Finished top

The tenugui fabric got the most votes and it was my favorite too, but the width was only 14 inches and it would have been hard to cut in a way that would not waste fabric. Also, my plan was to add vines and leaves to count (and add width to the quilt). I really needed to pick fabric that would not hide the leaves.

I had used a heart fabric for the baby's sister's quilt and in the end I decided on this heart fabric left over from an earlier baby quilt, thinking the title of the quilt will be, "You can count on my love".

The green of the 7 is washed out in the photo but it does show up well against the heart print.



I think the light background also makes the pale cats show up better or at least be more balanced.





I do not know how the family will use the quilt.

I have not heard how they used the "I Spy" that I made for the first baby, but I made an "I Spy" for my daughter's kids and I know it was used for play as well as a bed cover.

We did enough count-downs in our family ... 5 minutes to bedtime ... three more bites of your dinner ... one more story before lights-out ...

Count the left-handed cats ...


count the cats with eyes closed ...


I may quilt in leaves or cats in the larger areas to make it more interesting to count.

Now I will begin digging through my tenugui for a quilt backing.
The first daughter got a dragon on her quilt back.
Now it is the year of the monkey so I will have to see if I can find at least one monkey tenugui.

Maybe a monkey print would be fun.

Anyway, I am happy to be this far along with the project.

Last Sunday was Norie's birthday and the sweet daphne is perfuming the air along the street.

This bush is actually a cutting from the original we planted when Norie was born.

The original was moved to Suginami-ku while we were living there and I think it went to Norie's garden from there.

Cuttings are not difficult to make so there are still some bushes blooming in the Suginami garden as well.

We had a nice dinner gathering on Sunday to celebrate and Leia helped me decorate the cake I had baked earlier.

Stencils and powdered sugar  ... we both cut and Leia did the arranging of the letters and other stencils.

All on a applesauce spice cake....
The candles were gone and the cake was about to be cut before I dug out my camera.


Early in the week we had cold blustery wind ...
rattling the windows at night ...
But a bit of sun today and flowers along the street are beginning to appear.

Nice to see these volunteers along the street.


The park has good southern exposure. Mine will follow in a few more weeks.

Hope you are enjoying the change of seasons too.