Feb 8th: Feast of Hari-Kuyo

Bloggers and diary writers are left brained.

No apologies, no excuses…I am just totally right brained and when my left brain does click in I don’t think about blogging. I do get messages that some of you out there are still reading my blog and I thank you.

Today I got two emails from a friend in NC, Pam B:

Greetings from NC.  I first learned of the Festival from your blog.  This year I shared it with my local ANG chapter and they too were charmed by the idea.   I am wishing you well and remembering happy stitching times…

and a second email:

Yes, please do get back to your blog!   I miss it and I know that others do too.   I actually had it set up to send me an email when you had a new entry and I often refer to it for how to’s and encouragement to learn new skills.   No guilt — but do come back to us!

 Thank you Pam, it jolted me into the present and a whole bunch of guilt. I have really been remiss in sharing with all of you my stitching friends.  I am sorry and will try to do better.

2018 well loved and used needles

I had been stitching last week and broke a needle, so when I put it in my broken needle bottle I remembered Feb 8th is the Feast of Hari-Kuyo.  I even had the thought that this would be a good day to try and start blogging again. So today when there were two consecutive emails, the first from a Temari friend reminding us that today was the Feast of Hari-Kuyo followed by the second email from my friend Pam. I decided to stop whatever I really wasn’t doing important and to blog. (yes, it does take me getting hit by a two by (four) email to get my attention).

I had been reading the first email that had a link to Wikipedia Hari-Kuyo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari-Kuyo) first and was researching this: “Threads of the five Buddhist colors were used with the needles”. I brought up a sight that listed these colors and their meaning:

Five Main Buddest Colors: “Pancha-varna in Sanskrit” means Five Pure Lights

Order of colors (Blue-White-Red-Green-Yellow) should be either top to bottom or left to right. In top to bottom order, it is to spread good fortune, peace, sympathy and wisdom.

Also look at chart on Five Wisdom Buddas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tathagatas)

ED NOTE: Can you tell how deep I get into things…no wonder I never have time to blog…

Meanings:

Blue: Purity & Healing

Buddha: Akshobhya  “Immovable One” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshobhya)

Represents consciousness as an aspect of reality.

Body Part: ears

Element: Air (sky & space)

Meditation: helps transform anger into wisdom

White: Learning & Knowledge

Buddha: Vairocana

Body Part: eyes

Element: water (air & clouds)

Meditation: cut delusion of ignorance to wisdom of reality

Red: Life Force & Meditation

Buddha: Amitabha

Body Part: tounge

Element: fire

Meditation: transforms delusion of attachment into wisdom of discernment

Green: Balance & Harmony

Buddha: Amoghasiddhi

Body Part: head

Element: nature (water)

Meditation: transforms jealousy into wisdom of accomplishment

Yellow: Rootedness & Renunciation

Buddha: Rainasambhava

Body Part: nose

Element: earth

Meditation: transforms pride into wisdom of sameness

These are my needles wrapped for Hari-Kuyo

needles

After about an hour into this first email tangent I returned to my emails…and there was Pam’s email. So I figured it was a “sign” and so I stopped reading my emails and finished wrapping my broken needles so I could blog about all this. I wrapped them in the five Buddhist colors. I put them in a pot in the back yard to bury when the ground thaws (winter and cold here.)

I took pictures, took time to semi get my thoughts together and voila, “Here I am” So now that I have started blogging again, I am making no promises. You can see from my desktop I have way too many irons in the fire and I just seem to juggle everything I want to do to keep my nose above water and I can get carried away on a tangent at a moments notice. I am going to spend some time looking at my blog and seeing where I left off and filling in some of the blanks. In a nutshell, this past year I have:

Not enough time…

*Finally learned to knit…I am a novice at this and have not progressed very well.

*Took up needlefelting, although I have not given this as much attention as it needs

Both of these art forms need practice and I just don’t give them the attention they need. But I do have a small stash to help guilt me into keep trying.

*Taken up beading and I do like this hobby in fact have now expanded

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

my stash to include beads

*Kumihimo both with and without beads.

*AND of course needlepoint. Needlepoint will always be my first love.

*Temari I still like these and need to make them more often

*And various other projects/ideas that are in my stash on buried on my desk.

& more stuff

*And last but not least the finishing of needlepoint I have neglected too.

As I said, I will go back and spend some time looking at my blog to see what I have been neglecting to share and to share some things I have been doing. I am not making any promises as to how often I will post but I do hope you will check back every now and then to see what I have been up to and what I am doing now.

Thank you Pam B for the kick in the backside…

And Thank you ALL for stopping by, I hope you have time to stitch today.

ttfn…sue

P.S Dee hope you got an update! And thanks again for reminding me I was neglecting a nice part of my life.

 

Hari Kuyo: Broken Needle Celebration

I like to think of this day more as a celebration than a memorial service. I know in Japan it is a solemn occasion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari-Kuyo).

I used to have more needles to share on this occasion, I changed needles every month; but lately I have been keeping my old friends around until they are no longer useful. I am hard on needles, sometimes when my arthritis in my hands acts up I use a pair of needle nose pliers to help me stitch and as you can see sometimes it is hard on the eye of the needle. Other needles especially my finishing needles tend to bend with use; but I use these (in fact I kinda like these sometimes best) until they eye breaks and then I have to replace. And occasionally I will use a needle that is not the correct size and I will break the eye right off.

Disposing of these needles is my big problem, I hate to bury them in the yard since they might work their way to the surface and a little person foot could find them. And I don’t want to pollute the streams or hurt our fish and wildlife.  One year I saved them and put them in the needlebook I finally completed (https://sudukc.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/hari-kuyo-february-82013/). And another year I put them in frozen yogurt (https://sudukc.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/the-festival-of-broken-needles-hari-kuyo/) and sent them to a landfill…but that didn’t seem right either. This year I have wrapped them in the canvas they so often traveled and tied it with a thread that they so often carried through the canvas; but I have not decided how to dispose of this. Any ideas? I wish someone would come up with an idea to repurpose these needles. I often look at the wine cork art on Pintress (cork craft) and think needles…that can we do with these?

This year I decided to celebrate the day with some new needles…they have been on the market for about a year but I just keep putting off buying them but this week-end I remembered. Your local needlepoint shop can order these from Colonial Needle Company (http://www.colonialneedle.com/cgi-bin/quikstore.cgi?search=yes&keywords=Bullion) They carry Bullion needles in both sharp points and tapestry points. These needles come in one size, equal to a size 20 tapestry needle and three lengths 7 inch, 5 inch and 3 1/2 inch. I have not tried them yet but I have several ideas on the stitching board that have these needles in mind (I will keep you posted). And who knows, maybe we will eventually see these needles in a size 24 too.

Other people on the web have celebrated Hari Kuyo too:

Vicky DeAngelis over at Mostly Needlepoint celebrated this way…and the Love canvas is speaking to me! Thanks Vicki for helping out my stash enhancements)

http://mostlyneedlepoint.com/a-tradition/

http://mostlyneedlepoint.com/whats-new-2/ 

Susan Elliot at Plays with Needles celebrates too:

http://plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-gift-of-harikuyo.html

http://plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/2015/02/two-days-until-harikuyo-2015.html

And then Carol-Anne Conway at Threads Across the Web visited a Japanesee needle shop…lucky girl! http://threadsacrosstheweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-needle-in-market.html

Click on some of her links and you will wish we had shops like this in the USA:

Oh I need the egg sewing box: http://www.hakotou.co.jp/

The sewing boxes are wonderful and the pins from here would make marking Temari balls such fun:

http://justhungry.com/postcards-kyoto-misuyabari-and-hakotou-lovers-sewing-and-handcrafts

I’m going to continue to celebrate the day by stitching and enjoying the beautiful (60 degree) February day.

Thank you for stopping by to visit, I hope you find time to stitch today or do whatever helps you be creative! ttfn…sue

Hari-Kuyo, February 8,2013

Today is Hari-Kuyo, I am not sure if it is a festival or a more solemn memorial service. I would prefer to think of it as a festival, since I really like my stitching and it brings me joy. So this year I celebrated with another cup of my favorite tea but I only had two broken needles this year. So I decided to place them permanently in my new needle book because I broke them making this book and as they will be a constant reminder that all my needles deserve to be remembered and honored. I also placed the two other needles I used making this book in places of honor in the book. You know since I wrote about this festival last year (https://sudukc.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/the-festival-of-broken-needles-hari-kuyo/) I have really been conscious of the needles I am using and how really important they are to my art.

I know this may sound way out there but really sometimes I think my needle really makes my stitching happen. I have caught myself stitching in my sleep (that is falling asleep while stitching) and yet my needle has found the correct spot to place the stitches…no frog stitching this time.

And have you ever thought how we would do our art metal needle had not been invented? Porcupine quills and fir quills would have been our needles of choice, maybe someone would have thought about a bone or a stick.

So today don’t forget to thank your needles for all they have done for you over the past year.

I am also linking to Plays with Needles and Susan’s blog (http://www.plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/2013/02/happy-harikuyo.html) about Hari-Kuyo and she has graciously linked us all together so in essence we are having a blogging Hari-Kuyo.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have time to stitch today!
ttfn…sue

Susan Elliot’s class: Hari-Kuyo Needlebook

I had another blog planned this week but I am so-o-o proud of myself I need to share this with everyone and especially Susan Elliot who write Plays with Needles blog (.http://plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/) Susan is an incredibly wonderful creative stitcher and shares her talent with family and friends all the time. It is one of my favorite blogs to follow.

Last year she offered her first online class for Hari-Kuyo Needlebook (http://www.plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/p/harikuyo-needlebook-e-course-ii.html). I signed up immediately and even blogged about it March 10th (https://sudukc.wordpress.com/category/classes/everything-begins-at-a-point/hari-kuyo-everything-begins-at-a-point/). I kept up with all the embroidery as my world was falling apart last spring.
This fall Susan offered a second online class and I posted a comment about having all the stitching completed and how well organized I though the class had been. Susan graciously invited me to join the group again but I still did not get the finishing completed over the holidays. I have definitely decided I am not as multi-tasking as I used to be.

And now Susan s offering this class anytime…and I recommend it to anyone. And another great thing is she is offering different kit choices.

I had been mulling around in my mind that I would like to attempt to put the book together using just a hand stitching and so I made a few adjustments.
First I stitched the outside decorations by hand and attached the felt pages to the inside piece with wrapped backstitches using 3 ply floss of the appropriate color.
I then laced the front and back pieces to light weight card stock and then hand sewed the two pieces together attaching the tie to one of the pieces so it would be between the layers. The material around my felt pom-poms is a bit larger than
recommended but I could not get them to gather like I wanted any other way.
I am finished and I did it all myself with hand stitching and I even placed the two needles I used to stitch this entire project on their appropriate pages in places of honor where they shall remain. I also need to find a “Sashiko” needle. I plan on leaving this out until February 8th to
remind me how important my needles are to me. And when I do decide to place it with my other stitch collection pieces it will receive a place of honor. It is one of my favorite pieces! Thank you Susan!
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have time to stitch today!
ttfn…sue

Hari-kuyo…one of my many irons

One of my irons…and literly using an iron for this one.

I signed up for my first online class, Hari-kuyo and I am loving it…not getting much done, juggling all the irons I have going right now. The first picture is a picture of Susan’s neddlebook, the one I hope to have someday…and the second picture is all my supplies, my pressing is complete and I even basted the outlines on covers. I need to catch up this week-end, hope to get embroidery completed. I have printed off the instuctions and watched the videos just can’t seem to find hands on time.

And Susan is an enabler too. Talked about a silicone pressing sheet, I don’t have one of these BUT I know I need one…shopping shopping shopping (yet something else to do)…

This class has been fun and Susan has done a wonderful job. Her kits are great and the videos are so good. I just love Susan’s work, if you haven’t visited her blog, Plays with Needles (http://plays-with-needles.blogspot.com/ ) do so please; it is inspiration plus. Her Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Your Majesty, Beading and…just click on anything on the right column of her blog… you will not be disappointed.

Okay need to start the running and juggling, maybe someday I can even run with scissors…don’t hold your breath waiting for the video.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have time to stitch today!  ttfn…sue