Off topic again -- Nathan is 20!

My youngest child is 20 years old today!!

It's hard to believe that so much time has past since I held that bundle in my arms for the first time... Nathan is the youngest of four children and arrived only 6 months after his oldest sister arrived in our family... (I guess that's a story for another post -- or even another whole blog!)

Nathan is a sophomore at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California. After going through high school convinced that he wanted to go into computer engineering, he has made a pretty major turnaround -- and is majoring in kinesiology.

Nathan and Grandpa, June 2006

We moved overseas when Nathan was not quite 2 years old.... and he moved back when he started college. So that was quite a culture shock for him! He grew up in Germany, South Korea, Guam and Okinawa. His real passion as a teenager was soccer. He lived and breathed soccer! Now, he's really in to working out -- and told me today that he can bench press 250 lb!!
He'll be coming home for Christmas! We'll be glad to spend some time with him!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!!

Off topic - My shiisa

I thought you might like to see some of the shiisas that I've made. A few years ago I took some pottery classes from a GREAT pottery sensai, Jorge Itozaku. He teaches at the Arts and Crafts Center on Kadena. His classes are fun and you really learn a LOT!!



My first class was probably the most difficult -- we made mini shiisa... it was hard for me to work with the small pieces of clay. In Jorge's class you work with a clay mixture that he makes -- combining Okinawan clay with regular clay. It feels really great!




















The finished product!!

Quilted Rail Fence Reversible Quilted Bag

The Okinawa International Patchwork Guild met the first Saturday in November for our monthly workshop. This month’s project was taught by Yuriko. When Yuriko originally made this pattern, she did all of the work by hand, but many of us in the guild are too addicted to instant gratification to even consider hand-piecing and quilting!

We started with three coordinating fabrics and strip-pieced them into a rail fence quilt tops for the body of the bag, the handle, and the bottom. Then we layered the quilt tops, batting, and backing fabric and quilted each piece. Yuriko provided patterns for the pieces of the bag.

The most difficult part of this project for me was sewing on the bottom of the bag!

Happi Coat Quilted Wall Hanging

I've been on a "kimono kick" lately... this is the first of the kimono projects that I finished.

This was a fun little piece to do -- the Happi coats are appliqued. The quilt is about 16" by 16". The backing is the same carp fabric used in the wide border.

The pattern is by Castilleja Cotton

Fabric is all from Sanzo's here in Okinawa

My Scrappy Kitties Quilt

Scrappy Cats was the class project in October. At first, I wasn't going to make this one because I'm not overly fond of cats. But as I look at patterns to use the fabric I had recently gotten, I thought that it might be a fun thing to do.

My daughter told me that her Aunt Elaine likes "flip flops," so when I decided to make my former sister-in-law a quilt, I searched for fabric that would fit her theme. I found two "focus fabrics" that I thought would be perfect -- the multi-colored flip flops on a black background and the hot pink batik...


















Once I decided to use those fabrics for the Scrappy Cats, I invaded my stash and found some great brights to add to the quilt.




This was a pretty quick quilt to piece. By the end of the all-day class, I had the top all pieced, including the scrappy border! I still needed to applique the hearts, layer the quilt top with batting and a brightly colored backing, and then quilt it. Today, I finished hand sewing the binding.




...I really like this one -- and I think Elaine will LOVE it!! I hope she doesn't see it here before she gets it in the mail!!