Catching up! - baby quilts - August and September

The past four months have passed in a flash. Here is a quick catch-up about August and September!  

Over the summer I worked on a couple of baby quilts for Noelle's baby Chloe - 

At the end of July David and I drove up to Maine for a week in Ogunquit with our kids and grand daughters. 

The summer flew by! 

Then at the end of August we drove BACK up to Massachusetts to spend the whole month of September based there.  Yup, we were so hopeful about the election: 

It was wonderful to reconnect with some dear friends, and the place we still feel is "home" in so many ways.  Still, "you can't go home again" sort of resonates.  

While in MA, the most astonishing thing happened. Someone contacted me on Ancestry with a very strong DNA match, and it turns out I have a half-aunt, about my age - my Grandmother had had a baby and gave her up for adoption, later in life, completely privately and no one knew for all of these years. It has been an absolute joy and pleasure to get to know my "aunt", who is the spitting image of my grandmother, her birth mother!   

*Edited to remove a screenshot of a Zoom call, for privacy reasons 

In Massachusetts I also worked on a couple of baby quilt tops for great-nieces due in the coming months: 

I will do another post about quilty things seen during our time in New England, so stay tuned for that!  (If anyone is reading blogs anymore, lol). 

xo

Cynthia 

Seasonal tenugui

We are back from Maine and I've been in "quiet puttering" mode which has included finally getting my collection of Japanese tenugui in order, so that I can swap them out more easily each month.  I clipped them in two batches on hangers, to store in David's office closet near the entryway.   Now I can easily rotate them. 

Seasonality is so important in Japan and I do love this collection!  It was fun to collect these over time, to loosely fit our American seasonal themes.  

Here they all are in batches: 

January - Fuji-san with snow and pine tree

February - plum blossoms

March - cat in doorway 

April - cherry blossoms 

May - Irises 

June - icecream cone 

July - Fuji-san with fireworks 

August - Furin (Japanese wind chimes) 

September - grapes 

October - fish and cat 

November - teacups with maple leaves motif 

December - birdies and snow 

The entryway seems to be a good place for them. 

Reviewing vacation snapshots... 

Trolley in Ogunquit charming and practical - 

Puzzle time! 

Charlotte loved the beach! 

I brought two quilts along including the blue and white tenugui quilt - peekaboo Amelia! 

Multiple ice cream outings - 

Tommy made us beautiful lobster rolls for our last dinner all together - (with hamburger or bean burgers for some of us).  I look forward to Maine lobster rolls each year!   Typically you can choose chilled lobster meat with a little mayo, or warm meat with butter.  

Two minivans, seven adults, three littles, road trip from North Carolina to Maine (with stops along the way) and back, lots of fun.  Sort of chaotic.  Good memories made.  Everyone stayed healthy!  Also, nice to be home again. 

xo

Cynthia 

Boston and Maine... and Indigo Sofa Throw finish

During my month in the U.S. we went to Massachusetts for a few days and reconnected with several good old friends (I wish I'd taken some selfies with each of them!).  

I do love Boston and it was so great to be back home-home for a few days. 

Then Tommy arrived and we headed to New Hampshire to our storage unit.... he found a few things he wanted to take back to college, and I sifted through some old photos for fun. 

The Christmas my brother and I got new bicycles, 1975: 

We rented a little house in Ogunquit, Maine for a week.  It was so cozy and homey.  I loved the trees and it was walking distance to cute shops and restaurants as well as the little beach.   We watched the Olympics each night.  I did a tiny bit of handwork.  I brought so much, but just worked on ONE block, lol. 

Beautiful gardens to admire in the neighborhood - 

Kaela, Joe and Charlotte were with us all week - 

Playing with Grandad on the beach: 

Soaking up Charlotte time: 

Noelle and Keenan joined us from North Carolina for a few days: 

My three children - my heart: 

Sweet Noelle:

Kaela did some haircuts on the porch: 

 

Beach baby: 

In our happy place: 

We celebrated Tommy's birthday and I gave him the indigo sofa throw.  How I forgot to take photos, I don't know.  But later he sent me some: 

It measures about 45"x65" - I used a mix of new and vintage indigo.  No batting.  Soft thick indigo backing.  

Susan Briscoe gives excellent instructions in her book The Book of Boro.  Highly recommended. 

When the throw was "finished" I added little patches here and there - with needle turn appliqué - to create the balance I wanted. 

Without batting, it is very compact but substantive with the heavy backing.  

I added our family's Pawlonia kamon to the lower left hand corner.   

David flew back to Tokyo from Boston and I flew back to Texas for an extra week with Charlotte.  You know the rest of the story from my whiny previous post, lol.   I am now back home in Tokyo with ten more days of quarantine - but we are allowed to take walks close to home, so it doesn't feel too restrictive at all. 

xo

Cynthia