It's Been a Busy Couple of Weeks

I simply do not know where these days go. They fly by and I seem to be brushing my teeth to get up and immediately brushing my teeth to go to bed. At least I accomplish that.

Probably what makes the days fly by are in and out visits of two little boys. And, I temporarily forgot....one was out of school 3 days this week. Very cold temperatures caused broken pipes at James' school so he was with me on Monday and Tuesday. Then the 9 inches of forecasted snow ended up being 1 1/2 inch and school was called off the night before when the storm started. Thus, no school on Thursday.

I have been painting and cutting fabric for quilts. I have found a person who has graciously agreed to sew a few quilts together for me and for that I will be eternally grateful. This leaves me with a few hours to design the next quilt - yeah. I even finished up two that needed small tweaks.

So, in between making peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches and dispensing buckets of chips for starving boys, I have gotten a lot done. Just no postings. So, here they are.

Forgot to mention we had a couple of birthdays too!

One sleepy birthday boy.

One birthday boy in disguise. 7 and 3. All great celebrations early in the morning.

The folowing are simple "theme" flannel quilts. Getting ready for next winter during this cold spell.

I am thinking warm and breakfast and coffee! And, maybe a little pizza later!

STAY WARM, NC and Iowa!

A GOOD DAYS WORK....

I really got rolling last week in the painting room here and had a good run, so to speak. Here's the proof.

Burberry dog collar

Merry-go-round horse without the merry-go-round.

A Couple of Easy Quilts Recalling Great Trips.

I thought perhaps it might be fun to show these two quilts that I made after trip to Ireland and England. Both represent my view of the wonderful colors and gardens that I was lucky enough to visit.

A plethera of English garden flowers - Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

Shades of Ireland - fields of green and wheat with dark green hedgerows squaring it all off.

Both of these quilts were designed the same with 10 1/2" blocks. Both bring back wonderful memories for me.

Simplicity is sometimes the best.

BASEBALL SEASON is COMING!

Here are two cute needlepoint canvases for brothers that I designed a couple of weeks ago for a Mystic Needle Nook customer. A lot of the same baseball "stuff" but a few differences to make them special for both Charlie and Jack. The customer did not want red on the canvases so I lightly marked in "red permanent marker" the baseball stitching on each and decided she could use another shade of gray if she just couldn't do red. I - personally - love red. It is perky! And, so it goes....

A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING....

It is beginning to occur to me that the "business of business" keeps me so busy here that three blogs a week seems a little impossible. It isn't as though I don't think about doing a blog, it is just with needlepoint and quilting projects up the wazoo, I always have somehting in my hands in the evening precluding the action of opening the computer and writing a blog.

Little boys next door come and go many times a day, often from 3 and 6 pm and I cannot resist that distraction!

Here are a few of the needlepoint projects that have left the studio in the past two weeks and some quilts that are building up into a huge pile of color.

A Marine Crest on #13 mesh and a pile of books also on #13 mesh. Very important books!
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I took this class with Cate's three sisters and we all made this quilt. I used Kaffe Fassett florals. Queen size.

The queen quilt to the right was adapted from Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and designed by Kris Peterson. Love it! More Kaffe fabrics. I am obsessed with these florals. Using them for a lot of projects. Colors here are not very true. Sashings are the purple/lime dot and lots of pinks and reds and turquoise and some soft yeloows. It looks 'glow in the dark' crazy in some of these photos. I'd better get more accomplished at editing these.
















                                                                               

AND NOW...2015

Well, here we go into 2015 and my time between Christmas and last night was filled with cutting out quilt pieces for SEVEN quilts. There were scraps everywhere. Now I guess I had better get to work on getting them sewn together.

I painted a little bit of needlepoint and started several custom pieces that I will be working on for awhile.

Here are a couple of photos of projects.

Two flags for a friend whose daughter has lived in many countries.
Go USA! Second flag is El Salvador. #18 mesh

 This is one of my first scrap quilts and I still love it. Queen size.

Every Princess Needs a Princess Bed

My New Year's Eve grand daughter, Caroline - who lives in Boston and will be 7 on that day - had been wishing for the bed trimmings she believed all princesses slept beneath. Many pictures had been shown to her mother and this subject had been non-stop conversation for months. While I was in Boston visiting before Christmas, I somehow pulled off this request as a surprise. It was a great hit! This child - who never gets too excited about anything - was over the moon JOYOUS with this surprise.

Happy 7th Birthday, dear Caroline! Love, Mimi