One drive sent me pictures of Sparkles today

 Sparkles was my cat, or I was her human, for 16 years.  The last 5 of those she was a 3 legged cat. She had a cancerous tumor in her right rear paw and that leg was amputated at the hip. After her recovery she was fine and a happy cat.  She could stand tall on that one hind leg. 

I painted her portrait onto needlepoint canvas and my friend Elizabeth Davies did the needlepoint.  The plan was to use it on a footstool.  

Once it was done Elizabeth decided that I needed to have some sort of design around the outside edge of the footstool.  So I chased my cat Lancelot in the snow on the porch and painted his footprints onto more canvas.  

This footstool was the result.  It has so many memories for me.  Elizabeth and Sparkles are long gone but great memories remain.

Hugs,

Nancy

kitchen chairs

Dear Mary and Jeni,

Dear Mary and Jeni,

Well, to tell the truth, so far it is only one chair. But the fabric is almost finished for the other two. Now I have to look around for a 4th chair to recover and paint. It doesn't have to match, but I would like it to be close in size. These are wonderful 'lady' sized chairs. Not too big and my feet reach the ground!

I have been having fun doing this project. It started from a picture in Fons and Porter's Quilting Magazine this summer. First I did the little footstool and now I have these chairs that I found free out on the curb in Mayville.

They were sort of a maple color and the seat was glued down with crud under the sides of the upholstery and they smelled of smoke. However that is all in the past and now they are just as cute as the dickens.

I hope I get them finished before I have to return to Minneapolis next week.

Love,

Nancy

Recent Quilting Projects

Hi Mary and Jeni,

I haven't only been working in the pond. I have been watching the Tour de France and also quilting and sewing. Aprons have been one of the things I enjoyed making lately as well as a quick foray into recovering furniture with quilting. Also I am working on a pink/peach/red/magenta and white quilt. The quilt I am working on while touring France. The others are finished for now. I do plan on making a few more aprons though. They are fast and fun.

However my favorite part of the apron photo's is the photographer in the mirror.

The furniture recovering came about because of an article in a quilt magazine showing some chairs that were reupholstered in pieced quilted fabric. Wow were they pretty. So, since I had been at an estate sale with Jeni and I had picked up this footstool I decided to recover it in the green and pink and cream of my living

room.

Here is the finished project.

Faye has it at the Henhouse for a sample right now, but I will get it back eventually.

Lastly the white and multi/pink quilt I am working on.

I hope it will turn out to be a large full or a small queen, but that depends on how much of the border fabric I can beg out of my friend Karen. She has, she says, "Lots of it left". Here's hoping. I will just add it on the two sides as it is already around 96 inches long. I laid it out in the library and had to stand in the stairway to get this picture.

Here are details with cats.

Do you think Alice is channeling PJ the Fatty Kitty?

Love,

Nancy