Mystery Quilt: Christmas Lights Part 2

The weather was hot hot hot and humid this weekend. Yuck! Cathi from Ontario would LOVE it. I keep trying to send this weather her way but I think it gets tied up in customs. Cathi--please take this sunny and 94F weather!! Nothing to do but stay inside and sew.

I worked on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery called "Christmas Lights." Mine is not going to be for Xmas and I changed up the colors/fabrics somewhat. Instead of doing scrappy darks in the four-patches, I did scrappy blues,
(I also ran out of green so added another one for these blocks)
and instead of one red for the other blocks, I scrapped those up too.

I didn't want to buy any fabrics for the quilt hence the scrappiness. The next clue isn't until the October issue of Quiltmaker magazine so I'm all caught up until then.

This weekend sure went by fast! I am dreading the ATL traffic-hell tomorrow with all the kids going back to school. It's so nice in the summer when there is only about half-a-hell worth of traffic out there.

Movie Review: Julie & Julia

S. surprised me yesterday by whisking me off (pun intended) to see Julie & Julia after work.
We both LOVED the movie. It was a funny, entertaining, all around great movie. A timeless kind of of movie that reminded me how fun movies can be (think of 1930s and 1940s movies).

Meryl Streep is amazing, beyond amazing. Just go ahead and give her the Oscar now.

Healthy Food from the Garden

Well it is organic. Fried green tomatoes and fried okra with homemade remoulade sauce. A nice salad accompanied this in case you were worried.

Friends Don't Let Friends...

...overindulge in catnip.

Too late! The organic catnip is growing great in the recession garden and Gomez loves to eat it fresh. This is after eating a bunch, running around and attacking the other cats, and crashing (yet still guarding the remaining leaves). I think a session of Catnip Anonymous is called for.

A Moda Bake Shop project

Take one Figgy Pudding charm pack and two Figgy Pudding fat quarters plus one "Vintage Brick Doll Quilts" recipe from Moda Bake Shop and what do you have

Two cute little quilt tops. These are winter quilts for the cats (I think I can get around to quilting them by then). I'm going to put them near a couple of the cats' favorite places to sleep (sofa back and near the heater vent). I whipped these up this afternoon and they are so cute, I may have to make two for each season. I bet Karin's boys would love these too (and I also bet she has some charm packs laying around needing a project...)

Morph already tested his out to make sure it was OK.
He takes his job very seriously.

Bunny Hill Giveaway!

Mama Spark along with Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs are having a fabulous giveaway. Go visit Mama Spark here for your chance to win.

I'm Glad it's August....

because July went out in an avalanche of annoyances. I was tired and worn out from working too many days in a row at SBux last week (4 days in a row is torture when you also work Mon-Fri at the day job). Day job was nothing but problem projects and complicated phone calls. It was also sad because one of my co-workers in my work unit left and with the budget cuts, all open positions are frozen and who knows when it will be unfrozen. This of course means more work for the remaining employees. And he was a really great person and will be missed a lot.

So I am glad it is a new month. Of course August means back to school around here which means more traffic but let's not think of that right now....

It's rained a lot here in Atlanta and it was humid, a little too warm, and very mosquito-y outside today. This required staying inside and sewing rather than doing yard work (oh darn ;). I completed step one of Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery. It's called "Christmas Lights" but I'm changing it up a bit to not be Christmas-y colors. I think Becky, Brenda, Karin, Cindi, and Karin are all making this quilt too. The pattern is in Quiltmaker magazine. The next issue is coming out so I knew I better get step one done.

Here's my HSTs, four-patches (which I did in assorted lights and blues instead of completely scrappy as the pattern said), and my Mary's triangles (also called combination triangle squares). I'm not a gotta-have-every-new-notion kind of quilter but I LOVE these two new notions that Mary Ellen from Little Quilts demoed at our last Thimbles class. The "Quilter's Magic Wand" for drawing lines for making HSTs and "Tucker's Trimmer" for making HST, Mary's triangles, and hourglass blocks. Awesome tools and your triangles turn out PERFECT!!! You can check out the items here and see if your LQS carries them. I don't usually recommend quilting stuff but these are some gotta-haves.

I neglected to post my Sweet Home Quilt Co. purchases from last weekend (shame on me). Melisa is having great sales all month to celebrate her big 5-0 b-day and last week was Christmas fabric. I bought some of Moda's "Figgy Pudding" fabric (on sale), a random gray fabric, and backing for my blue & white quilt.
The Figgy Pudding fabric plus my previously purchased FP charm pack is going to be made into a project from Moda Bake Shop, which I hope to start soon.