My Best Team...

As you can see my best team of assistants is overwhelmed by the response so far to my giveaway. I have met so many new bloggers and discovered so many new inspirational blogs. And there is still a week to go woo hoo! Thanks everyone.

This is a quick post because I am heading out to my monthly sewing group, Silver Thimble Quilt Co. or Thimbles for short. Edgar Poe and Stella will have a afternoon of napping until I get back when I'm sure they will want to help with a report later on.  Happy sewing Saturday!

Fall Baking!

On your mark
Get set
Start your baking engines ovens!
With the cooler weather here in the ATL, I start thinking of all my favorite cool weather foods--stews, roasts, breads, roasted root vegetables, and any sort of baked goodies and anything apple.

If you add oatmeal, you can call anything breakfast.

I found some delish organic Bartlett pears at the market last weekend.  After sitting them out for a few days until they were perfectly ripe, I made a crisp with the pears and some local Gala apples.

To make this dessert even more healthy, I added a couple of handfuls of rolled oats to the brown sugar-butter-flour-cinnamon topping. 


This recipe is super fast and super easy--slice up some pears and apples to fit your dish (I used 5 pears and 2 apples but use whatever you want), add 3/4 cup flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, couple sprinkles of cinnamon, 1/2 cup cold butter cut into little cubes, couple handfuls of rolled oats.  I pulsed this a couple times in my food processor and poured it on.  You can cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry blenders or fork or mush it around with your hands if you feel like it.
Bake at 350F for about 25-30 min. Eat warm with a big spoon.  Vanilla bean ice cream or fresh whipped cream would make this even better I bet.

Recipe based on apple crisp recipe in The Joy of Cooking. Pears and oats are my additions.

A Treat...

Hope everyone is not worn out from the Fall Into Fall Giveaway and Fall-O-Ween Blog Hop and all the other fun things going on in blogland this month. Not to mention the upcoming Bloggers Quilt Festival. If you have just a little more energy to leave more comments...

....you can help me celebrate my upcoming b-day!

I'm having a giveaway (with a vaguely fall theme).  There are 10 Moda fat quarters of autumnal colors (mostly Kansas Troubles), Pat Sloan's Crooked Cabins book,  a Little Quilts booklet called My House, Quick Flannel Quilts book, and an assortment of patterns including little bags, charm-square table runner, pillow, scrappy lap quilts, and a jelly roll quilt (and maybe more stuff if I can fit it all into a flat-rate package).

10 fat quarters, 3 books, and bunches o' patterns...no tricks :)

I'll make it super simple to enter, just leave a comment on this post. 
Comments will close on Saturday, October 23 at high noon EST and winner will be chosen by random number generator.
Please make sure I can reach you through your post (if your blog post says "no-reply" I won't be able to reach you!)
Open to quilters from near and far.
 Thanks for helping me celebrate!.

A Monday Off

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada!!! I know Smudge and Lester are enjoying some turkey bits today.
Well my three-day weekend is nearing an end (it's Columbus day and government workers have the day off). I didn't get as much done this weekend as I wanted to (weekends are never long enough...).

Halloween season officially started here at Chez Stella Bella with an annual viewing of one of my favorite movies Tim Burton's Sleepy Hallow.  We also watched Martha Stewart's Halloween special. I wish I had the time and supplies (and staff.....) to do everything on her Halloween Central website. 

Today, Edgar Poe and Stella went to the vet for their annual check up.  They were not happy but did check out all healthy.  For being good kitties, they did get treats and just to make it fair, Morpheus and Gomez got treats too.

I'm a little over halfway through sewing rows together for this year's Halloween quilt.  I had hoped to show a finished top today but here's Stella with a little look-see. 

October Birthdays

October is a great month for birthdays!  Not only is my birthday later this month, but my SO's b-day is this week and my SIL's b-day is in the middle of the month.  At Chez Stella Bella Quilts, we are celebrating S's birthday this week.  My family has a long tradition of celebrating b-days for more than just one day, sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's two weeks, sometimes it's a month. S. is getting into the swing of things and is enjoying a long celebration.  
October is also big time (American) college football month and another long tradition is me teasing S. about his college mascots.  For context:  Becky's house is big time LSU household (Louisiana State University mascot is a tiger (geaux tigers), my mom went to University of Michigan (home of the Wolverines), U of M's big rival is Michigan State (home of the Spartans), lots of my friends went to or have kids that went to University of Georgia (UGA mascot:  bulldog), Georgia Tech's mascot is the Yellow Jacket (buzzzzz).  See how this goes. Tough mascots, right?   Fighting, really tough mascots right? That strike fear into their opponents.  

What is S's mascot for the first college he went to for undergrad?

It's the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Golden) Retrievers! 

Watch out....they'll lick you to death (hee hee).

He didn't have any Golden Retriever gear so guess what he got for his b-day....(that's one stern looking dog there....)
Wonder if Miss Rosie is a big UMBC fan?

Stella thinks UMBC stands for University of Maryland Bella Campus.

 

 

 

Oh BTW, S's other mascots:  Penn State Nittany Lions (now extinct) and University of Delaware Blue Hens (where do I start???)

While everyone else is enjoying college football, Morph and I will be reading new quilt magazines and sewing.

Another Finish and Celebrating October

I LOVE October!  Let's all do a Snoopy Happy Dance for October!  It is my absolute favorite month of the year.  October is the beginning of Autumn in the ATL; fall festivals; my favorite holiday Halloween; time for pumpkins, apples, squash, apple cider, stews, soups, and yummy comfort food; and oh yeah my birthday month!!!  I've been gathering some goodies for a big b-day giveaway later this month (check back or better yet sign up to be a follower if you are interested). Onto my next finish...
Voila! 

This poor quilt was lingering around without its binding for a couple of years(!!) and I finally finished it.  The pattern is by Gundrun (who is hosting a super fun October blog hop).  I can't remember what the real name of the quilt is but I call it "Sleep Deprivation" because I made the quilt while working insane hours at two jobs and the crazy colors and pattern perfectly fit my zombie life at the time.  Gorgeous colors in this Moda line.  My quilt holder was outside mowing the lawn so I thought I'd get photos in daylight so the colors would be true.

Yesterday was Groovy Girl day at Bad Melisa's.  Tons of fun at 8:30AM. Check out Melisa's new fall display as you walk in the store.

The project for this month is the best set of drawstring bags ever. I'll be working on several this month.
 
Melisa also has a great display of Dr. Seuss fabric. I love me some Dr. Seuss!  Especially the Grinch and Max.
 
















After a lengthy visit at Sweet Home, I went to Old Navy to finish up a little goodies box to send to Mackenzie.  I bought a great little bib for her at Target this week and rounded out the outfit with a Halloween shirt and socks at Old Navy. How cute is that shirt with the little black cat????!!!???  I bought some other cute fall outfits (no pink!) on clearance so she'll be stylin' this fall. I love being an aunt :)

Vickie's Giveaway

Vickie is having a great (a seriously great) giveaway for her 600th post.  Here's the link:
http://www.spunsugarquilt.com/2010/10/600th-post-giveaway.html

Good luck!