Organized for hand work - your favorite needle?

How do you organize yourself for "on the go" handwork?  I feel like I've finally got a minimalist system that works for me.  Julie Fukuda has a neat post about this  with an idea for a chatelaine.  I always admired her little sewing tin (to my mind, very wabi sabi) and have since tried using similar containers, but for actual "on the go" I tend to always come back to this little indigo pouch I purchased in Japan.

This pouch works for me because it sits on my lap or next to me in a chair without falling off, it can squish into my purse easily enough, and it's just a pleasure to use.

Isn't the little cat adorable??  That little touch of sashiko, and the silk striped tail - so cute.

I love the cheery red interior, and I just keep a few pins and needles tucked there.  The key for me is just a few, so that I can account for them.  It's very anxiety provoking to lose a pin or needle during a church meeting or in a waiting room!

Plus... thread, small scissors, thimble, and a few batches of patches (well now that has a nice ring to it).

What needle do you prefer for hand piecing??  I like these Richard Hemming & Son Large Eye Sharps size 9 and have used them for years for hand quilting too.  However..... I have ordered some other needles to try, and find I really like this John James GoldnGlide Quilting Size 9 as well.  It really does glide through for hand quilting and piecing.  It feels a little too small in my hand though.

I also ordered these John James Sharps and will have to try them, but they are longer than the Richard Hemming Sharps.  There is so much variety across brands.

I'd love to know your opinions.  I have a couple of glass vials of Roxanne quilting needles as well, which seem teeny tiny.  What do you use, for hand piecing and for hand quilting??

 I have finally basted my Sashiko Sampler:

Crazy how hard it is to accurately show the indigo blue!  Perhaps when I upgrade my iphone I will do better. 

Turn my head for one minute and Dandelion steps in... 

I will miss him (sort of;) when Noelle takes him back to Boston next month. 

two finishes

The ASIJ Gala Quilt was auctioned off for an impressive sum this past weekend.

For the history behind this striking quilt, see this post at Tokyo Jinja, one of the three masterminds behind this beauty.  Julie F of My Quilt Diary designed these playful, elegant carp and she blogged about it here.  I especially enjoyed helping to hand quilt it.  Yay team!

Another finish:  Today was my last day assisting with the English department of Fukagawa High School.  I can't believe I neglected to take photos today!  Maybe it was because today was the last in a series of high-pressure oral conversation assessments, run with a strict eye to the stopwatch.  I have really enjoyed this little part-time job.  But I have not so much enjoyed the commute:

So I have mixed feelings about the job coming to an end.  I will however definitely miss this particular corner near the school:

And how's this for a potential finish?  (I don't think I could or would!)

I'm pretty sure Idaho had nothing to do with this burger!  Any readers out there from Idaho?  Gotta love MacDonalds in Japan!

9/11 wall hanging

I made this quilt right after 9/11.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted.  Maybe only in retrospect did it seem like a response to that awful day.  I think I was going for a sort of abstract stained-glass effect.  I hung it on the wall above our red couch and it looked nice there, but after awhile it ended up feeling sort of sad and violent to me, so I took it down.

Always sobering to think of that day and its aftermath.

First quilt, baby quilts

Here's my first ever quilt, made in 1991.  Felt like it took about a million hours to complete - all by hand, with telephone tutoring from my Grandma every step of the way.  I hung it on the wall over Miss N's crib.  Here she is with it all grown up:).  It's a simple nine patch using fabric from my Mom, Grandma, and even Great-Grandma.  I struggled with and loved the process of making this quilt -  I was hooked!

This is the Dutch Doll baby quilt Grandma Mary Lou made for Miss N in 1992.  It remains one of my all-time favorite quilts.  Grandma's friend Millie helped her select fabrics.  It is machine quilted in a "hanging diamonds" pattern.

It was followed a year later by this Tulip Applique for Miss K, also machine pieced and quilted by Mary Lou.  The light green alternate blocks were made with fabric from my bridesmaids' dresses.

Sunbonnet Sue

And for the seventh of Grandma's quilts in seven days.... how about this wonderful, hand pieced and hand quilted Sunbonnet Sue, probably made in the 30's or 40's.  I love examining this quilt!  This one was made by one of my Grandma's aunts in West Virginia, many years ago.  It is in pristine condition.

Grandma and I both marvel at the expert detail on this quilt.  Oh how I wish the maker had labeled her quilt!!

And there you have it - seven quilts beloved by my Grandma Mary Lou.

When I am back home in Massachusetts this summer, I will photograph more of Mary Lou's quilts.

Cheers!

Double Wedding Ring

Here's another quilt rescued and fixed up by Grandma ML.  In this case, the backing wasn't quite big enough for the top, and so Mary Lou added panels to the backing where needed and finished up the quilting.  This is such a sweet quilt.  

Winding Ways

This is one of my all-time favorite quilts.  Who can resist simple blue and white?

My Grandma found this hand-pieced top and fixed it up, and I hand quilted and bound it for her.  This was one of my Mom's favorite quilts too and one I'd love to reproduce someday.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

While visiting my Grandma in Denver, I made a point of taking pictures of her quilts.  So many of them live elsewhere now... but she does have some gems still in her home and I really wanted to document them!

I have company coming into town and am starting a new job (!)... so I will be away from blogging for awhile but have scheduled a blogging treat.... seven days, seven quilts - starting with this one - Grandmother's Flower Garden, a quilt made by my Great Grandma Una Fisher Brown.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another one of Mary Lou's quilts!

Furin quilt

This morning the ASIJ Gala quilting group enjoyed the satisfying task of tacking back the binding on our  "Summer Breezes" quilt.  

The design was inspired by a Suzuko Koseki quilt that knocked the socks off one of our group leaders last year.  Suzuko is the force behind La Clochette, and is an influential quilter and teacher here in Japan whose books look wonderful.

The quilt features hand-appliqued "furin" -  Japanese wind chimes -  in a variety of cottons and silks.  Boy were those silks tough to applique, but the result is both soft and stunning.  The quilting design is meant to evoke the raked gravel in a traditional Japanese rock garden.

The quilt will be auctioned off at a benefit Gala dinner next week.  I can't wait to hear how it goes!

I had to leave for something else just as the hanging sleeve was being attached to the back of the quilt, and so I missed getting a good photo of the finished quilt - but please check out Tokyo Jinja's excellent post about the quilt and its creation.

I feel lucky to have so immediately stumbled upon a quilting group after moving to Tokyo - and it meets just a short walk from my apartment - what were the chances of that in a city this big?

Several women (including Jacqueline of Tokyo Jinja, and Julie of My Quilt Diary) spearheaded the project and did lots of work behind the scenes between group sessions - from design decisions, organizing the group, selecting fabric, making borders and binding.  It felt like a luxury to be among those who just showed up on Tuesdays with needle in hand, to sew and chat for a few hours.  Many people popped in and out of the group off and on through the months - many hands making light work.  It was a thrill to see it come together and I hope it's well received at the auction!

I wish I'd taken more photos along the way, but here are a few:

Pieced - entirely by hand, by many hands - and ready for the border

Hand quilting... almost there!

The rock garden quilting design was so interesting. 

I am linking up with QuiltStory's Fabric Tuesday - see the link on my sidebar, and check out the many creative projects there!

Millie's quilt - the one I can't stop making

Almost a decade ago I was inspired by this quilt that my Grandma's friend Millie made.  She called it the "tattered" quilt or the "pioneer" quilt.  I don't think she used a pattern, but I could be wrong.  It may be that she saw it in the window of her local quilt shop in Denver.  I have certainly seen many iterations of this quilt over the years.

In fact a few days ago I came across this fresh version - Christmas Canasta -  at Sew Love to Sew.  I love the colors she chose and Millie would, too.

As I was learning to quilt, I was a great admirer of Millie's quilts, mainly for the simplicity and great color sense.  I oooed and aaahhhed over this particular quilt, and it inspired me to do my first bit of "liberated" piecing.  Fast and fun, just sewing those squares down, leaving the edges raw.  Millie gave me a pack of scraps from her quilt to get me started - kind of like sour dough starter I think!

Here was the result, finished in 2003, and today it is still well-loved and well-used, honestly tattered.

Over the years Millie had made several versions of the tattered quilt.  She is now in her 90's and has retired from quilting, but when she heard that we were moving to Tokyo, she surprised me by sending me the original "tattered" quilt.  It is not tattered, but rather in mint condition and beautifully hand quilted, and it has found a happy home over the back of our couch here in Tokyo. I will treasure Millie's quilt.

This past summer as my oldest Miss N was preparing to go off to college, we started planning her college quilt.  When it came right down to it, sure enough she wanted a version of that old tattered quilt.  We raided my stash for homespun, shirtings, batiks, flannels, and then headed over to Quilter's Way for supplements that caught N's eye.   I threw this quilt together fast, completely by machine, without a thought in my head about precision, so that it would get DONE and be something that could be used and abused at college.  Miss N loves it, and I won't worry about her getting paint or ink on it.  

And.... it looks like I may make yet a third version of this quilt, for someone special (shhhh) who requested one long ago... time permitting!  I brought a bin of scraps for it to Japan.  There is just something irresistible about this quilt.  I blame it all on Millie!