We ate too much (but it was good)

I'm surprised there were any clams left in Rhode Island after we left.

We had stuffies, fried clams, and raw clams. No clamcakes, since I find them too cakey and not clam-y enough.

We'd been meaning to try out Persimmon, in Bristol, for a while - the chef has won all sorts of awards and it was really highly recommended by some friends of my parents.

We splurged (and decided to make it my "birthday dinner") and had the tasting menu. It was really fun - the first of the five courses was a series of hors d'oeuvres, and we spent the whole evening guessing what was going to come next. The whole meal took about 3 hours, but everything was completely delicious.

It was somewhat romantically lit, so my camera had a hard time with the pictures. This was one of our favourite courses: a devilled quail's egg with caviar. SO delicious. We also ate (and thoroughly enjoyed) several things that we never would have ordered off the main menu, like cauliflower soup, and veal sweetbreads. 

And now for something completely different. Alexandria Bay's idea of haute cuisine? Cheeseburger soup, bitches.

Oh, and pancakes, blueberries, sausage and bacon.

Back in Rhode Island, my parents had recommended Federal Hill Pizza in Warren. We were coming back from a day out in Boston, and took the bus from Providence to Warren. It dropped us right in front of the restaurant (and then we had an exceedingly dark but otherwise pleasant walk back to my parents' house). 

They made our pizza half-and-half: sausage, onions and peppers with no cheese for John, and buffalo chicken for me. Yumsters.

We stopped in for a quick lunch after sailing in Newport, at Rosemary & Thyme. The sandwiches were delicious, but the person who took my order (I think she may have been one of the owners) gave me an extremely vitriolic lecture on the evils of credit cards and small businesses. Zoinks. Feel free to put up a "cash only" sign but don't accept cards and then get mad at me when I want to charge $20 worth of sandwiches. Anyway, bring your cash and enjoy the sammies!

While the boys were playing with trains, my mom and I had a girls (plus Harry) trip down I-95. We stopped in Westbrook and had lunch at Lenny & Joe's Fish Tale. Because, obviously, it had been at least 12 hours since our last clam. And onion rings and coleslaw both count as veggies, right?

So does beer.

Needless to say, I gained a few pounds. My fitbit and I are in the process of working them off again.

Boats: small, medium & large

It appears we seek out boats.

Model boats in Central Park (this time we rented two and raced them):

Coast Daylight (with bunting) in Bristol harbour:

John, helming Coast Daylight.

Harry, a-snooze on Coast Daylight (note the Outward Hound lifejacket):

At the end of our CD adventure (post-swim):

At the Newport boat show. Overkill, anyone?

Our view from the dock of the Uncle Sam's boat tour boat that we took the day after this picture was taken.

The enormous tanker that came down the St Lawrence Seaway, past the wedding lunch:

Roomies, en-kayaked:

The Uncle Sam's boat tour:

Our Duck Tour, in Boston:

About to splash into the Charles River:

A sister-duck:

The boats at Community Boating in Boston. We'll be back.

A cruise ship, from our J-22 in Newport Harbour.

A schooner in Newport Harbour:

Coast Daylight in Newport harbour:

The 1/6 scale model of Reliance at the Herreshoff museum in Bristol, RI.

Us on our first J-22, named Intrepid, of course, in Newport harbour:

And the second one:

Bonus pic: John's "Life Is Good" tshirt, complete with sailboat, on the High Line in NYC with Emily:

Sunset, 4 locations.

Sunset 1: Stowmarket station, evening of departure.

Sunset 2: Over the St Laurence River, near Cherry Island, in the Thousand Islands, NY. (Note: while the sunsets and the wedding were beautiful, a region whose most famous export is salad dressing made from ketchup and mayonnaise may have some disappointing food experiences).

Sunset 3: from the Lobster Pot restaurant in Bristol, RI, over Narragansett Bay.

Sunset 4: Manhattan island, as seen from a car on the Whitestone Bridge, en route to Kennedy Airport for the red-eye to the UK.

Aaaaand we're back

Whirlwind US trip (90% Rhode Island, 8% upstate NY, 2% NYC metro).

This is Harry the Dog. No, he doesn't drink gin, he just likes to chew on plastic bottles.

NYC "Love" Wedding Quilt

My friend Emily got married back in September, and I wanted to make her and her new husband a quilt.

My inspiration: the "Love" sculpture, by Robert Indiana.

I liked this quilt, but I wanted to go for something a bit bigger and a bit more graphic.

This was my initial layout design:

Emily is a librarian, so when I saw that Lucie Summers' "Summersville" fabric had a library in the city pattern, I knew that I had to make a feature of it in the quilt. My embroidery skills aren't going to win any awards, but I LOVE how it came out!

Then, I found the perfect backing fabric - "To Work" from the Commute collection by Jay Cyn Organics. Shut up, New York.

Here it is, all completed on the back.

Oh, ok, I'll show you the picture of the Library again. Surrounded by Big Apples, of course.

Here's the completed quilt top. I used the bicycle fabric that I bought because it reminded me of a dress Emily has, and I used some of the leftover red bicycles from Ed's Rangers Quilt for the bottom of the L.

One New York quilt, now with its happy new owners!

Oatmeal cranberry cookies with dark chocolate chips

I made these back before Christmas. I based the recipe on (what else?) Smitten Kitchen's oatmeal raisin cookies, but instead of raisins and walnuts I put in dried cranberries and dark chocolate chunks.

Oh, hi, red Kitchenaid! Yes, I love you, too.

They were seriously good - not too sweet, and felt vaguely healthy. They were the closest I've come to the cookie that my mom and I bought on the way back from Grandma's funeral last February. I've googled and it looks like we stopped at Kessman Farms, in Pawling, NY. Oatmeal cranberry raisin cookies. If you're passing through, that is. You could just make these instead...

Aw, rats. Now I want to go make some cookies.

Grace's red quilt

I had most of the fabric for Grace's quilt back in July. Actually, the Tufted Tweets have been in my stash for a while (and were in this quilt from 2011). Oh, and the red was part of Gabi's Annie Dress. Newly purchased were the monaluna chairs (LOVE), the red stripes, and the birds for the back. 

Oh, and some of the polka dots from Gabi's quilt WAY back in 2009. Anyway, I didn't have a ton of any of the fabric, so I cut squares (5", I think), and then sashed them horizontally with grey. Not quite there.

I realised that I wanted to put AsYetUnnamedBaby's name on the quilt, so I added a white panel to the front, the same size as the pieced panels. (Thank you, Hubby, for the quilt feet.)

Then, I was at Quilter's Haven in Wickham Market over the summer to pick up some fabric for Emily's wedding quilt (not done yet...wedding was a month ago...), and spotted these birds. Birds on the front AND on the back? With red? Sweet!

I picked a font I liked, enlarged it to crazy proportions, then printed it out. I reversed the letters, traced them, cut out the fabric, then applique'd them on to the quilt front (the quilt was in suspended animation until she was born and had a name).

I used red thread to zig-zag around the letters, then finished my quilt sandwich and quilted with a meander, avoiding the letters to make them stand out a bit.

I LOVE how it turned out.

Almost as much as I love this selvedge:

All quilted and bound and ready to go. She was born two weeks before we left for New York so there wasn't a huge amount of time!

Ahem. These chaps thought the quilt was for them and were very disappointed to find out it was not.

Thanks to Evan for the quilt feet and the Brooklyn Bridge for the backdrop.

And here it is in its new home. Grace is exceedingly cute (but was a little sleepy at this point)!