May is full of smiles!

Already into the latter part of May and I'm only getting around to blogging.  I have numerous projects going on and I seem to be drawn to those before I sit down at my computer...

First off, I finished the Misted Pines quilt that I had been making!  Yeah!  The quilt is sure a beauty with the gradations of color and I'm pretty happy with the fabrics I chose to use though this would have been easier if I'd just had a pallette of colors in a kit or something.  I have seen this quilt longarm quilted with a woodsy pantograph pattern but as I've never done overall quilting on a large quilt I stuck to just machine quilting within all the blocks.  As I mentioned in the last post, my quilt shifted as I was doing the quilting and I had a number of pleats in the backing so I did spend one day ripping a corner out and redoing the quilting and I had to go in with hand repair (tacking down folds) on a few of the smaller pleats.  I'd definitely do a better job of basting the next time I try this!  

This quilt will eventually go to Leiya but I'll enjoy it on my wall for a few months.  We had talked about making two narrow panels so that each of us could have a strip of this quilt but definitely the quilt width is what accentuates the flow of colors.  This would be so beautiful in a queen or king sized quilt!

As usual I've been drawing and painting and May has given me lots of flowers to try my hand at.

We visited a garden of lupines one day.

Our own yard had a cluster of Japanese iris blooming.

The rice is growing throughout the countryside and there are patches of green carpet everywhere.  This is how the fields are flooded.

Whenever the weather is nice on Saturdays, Tetsu and I make it a habit to eat breakfast outside.

A had an absolutely wonderful time with 6 of my friends.  One friend lives in the central part of Japan and for the past 10 years or so we would meet up with her when all of us would go traveling for a couple of days.  Before Covid, every year the seven of us would travel and we've been to the northern prefecture of the main island of Japan, to the very southern part of Japan, we've visited dams and onsen and snowy Japanese gardens.  We've flown over Fuji-san and ridden on resort trains, and soared over mountains in cable cars.  What fun memories we have made!  Alas, because of Covid we haven't been able to go traveling for the past 4 years but while we chatted this week (5 hours!) we made plans to step out together again towards the end of this year.

This was our delicious Japanese lunch.  Can you imagine cooking all of that?  (Can you imagine washing up all the little dishes!)

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Leiya keeps our gmail box flooded with baby pictures.  Looking at grandchildren photos is a wonderful way to start the day!  Taiga-kun is sitting up (sort of) now.

When Tony holds him he still looks pretty small...

I thought this was hilarious!  Talk about multi-tasking!  Leiya took Luka and Taiga to visit Daddy at his office and here is Tony doing something on his computer, WHILE holding a baby, WHILE getting some exercise in!

And here is Luka in Daddy's big shoes!

And a project that has been taking up a lot of my time is a booklet I'm making with Valerie Sjodin in her online class A Beautiful Word.  For 2024, I chose the word SMILE to be my word of the year and so I've jumped in with that and am trying to put together art pages that represent it.   This is my front and back cover. 

The inside pages (that may need a bit more...)

Another inside set of pages with an insert...

And the insert opens up to this.

I've got four more pages to go...  My imagination is running thin.

And I leave you with an beautiful photo my friend sent me taken from her condominium on the 14 floor.  Early morning clouds drifiting between the streets and buildings.