Saying Sayonara with Handmade Thanks

This past week has been a hard one, full of farewells. And with these precious farewells, comes gifts. Gifts to say thank you, to express deep gratitude for the friendships, support, for patience with bumbling foreigners… Many were handmade, stocked up over the past few months, recently finished, or pushed through this week! My grammar nazi friends may hate this, but I’ve been “feeling alllll the feels” this week, with tears a regular occurrence, even as I sit here writing this post…

It started with a small farewell party with our Children’s Church group – we still have a couple more Sundays, but it was the last chance for us to do something with everyone. We had a delicious sushi roll buffet party, and a few laughs over kids being kids gobbling all the salmon roe and licking the serving spoons… At the end, I handed out some handmade cushion covers for the adults, with one lady receiving the original Ornamental wall hanging that she loved so much when she saw it on my site. The other children got little bags and pouches, and a very-nearly-here baby was given the finally-finished HST mini quilt that had sat as a quilt top in my cupboard for years.

It’s the perfect little size for a baby – a mat, or a small covering… Mama’s choice!

Finishing off a very old WIP is always an interesting process, having done quite a bit of that this year… Working with tops made with your “old” skills, aka beginner skills, presents some interesting bias/square issues! But finished is better than not.

It continued with the children finishing up at yochien (Japanese preschool/kindergarten), after 3.5 years of going there! We started with a playgroup, and then my son completed all three years, culminating in a tear-ridden, beautiful graduation ceremony yesterday. My daughter finished up her two years there a few days early so that all the goodbyes were contained to this week. It also meant saying farewell to the school bus stop buddies we’ve known for 3 years too! The kids chose some little chocolates to share with their friends.

And finally, today I say goodbye to the little English school I’ve taught at for nearly 4 years. The Japanese staff there have been incredibly kind, generous, and supportive, and I have loved working with them! They also love that I quilt, and it’s been nice to have someone to be able to show off projects or publications to in person, when I can’t show my family like I would if they were nearby. The lady that looked after my kids for me on Tuesdays received a pouch full of things the kids chose. And I made this cushion cover for the head teacher/owner this week.

It was a pattern I drew up, and started, years ago. I had to make 2 more blocks to balance out the layout for an 18″ cushion cover (I was originally making them for a mini quilt). I then used 2 layers of batting to make it really cushy and squishy – I love how puffy the solids look in between the kimono parts!

The other teacher I worked closest with gets this pillow using my paper pieced kimono pattern. I printed the pattern at 67% and added some sashing to bring it up to an 18″ top.

I used 2 Kate Spain charms for the main print in each kimono, and a few more to make the edges and the obi. I used the ‘wrong’ side of the main print for the little open neck space piece as if it was really the inside of the kimono. You can barely tell, as it’s such a small piece, but I know it’s there and that’s all that matters 😉

The last step of farewells to do now is to say goodbye to our expat playgroup over the next couple of weeks, and also to our closest friends here, with whom we’ve celebrated birthday parties and Christmases with over the past few years. And many more tissues…