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 

Meiji Shrine on a beautiful fall day

A couple weeks ago there was a festival (sort of subdued, with the lack of tourists - Japan is still not open to tourists) at Meiji Shrine.  I met some friends there and we really enjoyed ourselves.  Not pictured are the many absolutely adorable children in their fancy kimono, being photographed.

At the entrance, an autumn display celebrating the harvest - with a ship made out of vegetables! 

A solemn procession of monks: 

A marvelous exhibit of ikebana: 

and chrysanthemums everywhere: 

I love spotting the Pawlonia kamon (family crest):  

Back home, I've not been doing much quilting lately.  I'm sort of stalled out.   I've been doing a lot of geneology, sitting at my kitchen table with the marvelous fresh air and sunshine streaming in: 

Cabell County West Virginia rural school class photo.  The tall guy in the back was my great-grandfather Garland Tennyson Brown.  We called him Pop: 

Last week in book group we discussed A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.  I read it for the second time (actually, the first time, I listened to it).  I took notes and really savored it because it was my turn to lead the discussion.  I highly recommend this epic, beautifully written novel! 

And now we are reading The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns - much quicker read, really enjoying it too. 

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