Study Date

Matt has started taking classes again and is often reading in the office while sitting in the rescued papasan chair. He often has a study date named Lilly, so I snapped a few pictures of how this looks. She was rather annoyed that I was interrupting perfectly good sleep. She is a true lap dog. If we sit down she thinks it is time to cuddle.

A few weekends have passed and I have finally gotten around to posting some pictures from our adventure at the Orion Beer Fest. Orion is an Okinawan brewery that sponsors this particular festival. The festival also included traditional Eisa dance competitions, carnival rides, games and greasy festival food. At the end of the whole night they had the best fireworks display that I've ever seen. It was truly spectacular. The pictures I took didn't turn out that great but show some of the fun.

This is how Pizza-La delivers the pizzas out in town here.

Tim, Christa and Matt

Many of the local people dressed in their Yukatas.

Yummmy!

Matt and I, self taken of course.

Finished the coin quilt!

Cast Iron Birdy Arrived in my Mailbox!

A little birdy flew all the way from Arizona to Japan to come live with us.

This sweet little additon is from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were so sweet to think of my blogsite. The little bird is made out of cast iron and has such a great patina.
I let Barnsley and Lilly look it over since they are always super curious about packages. Barnsley seems to be wondering what the thing is.

My favorite picture. Barnsley stooping down to give the bird a little kiss. The outtakes were of him trying to see if he could pick it up and play with it. He decided it was too strange and heavy to be a toy.

Lilly just humoring me with her shot because a grandma and auntie to the dogs want to see the cute little faces.

chocolate and sprinkles

I have been enjoying recycling clothing lately. It is so much fun to turn the items into something new and fresh. I forgot to take a before picture this time. This started out life as a size 22 womens top and became a size 3-4T dress. It has a great vintage feel to it.

The original top already had these pleats and the yolk trim. I was also able to reuse the sleeves by cutting them down. I just had to thread new elastic into them that was more child size appropriate.

I also kept the little back detail from the original back. It is higher than waist level but it looks really cute. The dress has a simple one button closure.

The fabric is chocolate colored with silver and peach screen printed polka dots that actually melt off when ironed with the temp set too high (whoops!). Thankfully I figured this out on the bias trim first. I hemmed it with some wonderful Japanese ribbon. I love to cheat this way with my hems.

Lemon Drop Shirt to Recycled Skirt

I am still getting over the jet lag from my 2 week trip to the U.S. but I was itching to do some sewing. I decided to keep it simple and do a refashion to this yellow cotton shirt. (This is actually quite bright yellow and not cream as it appears).

There is great detail on the bottom edge of the shirt and it is completely lined.
This was as easy as it gets. I just cut off the top of the shirt and made the casing for the elastic.

Little finished skirt.

Stacked Coins Baby Quilt: WIP

Using the tutorial from The Moda Bakeshop blog I created the coins using up some of my stash. Rather than using charm squares I just cut strips of fabric 2.5" wide and then cut them down to 5" long. I am working on piecing the back this weekend. I love this pattern because it works up quickly but looks so cute. I purposely tried to get out of my "matchy" fabric comfort zone and I am pleased with the results. Reds, pinks, greens and browns look coordinated but not boring. I only had enough white on hand to cut my strips the width of the fabric so I ended up shortening the coin stacks by 2 strips and the quilt worked up to be square. It is still a generous sized baby quilt.