A Grand Success!

Our auction was a huge success, both from the fun perspective and from the financial perspective. The gorgeous quilt was sold for just over 5 digits $US, over 7 digits in yen! Bidding was hot and furious! The quilt itself looked absolutely amazing hanging in the ballroom at the Ritz Carlton in Tokyo. Here it is -- how cool is that? Some of the people thought that it was part of the Ritz Carlton ballroom decor. How great is that?



Even better, the highest bidder is a friend of mine, so I know it will be loved and cherished.

Of course, since the auction I've done nothing but reconcile the accounts on the bidding, and the reciepts. For 4 straight days I've been in the Endless Tunnel of Accounting.

For my own inspiration, another picture of the quilt:


I'm off again to the accounting of the whole event. Numbers are all adding up, and it's going well. Hopefully I'll get a chance to knit soon (I haven't picked up my knitting in an entire week -- I think that's the longest I've gone without knitting since I STARTED knitting).

Back to the Endless Tunnel -- at least I see the light at the end....

Doin' the Happy Dance -- AGAIN!

I'm a-doing the Happy Dance!

The Auction Quilt is FINISHED (I know I said it was finished before, but now it has the hanging sleeve, so it's REALLY REALLY finished), and is hanging in the school! It will be auctioned off April 20 -- can't wait to see the bidding! My heart is pounding with adrenaline already.

Here it is:



AND, as if there wasn't enough joy in my life with the completion of THAT project, we also finished our class project: the Chinese character for PLAY (asobi) done in washi paper. It's amazing.




Since I'm on such a roll with finishing projects, I also managed to finish my shodo (calligraphy) monthly submission and begin the annual "test," ** AND ** I finally managed to block the purple angora shawl and the pink baby poncho. Look out baby, I'm on a roll!

Doin' the Happy Dance!

The Quilt is FINISHED!

Our fearless quilting master has finished the last few stitches, and now it is up to me to attach the sleeve as the final final piece before we hang this lovely thing!

Of course, I tested it out first -- here the dragon is reclining on a queen size bed:



And here, our dragon is enjoying a bit more room on a king size bed:



It's amazing, it's beautiful, and it's going to be someone else's in 11 days. Highest bidder wins!

The Dragon Quilt

The Quilt -- for the 2007 school quilt, we chose a blue and white antique fabric puzzle with a dragon appliqued over it for our theme.

Initially, we set out to find fabrics:






And then arrange them -- I like to call this one "Do ya see the vision?"





Putting the "puzzle" together, we've added the paper dragon template.








And finally, our bold beloved dragon is ready to be appliqued on top.













Appliqued, quilted, bordered, and binded -- just a few stitches left to completion, and 2 weeks ahead of when we'll be auctioning it off.






Over 30 people worked on this, and 1 person (not me) did the lion's share (the dragon's share?) of the work. What an incredible woman!

Blogorama?

First post: so new, so bewildering. Where to start?

I'm an American living in Tokyo, with some serious craft-itis.

The Tokyo part: It's cherry blossom season, the perfect image of Japan. This is what you see when you aim your camera carefully:





What you don't see are 300 other people taking the exact same picture, either with their huge digital SLRs or their tiny pocket digitals, or else their phones.



Craftiness? Isn't this about STITCHING for goodness sake?


Right now, I have 4 knitting projects on needles, one getting frogged, 2 waiting to be blocked, and several in my head.



A few months ago, I made a toddler hat (modeled by the doll with the biggest head). The pattern is of my own making, and the hat is knit in Zara merino. I was particularly pleased with my ability to decrease so neatly and evenly while keeping some sort of pattern. I got so excited that I forgot to write down exactly what I decreased, and in what order.


I love the stitch definition in the Zara.








Recently I made the same hat using a gorgeous Malabrigo yarn (yum) in autumn colors, mainly to see if I could re-create the decreases and this time write them down (I met with moderate success). The Malabrigo is a totally different feel, not much twist to the yarn, and a much thicker feel. It's incredibly soft and yummy merino. I found it at The Knitter's Nook in Minocqua Wisconsin, and Linden Hills Yarns in Minneapolis and The Yarnery in Saint Paul carry it as well. (I like to buy yarn wherever I go, supporting the LYSs all over the place.)

I'm also working on a queen sized quilt that will go into the school auction getting its binding on now (I took a break), a twin top finished, and a wall quilt nearly finished.


School quilt pic -- be very impressed, and no, this is not all my work (hardly), but our school quilting group's work:

Next: more pictures of school quilt as it continues, and hopefully pictures of our class washi project!