The White House Quilts

Many people have been asking me about the quilts I have been doing for the Jim Shore Collection. Jim Shore is a world famous artist and he and his wife (Jan) opened a store in her hometown - the big booming metropolis of Heath Springs, SC. It also happens to be my mom's home town and where my parents currently live. This store displays all of his artwork and in the back Jan has a quilt store (her passion). Last fall, I happened upon Jan in the store and offered to make quilts for her. These first two have Jim's artwork printed on fabric in the center and I created the design around it. I attempted to keep his unique style flowing through the piece.

This one uses several of Jim Shore's fabrics. He has taken the quilt patterns he uses on his angels and made fabric out of them. Sorry the picture doesn't show the detail of the actual quilting.

This is a pattern I borrowed from Designer Joanne Page of a table runner. It was made to entice people to buy that funky fabric!

This was the first quilt I did for them. It was designed not so much for its beauty or creativeness as it was for showing off the fabrics they had in the store in hopes of selling fabric. You can't see the quilting on the piece, but in the blocks that don't have an X in the center I quilted butterflies. It adds a little pizazz anyways.

Mimi's Summer Quilting Projects

This is a quilt I have been working on for many years. The top is finally finished. I hope to quilt it before fall arrives. It is my first attempt at blending fabrics together. Despite the fact that some of my fabrics don't blend so well, it is still pleasant to the eye.

A close up!

Jacob's Cowboy Quilt - I made this for his 9th birthday back in April.

You can't see it very well, but I quilted it with lasso loops and stars.

Garden News

See Papaw, we can grow eggplant!!

Cucumbers in a barrel.

Squash in a barrel.

Sunday we had very heavy winds while we were at church. The wind snapped one of my stakes and my beans are now providing more shade than necessary for the broccoli! Two of the tomato plants were literally horizontal, but we fixed them before taking the picture. The incident caused me to have to remove the pea vines about a week before I planned to so that Bruce and Coy could repair the damage to the tomatoes. Lost about 10-15 tomatoes, but that's very little compared to the massive numbers still on the vines.

Our Garden

Everything is growing big and beautiful. We have already harvested lots of peas and now we're waiting for the millions of tomatoes to turn red. This had been a very satisfying way to garden - no weeding involved!

And presto! We now have plants. Tomatoes, peas, onions, broccoli, beans (bush and pole), peppers, melon, squash, cucumbers, egg plant and some herbs.

The one on the left is cooking while it awaits planting. The one on the right has been partially planted.

This year we planned our first garden. We decided to try the lasagna method. We applied different layers and layers of organic material for a balanced pH level. The boys helped me build it, cook it, and plant it! What fun!!