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 

September mini - Bears with Boro raindrops

For this mini, I appliqued some vintage indigo 'raindrops' onto this adorable Naoya Hata bear fabric.   It's for my son Tommy, who loves bears, and indigo.  Lots of rainy days in August and September while I worked on it, and lots of Netflix too.  My initial idea was just to applique various indigo circles onto a background.  While searching my stash for a background, I thought ah ha! ... indigo raindrops for these delightful bears.

The striped borders are from some contemporary tsumugi from my stash.  Cornerstones had to be... of course... bear paws!

I cut the single fold binding 1 1/8 inch wide.  For some reason I machine stitched it to the back of the quilt, not the front, which meant a less than perfectly smooth finish on the front when I hand tacked it down, but, no matter.

The backing is leftover from the 4-patch Tommy took to college.

Will link up HERE with Wendy at The Constant Quilter when she posts the September mini links.  Thanks for the push Wendy.  Deadlines are useful!  Now...... what to do for October's mini??

xo
Cynthia