Still Looking for Spring

Sorry I've been gone so long. Both hubby and myself have been sick and it seems at times as if we were trying to cough ourselves to death! But so far we haven't, even though we're still sick. It's been awful hard to get motivated to decorate for Easter between feeling lousy and the cold weather that continues here. Last Monday the high temperature was 30 degrees! But I have managed to put out a few of my decorations.

The first picture is a smocked basket filled with smocked eggs that my Mom made a long time ago. I can't imagine how much work all this was. She was a sewing teacher and was a master at many kinds of needle craft. My daughter has a basket too so perhaps she'll show hers on her blog. Please also check out her blog and the awesome birthday invitations and thank you notes she made for grandson Carter's upcoming second birthday.

A basket filled with bunnies is on the dining room table. Grandson Carter loves these as does Penny the calico cat.

A closeup of a basket quilt I made a long time ago. Hand pieced and hand quilted! I don't seem to have enough time to hand quilt these days.

An egg cup (I have many) and a little planter that I love.

Another egg cup and planter. So hopefully we'll see some spring here soon. I have actually seen some crocuses at work but none in my yard. I still have snow in the front yard! Send some nice weather here please.

Carter's Quilts

The sun was coming into the great room this morning and the quilts I have made for my grandson's soon to be new bedroom looked pretty just piled up there on my Mom's old orange chair that I love. You can see previous progress on the quilts here. He will be having bunk beds in his room eventually so I made 2 scrap quilts.

My quilter did a good job with the pattern she chose. She calls it Chestnut Swirls and I think it's perfect. It seems to pick up on the many paisley scraps that ended up in these quilts. Now I have binding to make and attach and once his room is painted and ready for decorating these will look good in a little boy's room. And perhaps he'll be sharing this room with his baby brother someday in the future, who will be arriving in July. I can't wait! I need to come up with a great baby quilt for him soon so got to get these old menopause wheels turning!

Signs of Spring?

I've enjoyed everyone's spring pictures lately so we decided to see if we could find and signs of spring in our neighborhood yesterday with grandson, Carter, and his parents. Here's my home with the beautiful spring like scene in my front yard. See the yellow flowers? Oops, that's yellow snow-nevermind.
I honor of Red Sox spring training Carter is chasing a baseball with his bat. Wait a minute, that's a snowball and a stick. Oh well.

But who cares what the winter has been like when you have peeps that care about you enough, like Momma and Ga, to give you a helping hand on the walk.

I hope to stop whining soon about winter but the jury's still out on that promise.

For the Table

I won the fabric above from Heather Mulder Peterson, it's her Rebel Roses line, and wrote about it here. So what to do with it-I have a number of her patterns and books and this pattern is one of her Little Charmers patterns. She has great patterns for table toppers and runners. So I settled on this one and have enough to make a table runner so that's next.

I love big prints and the big Rebel Roses print is my favorite, especially the brown. I want to get some more of the brown big print for backing, but it seems like it has sold out everywhere that had it so I may have to buy one of the other colors. I think the combination of colors is wonderful and refreshing which we need around here to wash this stupid winter out of our minds!

Use What You've Got

I have a massive fireplace mantle in my great room so I'm always looking for something to put up there to fill the space. So when I got my Pottery Barn catalog I fell in love with this flag which is very large by the way. And wanting to make a change on the mantle, the simple thing would be to order it-it's even on sale but I'm a believer in use what you have or buy it at a consignment store.
I know I'm not going to find it in a consignment store so I explored my home to see what I have to get the same feeling. I don't have a flag but I had some items that kind of gave me the same Americana look.

One of the two checkerboards, the left one, I bought at a yard sale years ago, and the one in the middle came from a consignment store. The one on the right was needlepointed by my Mom in 1976! She must have done it for the Bicentennial.

There's at least a flag showing up in this quilt I made about 10 years ago.

So I know we all should be spending to boost up the economy but there's a satisfying feeling in using what you have. I even did it with the quilts I made my grandson here, made entirely with scraps. I'll post pictures of those this week.

On the ever changing weather here in NH, it was in the 50's Saturday and Sunday. I saw many people in shorts and flip flops which is funny because there's still a pile of snow on the ground. And to add insult to injury, we are getting another snow storm tomorrow. Someone get me out of here!

Another Day.........

Another day, another foot of snow. So goes our winter here in New Hampshire. We're in the midst of yet another snow storm. The picture above is of my two cats who love this old recliner. What you can't see is the wood stove directly opposite them pumping out the heat. I think they love winter and they always gravitate to the wood stove. I am sick of winter so you girls just keep posting your pictures of your flowers in bloom and I'll keep hoping we'll get spring here.

Another Giveaway

I have been the recipient of a few giveaways so here's another one for you to check out. Cynthia of Cynthia's Cottage Design is have a cute giveaway so go visit her.