As I posted a couple of days ago, my friends Pat, Carol & Marcia gave me a really cute, sunny, uplifting flower arrangement in an oversized smiley-face mug. Well, the flowers officially bit the dust today, and I was faced with what to do with the mug. I thought about putting it with my teapot/tea cup display, but it just didn’t work. Here it is, “repurposed”:
I now have a kitchen pincushion! Thanks doubly, ladies — two gifts in one!
Sue
With the drop in temperatures (brrrr), I thought I would post about the new addition to our bed this winter (get your minds out of the gutter). Of course, I love having one of my quilts on our bed, and quilted with Hobbs 80/20, they are good for a large part of the year. Another thing is we keep our bedroom doors closed and close off the heat to the bedroom in the heating months (October to May!!!), so it is noticeably more frigid cooler than the rest of the house. In other years, I have added an extra quilt plus a velour-type blanket to the mix to make it possible to warm up after slipping between those icy cold sheets. That time is now. (And if you live in the South and wonder why we would deliberately have a cold bedroom — once you warm up, it’s the BEST for sleeping.)
This year, while at Ikea by the Mall of America, I checked out their duvet cover sets. They had a perfect white-with-blue set that would coordinate (I hoped) with quilt I made out of the Linens & Lace fabric from my friend Arlene Linton’s line with Robert Kaufman.
The duvet pattern is called Alvine Skon, and was $39.99 for the Full/Queen with two shams. I bought a warm, puffy comforter to put inside the duvet cover, and couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I think it looks pretty good, but more importantly, it is WARM!!! And I can still enjoy seeing my quilt. (I know I could have made the bed look neater, but remember my broken wrist!!! I’m using that excuse anywhere I can.) We just pull up the comforter over the quilt when we’re ready to “retire”.
My plan is to check out Ikea for other sham sets to coordinate with whatever quilt is on our bed. It make a wonderfully toasty bedding option.
And my favorite thing in all of Ikea (I know I mentioned this before, but…) is their mug/cup. Like drinking from a daintier type of mug, and they STACK in the cupboard. 58 cents ea. Last time I was there, they had white, deep dark blue, and this green. We have both white and green. I always take green and Jim always uses white. No more, “Hey, have you been drinking out of my cup???”.
Saturday we had one of our grand-puppies over for a visit. It was a test (since we’ve never had a dog in the house) to see if it would work while DS and DIL take an extended trip. Here is Milo:
We enjoyed Milo very much. He’s very well behaved for a young Sheltie (almost a year old). He obeys some commands, and just loves everybody! Especially if he can’t see you…
Jim went into the office to work at the computer for a while, and we didn’t let Milo in there because we weren’t sure how he would be with wires and equipment. Milo is like the rest of us — he wants what he can’t have. I was sitting at the table just a few feet from him. Nope, no interest in me. He wanted what was behind Door # 1. We passed the test. Milo will be staying with us later this month.
Sue
