Guess Who is THREE?

My granddaughter is three years old today!

My son said to me on Sunday, "You're gonna really enjoy her, Mom. She's VERY social!"

I can tell. I remember after one doctor's visit with my son, the doctor said to me, "There's a little bit of ham in this kid."  Clearly it runs in the family!

Happy Birthday My Sweet Boy!

It's my son's birthday today. Here he is at the beach with my granddaughter.

Happy Birthday honey!

Happy Birthday My Little Darling!

It's my granddaughter's first birthday today! Where did the time go? She's just started walking and my son has been sending me videos of her walking around and exploring the world.

Happy birthday my little darling girl!

Happy Birthday My Darling Boy!

My favorite person on the planet is now two people. This is my so-far favorite photo of him and his now 8 month old daughter. Today is my son's birthday.

Happy birthday my darling! I love you lots, as high and as wide as the sky. Love you honey!

Happy Birthday Dear Son!

Happy Birthday to my dear son!

He made this name panel all by himself. I tell my students if he can do it, they can do it too.

When my friend Helen from Oz saw this photo she said he was a "spunk," which is an Aussie term for a cute guy.

 One weekend we took three partially busted laptops and built one functional laptop that ran Linux. We had a ball, and this photo always makes me smile every time I look at it.

He is a Third Black Belt in Karate (hence his blog name, Mr Karate).

He loved Gizzy (the cat who came before Millie), and Gizzy loved him.

 This photo was taken at a birthday party several years ago where we had brownies and ice cream instead of cake. If you're a 3rd degree Black Belt and bicycle 40 miles a day, you can eat four homemade brownies and a big scoops of ice cream any time you want.

Even when he was really little he always had a sense of humor. Here he was hiding from me.

Happy birthday my darling. I love you lots. I love your new wife too!

Happy Birthday Chris!

In 2009, Julie Sefton suggested I have Chris Ballard quilt my sampler quilt, Letters From Home.

Julie is on the left, Chris is on the right.

I had never had one of my quilts quilted before, and I was very wary. My son and I pored over photographs of Chris's long arm quilting for hours before we decided she was trustworthy.

I called Chris on the telephone. "I don't know how I'm going to quilt your quilt," she said in her charming southern accent. "I'm going to hang it up on the wall and look at it.  Your quilt will tell me how it wants to be quilted."

Right then and there I knew she was the right person.  Chris has quilted all my quilts ever since, and she has never let me down.

The Black Box, quilted by Chris Ballard, has been in AQS shows in Chattanooga, Des Moines and will be on display at AQS Alburquerque in 2015.

 Quilters and students in my area are aghast when I tell them I pack up my quilts and send them 1,200 miles away (1931 km) to Chris without even knowing what she'll do or how much it will cost. " Do what it wants and tell me how much; I'll send you a check," is generally all the input I give her.

"Life is 'Tweet" made by me and quilted by Chris Ballard

I got to meet Chris in person four years after we "met," when I went to Tennessee in 2013.

Me, Julie and Chris in October 2013 holding a collaboration quilt we made.

Our relationship has gone beyond business and we are very good friends.  Please join me in wishing Chris a very Happy Birthday today!

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Chris,

Happy Birthday to you!

I hope our collaboration continues for a long time!

Happy Birthday Julie!

This is my best pal, Julie.

Julie lives in Tennessee. Last year I visited her. This past June she came to NH to visit me.

This photo was taken at the Zimmerman House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Today is Julie's birthday, so I got her a present.  I asked Terri from Quilternity to make one of her Grab and Go bags in fabric that I knew Julie would love.

This elephant fabric would be the lining.

This Jane Sassaman fabric would be the body of the bag.

This is the finished bag.

As you can see in this photo, Julie loves her bag.

Happy Birthday Julie!

Happy Birthday My Dearest Darling!

Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to You!

 Happy Birthday to my Silly, Funny, Fearless, Creative, Wonderful Son...

Happy Birthday to You!!!


Love, Mom
xxx... (infinity)

Happy Birthday SweetBean

My sweetie, SweetBean, is 6 years old today.  Happy Birthday honey!

Butterfly Birthday

Every year to celebrate my birthday, I spend a day with my son. I prefer time with him in lieu of a gift. This year I told him I wanted to be inside where it was cool.

After a lunch of sushi, and a visit to my favorite chocolatier, he brought me to The Butterfly Place.

It's a sun-filled atrium filled with butterflies. It was not air-conditioned.
You can see hundreds of butterflies, but you can't touch them. In this photo of my son, he's aiming at a butterfly in the lower right, but a yellow one is flying nearby. I was glad a had a camera with a huge memory card, and had brought my spare battery, because I took lots of pictures. Most of them looked like this...(a butterfly was there a second ago)and this. (Drat!)But if you get lucky, you get pictures like this, of butterflies resting.
There are lots of beautiful flowers, like this hibiscus.You have look carefully, because sometimes the butterflies blend in.
or look like flowers.
But the one butterfly you really want to photograph is the big Blue Morpho, who will fly inches away from your head in a looping up and down motion. This butterfly is gigantic, about seven inches across, and rarely sits still with its wings open so you can photograph the stunning iridescent blue. Mostly, you'll get pictures like this.
and this. Here are four Blue Morphos, resting. Patience and luck may reward you.If you get REALLY lucky, a butterfly might land on your hat, so you can get a good picture.or not.After our visit to The Butterfly Place, my son and I had dinner at a restaurant called 900 Degrees. It was spectacular. Then we went to see the last Harry Potter movie.

We had a great day!


(You can read about last year's day here.)

Birthday Outing

About three years ago I told my son I didn't want any more presents for my birthday. Instead, I wanted to spend a day with him. We usually pick a town or city, walk around, visit shops, any Art Museums or Galleries, talk about anything, everything and nothing. We generally have a wonderful relaxing day. Yesterday was our day, and it was great!We started at Lyndell's a bakery, where we bought a mini cheesecake and some cannolis. Then we moved across the street to Soundbites for a terrific breakfast. We had a wonderful fruit bowl and Eggs Benedict. My son had his straight up, I ordered mine with asparagus and tomato.Then it was out to Russo's, a market I can only describe as food heaven. Packed with the freshest of fresh vegetables, a cheese counter to die for, a bakery, a deli and fresh flowers, I was wowed! We bought some yellow and red grape tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, cauliflower, black figs, and a baguette. Had I known I'd be shopping on food heaven on Sunday, I would not have bothered to shop for produce with my usual groceries on Saturday!! We used all the ingredients in our dinner last night.

The day wasn't over. We drove out to my favorite quilt shop, Quilted Threads. I went in looking for some black and white fabric... and came out with one yard cuts of each of these. Obviously I changed my mind! I love these fabrics, and ... yes, they will be in a quilt together!

A Big Change

Sitting in my computer room last night, I thought, "... this room is bigger, why don't I make this my sewing studio?" After a bit of playing with graph paper I came up with a plan.
It will be a hell of a lot of work, but I want to do it.

Two other things...

1. I am SO HAPPY about the winner of Project Runway! I won't spill the beans in case you haven't seen it, but I was THRILLED!

2. My son turns 30 today. Where did the years go? I love you honey!