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!!

SNOW!!!!!!!

Finally it snowed. We woke up and it was falling and it continued to fall all day. We got about 6 inches.


We all enjoyed sledding down the hill behind our house.

And then, there is the little brother that wants to be pulled up the hill.

Even Dad went down once.

One of our most enjoyable part of the snow was shaking the trees in the woods and letting the snow fall all over us.

Timbers!!!!!! (or snowers)

After these adventures we attacked the camera man with snowballs.

And the last thing still standing in our yard is Zac's snowman which he built.

Here are two hand forged knives that I made. This one is called a tanto.

This one is no particular kind but I use it to butcher my deer. I got this one sharp!!!!

My Forge

Here are two pictures of my forge. I have a friend who is a blacksmith and he taught me a little about blacksmithing. After trying to use an open fire for heating and treating my metal I decided that it was not doing the job. So I (with help from my brothers) loaded the jeep with cinder blocks from my landlords house and hauled them to my house. Building the forge was the easy part. After laying the blocks in a orderly fashion we filled in the cracks with clay/mud. One part of the forge that is not shown in these pictures is the bellows which I installed later. I made them out of a pieces of PVC pipe running under the forge and then pointing up. At the end of the PVC pipe I strapped an old hair dryer. The blow dryer blows air into the PVC pipe and up under my hot coals giving them great heat. I am having great fun with it and it is doing the job well.

A few pics from our Christmas

Zac and Jacob helping make Christmas cookies…

Bruce’s parents came down on Christmas day from Virginia to visit for a few days. When they arrived, they shared a few gifts with us, but first we had a feast…

The surprise of the gifts was a special present for Bruce … HAIR!

Just about everybody wanted to be pictured with me having hair… again :)

Zachary is getting his domino's ready

Zac was planning on his gradparents upcoming visit at Christmas when he knew he would be playing domino's against his Papa.

Our Thanksgiving at the Mimi's Parents

Each day of our visit Jacob and Pawpaw would eat breakfast together - and every day it was oatmeal, good to the last drop.

As we prepared for the Thanksgiving feast, we found ourselves in a dilemma on how to open the bottles of wine... for there was no corkscrew in the house. Chris and Larry solved the problem by screwing a dry-wall screw into the cork. Then with Chris holding the bottle, Larry pulled out the screw with a vice-grip wrench. We do not have pics of the working out of this, but it was quite a hilarious sight to be seen.

Mimi was in charge of the bird this year and cooked it all night - it was incredibly moist and tender.

The dinner was enjoyed by all...

Larry and P smiling, as always, for the camera.

Bruce surrounded by his boys.

Continuous fun around the table.

Game Time. When we get together we always play lots of games: Yahtzee, Scrabble, Spades, Chess, Checkers, etc.

Here, Mimi and Nani show they are still friends after a grueling game of Scrabble.

Zac looks on as the women whoop up on the men in Spades. Girls won the tournament again!

Pawpaw is always a challenge to beat in Yahtzee. I think Coy is thinking about getting into the woods for a hunt.

The happiest couple that ever lived!

Whole Grain Sourdough Bread

Last Saturday Mimi and a friend took a class on making Artisan bread. The boys and I have been more than delighted with the results. It is awesome.

Zac attempts new hair styles...

As Zac's hair has been growing out, he likes to try new styles. Here is one he showed to us last week.

I'm not sure where he learned about the 50's look.