Hot outside

 I've spent a lot of this week hiding inside from the heat wave, which has gone up to 31C at some points. Stupid climate change.  It's been too hot to go up to my longarm attic room much, although I have made a start on stitching the pantograph design for my New Zealand quilt.  When we did one night of camping yesterday, close to our storage yard, just to check everything is working on the caravan and that we haven't forgotten anything, it went up to about 30C at the campsite. But luckily it was partially overcast and there was a good breeze, so we were able to huddle in the scrap of shade in front of the caravan in reasonable comfort.

This week I finished binding the Lori Holt My Favourite Things quilt and it's hanging in the hallway.  Her designs are so cheerful and vintage, and  I like all the embellishments and details.  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. I used all my own fabrics and the free pattern she publishes on her blog, and guesstimated/eyeballed the shapes as I didn't buy her templates which are very expensive here in the UK.  I used three vintage crochet doilies in place of her fabric doiley shapes.  I custom quilted this on my longarm frame with my Handiquilter Simply Sixteen.

Temu was advertising some cute snap-clasp purses on Facebook. I don't buy from Temu but I had some snap-clasp purse frames in my stash.  So I tinkered with some scrap fabric until I got the shape right, then made up a purse using some of my recently purchased Japanese fabric.  Fun.

I also had a go at winging a lined totebag with my Korean fabric.  The pics are fresh off the machine so not pressed or threads trimmed yet.  It's come out a bit taller than I was envisaging, I will have to tinker with the dimensions a bit to achieve more pleasing proportions.  The front and back are cut from a panel of printed historical scenes, and the bottom is a fabric featuring Korean script.  The lining shows traditional Korean 'hanok' houses.

I also finally finished the CrossStitcher magazine free cover kit (over two issues) for a harbourside scene, which came with blue spotted fabric to make a simple bag.  I decided to make a lined zip pouch instead, with fleece lining to give it some body. I used a seashell fabric for the lining. The cross stitch took me absolutely ages and I did not do a great job - I need to buy a magnifier that will let me also watch TV because I just can't see well enough to make neat stitches any more.

Hope you are staying cool where you live.

Recycling an obi

 I bought an obi in lovely silvered silk brocade in a secondhand kimono shop in Tokyo for only about £6 - which seemed cheap at the time but I saw many more later in my trip for as cheap as £2.50.  I had seen quite a few bags and pouches made from recycled obi fabric, which is quite stiff so a bit like sewing with canvas.  My obi had brocade ends, then a middle section of plainly woven silk dyed pink grading into cream, with a lining of plain coarser silk. I decided to start with a zip pouch.  I used the Monstera Zipper Pouch pattern by myhandmadespace.com, which I acquired when it was a free pattern (it is now available for purchase and has been upgraded to include a zipper tab).  I cut my exterior fabric from the silvered brocade, and my lining from the plainer pink/cream gradient, and used a bit of the obi lining for my inner pocket backing.  The silk was a learning curve to work with: as soon as I cut into it, it started fraying, particularly the brocade section which has long silk floats on the reverse so I stabilised those with some iron-on woven interfacing.  The internal seams I stabilised with zigzag stitch. I added one of the 'handmade' metal tags I found in Seoul.  The result is quite a classy looking pouch which could almost be an evening clutch.

I also finished my yukata this week - I used machine stitch for the longer seams but handstitched down all the internal seam allowances to finish them, which was a big job.  It's turned out fairly well I think. I had additionally bought a cheap polyester secondhand kimono to convert into a nagajuban or traditional kimono undergarment.  So I've shortened that, added a belt tie, and stiffened the collar with a homemade erishin or plastic insert.  So in theory, I now have the components to attempt to dress in an authentic Japanese yukata - I'm waiting for a day when I am feeling more energetic.

My Lori Holt My Favourite Things quilt had come off the frame before I left on my trip, so I have trimmed up the borders on that and added a hanging sleeve, and am currently finishing off the quilt binding.  Then there are some more embellishments that I need to add to the quilt.  Meanwhile I have loaded the New Zealand Turning Twenty Around the Block quilt onto the frame and chosen a pantograph design to quilt it with. But I will need to practice the panto for a while with the machine turned off, because obviously I haven't done any quilting for two months now.

The garden has had a first pass on the weeding now, and a few days ago we pulled out the pressure washer and washed down the garden patios and concrete paths.  I just bought the pressure washer last autumn, it's not particularly powerful but the concrete paths literally changed colour from dark grey back to concrete colour.  It's also great for getting all the weeds out from between the cracks of the pavers but now we need to brush in some more sand into the cracks.

I've started downsizing again, listing some handbags online and selling one of them.  We also took a couple of loads to the charity shop this week.

Today, after visiting the caravan, DH drove me to Oxford so I could go to the Pitt Rivers Museum to see an exhibition on Hawaiian quilting entitled Hawai'i Ma uka to Ma kai: Quilting the Hawaiian Landscape, which is on until 30th June.  I knew it was on, but recently listened to a Haptic & Hue podcast interview with the commissioning curator which was quite interesting so I wanted to see the exhibition.  The exhibition is in one room with an adjoining corridor, and the 15 quilts are wallhanging size, but so different from each other and several are not your typical Hawaiian quilt designs that you think of.  There is also a ton of written information explaining the meaning of the various motifs and their significance in the complex Hawaiian culture, and also about the members of the Honolulu-based Poakalani Quilters who created the artworks based on the designs of  one of their founders, John Serrao.  It was quite interesting but also made me feel guilty about the bed-sized Hawaiian quilt I started after DH and I visited Hawaii in 2009.  It's probably my oldest UFO at this point and I don't think I can even finish it because the smaller fabric motifs that haven't been sewn yet have all started to fray badly due to the passage of time - so can no longer be appliqued to a symetrical design.  In retrospect, I should have started with a cushion and not jumped right into a bed sized quilt.  I need to re-assess it and perhaps recycle the fabric into something else.

Back to reality

 I am gradually readjusting to 'real life' after two months away.  I have grudgingly taken up some cooking chores again, and done some housecleaning.  I am still pulling out literal armfuls of giant weeds from the garden - DH took a full carload to the dump today and I've still got another third of the garden to go.  I've been experiencing some aches and pains because instead of standing and walking almost all day, I am now sitting most of the day apart from a daily walk. I paid for some plants with my card today and realised that the till clerk was waiting for me to touch my card, whereas I was automatically waiting for her to rattle off the standard Japanese polite phrases about sorry for keeping you and use your card now etc. before I touched the card.  I had some friends over for a few hours and was absolutely exhausted by the end of it, after two months of largely solo travel I am just not used to speaking to other people for that long.  I have totalled up the number of photos I took over two months and it is 6,031 - even I don't feel like going through that many photos but I have started to weed out duplicates.  I've crossed a lot of boring priority stuff off my To Do list like checking insurance renewals.  I've bought a new phone (mine reached 'end of life' while I was travelling, I am sad because I really like it but without security updates it will become vulnerable) and survived the process of transferring my data over.  It took almost two hours, 90 minutes of which was repeatedly transferring the sim card back and forth between the old and new phone as I tried to convince Whatsapp to back up my chat messages on the old phone then restore them on the new. Got there in the end.

So in other words, lots of tedious real life stuff and very little 'fun' holiday stuff apart from we did have a nice dinner out.  A touch of post holiday blues I think.

I have reacquainted myself with my sewing room, although I haven't found places to put away all the new acquisitions yet.  I needed a warm up project so I made an unlined version of this free Tilda Toiletry Bag to hold some small things in my suitcase.

That was fun so I used some of my new Japanese fabric to make two more with quilted exteriors.

I blocked the little shawl that I knit while I was travelling, using the hand dyed fingering weight I bought in Iceland.  It reminds me of a grand piano with the shape.

I've also been working on a summer kimono (yukata) in quilting cotton fabric that I bought in Tokyo's Nippori fabric town, relying heavily on a video by kimono expert Billy Matsunaga.  There is a lot of hand sewing to catch down all the seam allowances neatly inside.  I also bought  a book in English and Japanese on how to wear yukata which has a step by step guide to getting dressed in one, so I will make an attempt once mine is finished.  If it doesn't work out, I can always re-purpose the fabric as quilt backing :)

I'm back - haul photos

 I got back four days ago, after 24 hours awake. So still waking up at odd early hours although I'm slowly adjusting.  It's great to be back, although having to deal with two months' worth of post, email, paperwork, garden jungle growth etc. is killing my holiday afterglow.  I've unpacked and done all my laundry and  put together a 2.5 page typed To Do list which I am gradually working through.

After unwrapping all the goodies I bought over the two months of the trip, I have now taken haul photos for your edification.  I don't know how I got all of this into two medium size suitcases to be honest.  And it is definitely S.A.B.L.E  (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy)!

A mini tote and zip pouch, a handtowel, a furoshiki wrapping cloth

Random Japan stuff that caught my eye

A beautifully carved transom from a flea market

handsculpted decorative pin heads

Needlework treasures: pincushions, thread winders, a pawlonia wood needlebox, used silk shuttles from an obi handweaving workshop

various kits for beading, sashiko etc. plus a zip pouch and mini-tote

Sumo!!!

Dollshouse miniatues

miscellaneous haberdashery 

including a pile of 'handmade' tags in fabric, leather and metal, and charms to hang on zip pulls

Korean acquisitions including a handmade embroidered thimble

and embroidered thread winder.

Sashiko kits

More hand towels that I will use as wallhangings

Shibori technique (tie dye) fabrics

Pieces of vintage kimono and a full obi

quilting fabrics from South Korea

quilting fabrics from Japan

Stationery (left side)

Staionery (right side)