In January...

In an effort to be more conscious of what I am making and both the quality and quantity of it, I am going to try this monthly review. Here, then, is some of what I made in January.

It also serves to remind me that there are lots of things I have part made or even finished that I haven't included or photographed. What we have here is (left to right, starting at the top):

• March's block for the I Love Lucy Bee (in the sidebar). I've also started Feb's and made another 4-5 of my own red and white ones. 
• Immense bag for the sewing room swap. 100% not my taste but fits the recipient's inspiration mosaic.
• WIP - EPP Pouch swap. This is the unpicked version of square 7, which was a finished object except it was fugly!
• Finished second EPP pouch, also for the swap. I think this is very cute although again, not really my taste. 
• Amazingly busy Tokyo Quilt Show. I've started a design for an EPP quilt inspired by what I saw there. 
• She Who Sews hop cushion cover. My day is coming next week for the proper reveal. 
• Pouch mentioned above in 3.
• Pooch's jumper from The Killing which was for his birthday.
• Jasmine's ill-fated dress. Never make a dress for a baby you have not been given the measurements of, relying on it being for the 12-18 month old when she's only 8 months old. She's one big baby. 
• The hot water bottle cover I knitted and forgot to photograph. 
• Multinomah Shawl which was a late xmas present. 
• Cast on and finished sock one of a pair using yarn dyed in the colours of cats. This shade is 'calico' - bought long before I knew of the existence of the Calico Cat Cafe

One of the things I have noticed since getting more into patchwork is how much pressure bloggers put on themselves to achieve goals and then catch up when they fall behind. There is immense peer-pressure to take part in sew-a-longs and bees and various other events. Then when they inevitably over commit there is an annual finish-a-long for which bloggers also set ambitious goals, while also signing up to new challenges, which just adds to the air of constant pressure. I don't think I've ever noticed that with knitters and the knitting blogs I follow are much more relaxed. 

Pooch has noticed my lack of planning and every morning asks me what my schedule is for the day, before expressing concern at my lack of one. Beyond remembering which days the various recycling goes out and ensuring the whole flat is cleaned once a week I have no other commitments other than a fortnightly knitting group - which makes me one lucky lady, I know. In keeping with this I am not setting any goals for February. Things will be sewn, knitted and ripped as becomes necessary!

Neko Font

I am utterly destroyed by the end of The Bridge. I console myself with Neko Font.

At One with Noisy Nature

The Institute for Nature Study is 20 mins walk from the flat so having spent 2 hours up to my elbows in rubber gloves (cleaning), and noticing that the day was a lovely one, I decided to make a break for it. I believe there is an actual establishment there, but basically it is a relatively big forest surrounded on all sounds by bits of highly developed city.

The woodland's history is on the website (and in english) but essentially it's very old and apart from footpaths and the odd bit of tending, it is largely left to get on with it. Bits of tree that fall off or die are left where they are to rot and feed the rest of the forest and plants grow as nature intends them to. It means it is all quite higgledypiggledy.

It also means there are a large number of trees which are too big to get into a single photo.

In my usual way I hopped and hummed my way around the whole place which took about 90 minutes. I wasn't rushing and frequently stopped to stroke the trees and listen to the birds. The trees were highly strokable.

The birds were not so much a delight upon the ear as a cacophany of unavoidable noise. The two birds I have seen most of since I arrived are the common crow, and the brown eared bulbul - and it was these which appear to dominate this location at this time of year. The latter's song is like the cry of a baby bird being slowly roasted to death over a fire (imagine me going "hweeeeeeee" at a really high pitch while simultaneously sounding like I smoke fifty a day, and repeat, and repeat, and you're near), while the caw of the crows is equally pervasive. Combine the two and it really did feel like I was in the jungle of a foreign land.

Which, me being in Japan and all, is kind of true. The noise of the crows was so incessant and they were so consistently present that I did start to wonder whether perhaps there were not that many of them and I was just being followed around. They are quite clever birds and I have, for instance, played a game of peekaboo with one who likes sitting on the house opposite our kitchen*. They seem to like to see what people are doing so was it truly that a stream of different crows were coming to perch on trees near me and have a look, or was it the same one following me? Does each visitor get assigned a crow by the chief crow, who would be like Baron Silas Greenback, the villain from Dangermouse, although admittedly on further study he is a toad and I had him confused with his henchman, Stiletto Mafiosa, who was indeed a crow. Or have I just been re-reading Thief of Time recently and got Quoth on the brain?

* What happened was I had put some toast crusts out on the balcony outside the kitchen for the birds and one of the crows had noticed. Crows are fairly hated in Tokyo as they make loads of mess trying to get into rubbish bags and bins so they are very wary of people. This one started off by checking out the situation by sitting on some of the power lines outside the kitchen, where I was washing up. It could see me, which it didn't like, so instead of hopping onto the balcony it flew onto the edge of a slightly higher flat roof that gave it a better view into the kitchen. I looked straight at it, and it backed up a little bit, which meant it vanished from my view because of it being on a higher flat roof. I backed up a step too so I could again make eye contact with it and it backed up a bit further. I backed up again and it ducked its head right down for about 30 seconds before lifting it up again to see if I'd gone. I hadn't so it ducked down again. At this point I thought I should just let the little bugger get the bread (I've nothing personally against crows and think they are rather impressive) so I closed the kitchen blinds and retired from the battle of wills.

I know we all have a tendency to endow animals with human characteristics, but they do always seem very clever to me.

Cat Interlude

My weekly visit to Calico Cat Cafe took place yesterday and I have to say it was all a bit odd. When I arrived the Cat Tower in the first room was unusually full.

When I headed downstairs the possible explanation of this became apparent. The place was full of men! There were about 10 of them sitting downstairs, unaccompanied by any women. I'm not saying only women go to Cat Cafes but this isn't something I'd seen before. The bemused but sleepy Retro was keeping out of it by going up high.

While my beloved Gomako, who I usually spend most of my time stroking, was steadfastly sleeping inside a cardboard tube. Very disappointing.

To get my fill of cat booty I bought a little tub of chicken, which is cheating but a girls-gotta-do, the opening of which causes the holder to become the temporary best friend of at least 6 cats. Yashiro is my second favourite after Gomako. Partly because of his face, which makes him look permanently annoyed that he's been bothered, but also because of his intelligence.

He has worked out that people order cat food (tiny tubs of real cooked chicken) from the staff so as soon as he sees you sit down and talk to a staff member he comes and sits near you, on the basis that the odds are good you've ordered food. He stays with you until all the food has gone, then turns his back on you to look out for the next person to talk to a staff member while seated. So self-serving and single-minded. Brilliant.

I spent a little while stroking the over flowing Taiga, who is a Maine Coon like Retro, before heading upstairs.

Still on the Cat Tower was Kinako, who is the same breed as Gomako and only 3 weeks older.

Awake, Kinako is pretty freaky looking because she has eyes which are almost rusty red rather than the usual blue or green. It makes her look rather zombie like. But you can't really be freaked out by anything that has such cute little feet.

Those pads on her paws are a brighter pink than the photo suggests. So adorable!

I've often read that you can judge the health of a cat from their fur - whether they are well groomed, evenly covered and also the softness. I've consistently been impressed with the condition of all the cats and also the love the staff show for them. I see London's first Cat Cafe is getting ready to open although there is no date yet. I'd be interested to hear what it's like if anyone is planning a visit.

Hops and Swaps

I have ended up with two partners for the EPP Swap. The second one is finished while the first is becoming a bit of a how-not-to-do-it lesson. Second first.

I am very happy with this with the possible exception of the seam bottom right. Inside I used a vintage seed packed print.

The EPP is all over the back and flap.

This kind of country chic colouring is not my usual palette so it was interesting to put these low volume fabric scraps together.

My first pouch was the one I blogged about before that went lumpy. It's now been unpicked and I've created a panel of hexagons to go with the triangles.

I really must stop starting things without a proper plan or at least a proper sketch with thought giving to fastenings. I now have one of those so am back on plan again.

Meanwhile the She Who Sews Hop, which I am part of next week, has started, alternating days with the Don't Let the Door Stop You Hop. There are some crazy, wonderful projects appearing each day. Go and check what is being made and find the schedule here. There is also still time to sign-up for the next BlogHop which is focussing on Ruffles.

Quiltapocalypse

I have just got back from the Tokyo Festival of Quilts which, needless to say, was EPIC!

It took up the whole of the Tokyo Dome, which in real life is a baseball stadium. I arrived just as it opened so as you can see in the picture above it was quite nice and empty. Ha! Little did I know.

Minute after minute, hour after hour, they streamed in. I told Noriko it was like a zombie apocalypse with a never ending stream of aesthetically hungry people arriving. I was starting to wonder whether, if enough japanese quilters converged on the same place at the same time, could it become too much for reality to handle and could we inadvertently deform space and time and create a black hole? Even if Stephen Hawking has decided they probably don't exist afterall? Could this be quiltapocalypse? But then that could have been the heat and dehydration talking.

If you look at all my photos from the event (in a set on Flickr here) in order you'll see them go from nicely framed pics of a whole quilt to parts of one framed by heads. I can't imagine what the afternoon would be like (we left at lunchtime) as people were already filling most of the seats to eat lunch while the exhibition spaces and stands were still packed with others. What would happen when they all finished chomping and got back to it?

Quantity-wise you could easily spend 6-8 hours looking at everything, but with the number of people I ducked out after 2.5. That doesn't mean I didn't fit a lot into that time though! I've put a few photos in this post but the rest are on Flickr. They get quite blurry after a while - it was all the jostling. That well-remarked japanese politeness goes out the window at these shindigs.

Detail:

There were also lots of stands to buy from.

And I did manage to bring a few things home with me. I was only looking for things I wouldn't find in the UK because the japanese colour palette is quite unique. I thought this stand's display summed it up quite well.

I tried to explain to Noriko that we just don't get fabrics in these colours in the UK but I don't think she believed me. I'm sure I'm right though - how many shades of muted brown and green does your local shop stock? In the end I ended up with 3 kits...

Fabrics...

And the frame and pattern for a little cottage sewing box.

You can see the finished thing with the 'roof' pinned up on one side in the picture below.

I think the lady liked me because I caught sight of it, gasped and excitedly whispered "Sugoi!", which means "wow!".

And Now For The News

Pooch and I both like to listen to news on the radio in the mornings. When we get up on weekdays it is "The World Tonight" on BBC R4 which is clearly an international program so quite diverse. However, if we listen in the evenings we'll get one of the regular UK news programs. What is very noticeable is how a theme gets a lot of coverage while other things that don't fit the theme get left out. Plus once the news machine gets a grip on a particular issue they then go on and on and on about it.

This isn't a new thing and it's also not something I've only become aware of since moving to Japan. But being out here and wanting a general overview means you have to really spend time digging around the lower levels of the bbc news site.

The topic of 'news from home' came up at the Stitch n Bitch group on Tuesday when I happened to be at a table with an australian, a new zealander, an american and a german. The american was talking about how there was a politician in her state misbehaving and how she just didn't want to know and couldn't see why so much airtime was given to it. We compared what the big themes were for our countries and my contribution was "Weather - there have been loads of floods, immigration...oh, and of course the pedophiles". Lengthy pause. "Pedophiles?" someone says. "Oh yeah I heard that the Pope had been dealing with the bad priests." "Oh no" I said, "I mean the famous ones."

So the good thing about this conversation is that it reveals that the UK is not yet famous for having lots of pedophiles. Yay!

The revelations about the mass abuse carried out by an admittedly limited number of celebrities from the seventies and eighties is something I find particularly disturbing since it is the celebrities of my own youth who are involved. Jimmy Saville was always a real oddball and I never felt comfortable with the juxtpositions of his lifestyle. Not that I ever suspected he had abused hundreds if not thousands of children - but that didn't stop me wanting to be on Jim-ll-fix-it. And as for Rolf Harris...a big part of me is still thinking that it can't be true. But then that suggests the multiple women accusing him must all be either fantasists or psychotically mercantile.

But I loved Rolf Harris as a child and I loved him as an adult. When the accusations came out I wanted to hug him and tell him I still believed in him and Pooch and I had several heated conversations about whether it could be true. However, I am a strong believer in the justice of the UK legal system so the case will wind its way towards a conclusion and in the meantime I will maintain a strong hope that he is innocent.

Sewing Fail, Sewing Fun

Fail first. I spent fricking ages putting this zip in.

I mean...I basted! I haven't basted since the after school sewing teacher made me do it before using the machine. How does it look?

LUMPY! It looks really lumpy like a pre-schooler did her first zip. Going to have to unpick and rethink. So annoying.

Sewing fun - my first ever spool block.

I am not usually a fussy sewer so a 5" block that uses 11 different pieces was not something I exactly jumped into. But I think it has worked out rather nicely! It is for the She Who Sews Hop which starts next week.

I finally got some inspiration this morning.

I will probably still play with the layout but I am pleased enough with it to make 8 more spools. I'm using this tutorial which stays away from triangles so it's a Modern Spool rather than a usual one. I've been going mental on the triangles recently.

This is becoming a bag for the Sewing Room Swap. I was thinking about how much effort I go to to make these things for swaps and thinking about the effort I put into things for myself. I think sometimes I forget that I am much more valuable to myself than other people - think of putting the oxygen mask on yourself first on an airplane before you help others. I should take this much trouble with things for myself too.