout works....I have a 'design floor'.

I am thinking ahead to how to quilt this and have been much taken with a blog called Kathy's Quilts and especially her Slow Stitching Sunday series where she spends her sewing time that day hand stitching. She has hand quilted a country style quilt called 'Journey of a Quilter' which, while not my taste, is very beautifully done. But to hand quilt a double sized quilt? That is a lot of work plus you've got the thing on your lap the whole time and it's hotting up again here. I don't know. But then I guess there is plenty of time to think about it before I get to that stage.