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 

Simple baby quilt finish

Sometimes it's fun to interrupt work on other quilting projects, to make a simple baby quilt. 

Our nephew Tyler and his wife Johanna in Utah are expecting a baby girl in September.  They have recently adopted twin pre-schoolers (Tyler's Mom Amy, my sister-in-law, had fostered them as babies!), and so new baby girl will make three, and the whole little family is so excited.  

It is so fun to make the simplest of patchwork quilts.  Johanna sent me a couple of photos with the vibe and color scheme she wants for baby's room.  

and so I used what I already have to make the top.   I have a box of 3 1/2 inch squares and I started there, and then pulled from stash.  Bella Solids unbleached muslin, and Dream Cotton select batting, which is the mid-loft. 

I machine quilted it in the simplest way possible, on either side of the seam lines, with the walking foot. 

Little peachy flowers on off-white for the backing - 

 

Crinkly out of the dryer - 

Ready to send to Utah.  Like all the baby quilts I make, this one is meant to be used heavily and washed 1000 times, and it will only get softer and better over time.  That's wabi-sabi.  

Meanwhile, I am prepping for our family vacation to southern Maine.  It will be so nice to get out of the North Carolina heat for a week! 

xo

Cynthia 

Twin baby nine-patch quilts finished!

Hurray, I finished the simple nine-patch quilts for Kaela's twin baby girls, due late August.   

Baby A's Nine Patch: 

And, Baby B's Nine Patch: 

I see that the creamy white (Kona Snow) I used as background and alternate blocks, is really too creamy for the cooler white of the borders (especially with Baby B's quilt).   

It's not really so noticeable indoors.  

Simple and spare machine quilting (this time with cotton thread instead of my usual monofilament in the needle): 

I am just all smiles these days, contemplating the happy busy time ahead as they move to North Carolina with babies soon on the way. 

Narrow single-fold binding: 

The quilts washed up so well.  I love the moment of taking a new quilt out of the dryer.   

So happy with the borders/backings:

In other news, it is starting to get hot here in N.C. and I hardly notice, because I'm happy to be inside with the air conditioning going.   

Today as I did housework I finished listening to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  by Betty Smith, on Audible.  The narration by Kate Burton was absolutely brilliant and if it's been awhile since you've read this classic, I highly recommend it as a listen!   

xo

Cynthia 

baby quilt progress and misc art

Time for a little catch-up.   

Baby Charlotte turned two - can we call her baby Charlotte anymore?  I don't think so!  Little twin sisters "Baby A" and "Baby B" will be arriving sometime in August or early September;).  

Our big news is that Kaela and Joe found a beautiful "forever" home in the area.  They will move there in August.  Yes the same month the babies are due!  And then David and I are buying a townhome less than ten minutes from their home!  We will move there in September.  Much more on that later!   It is quite small and a "bit of a fixer upper" but nothing we can't handle over time.   In this insane sellers' market, we had to get real! 

Meanwhile,  I have a driver's license and a library card, so I'm all set and can call North Carolina home now, right? 

It is a pleasure to be going to a library again after three years in Tokyo without one.   

Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors.  I also love checking out cookbooks each time.  

David and I went to a Van Gogh "immersive experience" the other day - I believe it has toured the country, or maybe there are multiple iterations of it happening simultaneously.    It was educational and interactive, which was nice.... but 

...we found it to be overpriced and disappointing, sort of a strip mall version of a real museum experience, with cheap blurry replicas of real art.  Save your pennies and visit a real museum and see some original art, take an audio tour or better yet, a docent tour and experience art that way.  And there is so much excellent free content online, from real museums featuring excellent images and videos. 

Speaking of art... my feelings about tattoos have certainly evolved over the years. 

When Noelle got her first tattoo  (a Khalil Gibran quote about death - on her rib cage - her freshman year of art school), she FaceTimed us in Japan to show us, and I excused myself almost immediately to go have a good cry.   LOLOLOL.  

Ten years later..... I celebrate with her when she gets the tattoo she's been planning for so long, from a respected tattoo artist who accepted her proposal of concept and designed the tattoo.  Each element holds meaning for Noelle.  This was part one and took six hours: 

Part two a week later also took six hours.  That is our family crest, the Paulownia.  

Ya, part of me says "I don't get it" and the same part of me also says "I feel old" - but the better part of me can just be happy for my daughter. 

Meanwhile I'm in nine patch heaven over here, working on the simple baby quilts.  I finished quilting Baby B's quilt, will work on quilting Baby A's next.   

Does anyone else use your actual quilt as a machine cover, when you are in the middle of the machine quilting process. :).   I just flip it over the machine at the end of a session, leaving the needle in the quilt.  This backing is Flower Shop by Jim Ishikawa for Clothworks. 

xo

Cynthia 

Baby quilt finish

I finally finished the baby quilt for my cousin and her wife who just had a baby girl.  They named her Goldie - such a great name! 

I used a scrappy binding - single fold.  I cut the strips 1 1/4 inches. 

Machine quilting in a very casual random grid: 

It washed up well - crinkled up and ready for hard use and lots of washings.  The shot cotton is soft. 

That's about it.  I mailed it off yesterday!   It's a small thing but I love how a baby quilt fits perfectly into one of the "medium box" mailers at the post office. 

I am really enjoying the steady dose of sunshine here in North Carolina!  Signs of spring in the patch of woods behind the deck: 

April already, how time flies. 

x

Cynthia 

baby quilt, and sail repair

 

In the midst of weighty and momentous world events which are always somewhere on my mind.... my own little domestic world is starting to normalize and hum along.  I have more or less set up my sewing room, but most of my stuff is still in Japan.  I have two machines here - my Grandma's old Bernina 830 Record, and my giant Bernina 740.  

My cousin and her wife are having a baby girl soon and it's been fun to work on a simple baby quilt on the 830 Record.  Using that machine always makes me feel connected to my Grandma Mary Lou.   First things first, a nice cleaning and oiling.  

These old machines are so beautiful. 

I thought I'd do four patches alternating with this teal Kaffe Fassett shot cotton (SO soft), but once I started laying the four patches out.... 

My goal is a "not too sweet" baby quilt, and I also found after laying these blocks out, that I wanted to tone down the teal...  and so decided to make more four patches and just set them side by side. 

 I'm pleased with it although the fact that I started out with four patches sort of limited my placement choices.  

And on to the simple machine quilting, just a relaxed grid with the walking foot.  I will show the finished quilt once I've bound it! 

David visited last week from Japan and it was wonderful to have him here.  Now, all the kids, and David, have been to the townhouse and so it officially feels like home now.  He unpacked the last of the boxes and set up his home office downstairs.  

Some of the boxes held surprises.... like I'd forgotten that we had a waffle maker, lol.  We hung some things on the walls, and saw family and friends in the area.  

We got roadside barbeque.... and I have no idea what "pig pickin' cake" is... but homemade banana pudding is standard here and so yummy (my Mom was from West Virginia and made it all the time when I was a little kid).   

And we tried "Cheerwine" - a Southern thing - which turns out to be cherry soda! 

Now David is back in Tokyo.  He has been triple vaxxed and would not have been required to quarantine, but after 24 hours at home, he got word that someone seated near him on the plane had tested positive upon arrival in Tokyo... and so he does need to quarantine in the apartment after all, for 7 days and possibly 14.  Travel continues to be so daunting!  He has 35 days left in Tokyo - yes we are both counting the days!   

Meanwhile here in NC a few days ago I helped my brother (also named David) repair his sailboat sail, in several places, with a wide zig zag stitch and using the strongest thread I've ever encountered. 

David folding the sail and identifying exactly what needed repairing or reinforcing.  It stretched the entire length of the room, from dining area, past the kitchen and stairs, and into the living room area! 

As I sewed, oh so slowly, my brother and Janette ensured that no part of the sail got hung up.  I need to do more research and investigate needles because I broke two in the process and the machine had a hard time over the bulky seams.  Did you know that there are sewing machines made specifically for sails??   My brother is considering buying a "Sailrite" machine. 

In any case the whole process was an interesting challenge.  Now I'm getting ready for a weekend visit from my niece and her boyfriend.  It is such a pleasure to live within driving distance of extended family! 

xo

Cynthia