Mini Stems for the Parade

Just a quick post to add my mini Stems quilt to the AYOS parade.  It was a busy holiday weekend and I nearly forgot to post my entry.

 I used an older Fig Tree line called Cinnamon Stars and Moda Bella solid in Fig Tree cream for the background.  This has a slightly autumn feel to it with the darker colors.  This was a fun quilt to make and I may have to add the "regular" size version to my list of quilts to make.

Hop on over to Sherri and Sinta's blogs to see the rest of the parade.

We all enjoyed our Thanksgiving here in Santa Fe.  We celebrated with a turkey dinner on Friday (I worked all day Thanksgiving).  The kitties hung out in the kitchen all day and were rewarded for their hard work supervising with some little bites of turkey.  Remy decided that turkey is his new favorite thing and purred up a storm until falling sound asleep in his box.

Hope everyone in the US had a great holiday weekend!

Rainy Day Progress

The storm that blew through Santa Fe found it's way to Georgia yesterday and we had a dreary, cold, rainy day.  It was my day off so I stayed in, sewed, and watched Doctor Who.

I decided to work on a quilt I started back in March.  The blocks were done but it needed to be sewn into rows.  The pattern is "Lincoln" from Miss Rosie's book Another Bite of Schnibbles and I'm using Fig Tree's Avalon line.  I need to dig around and find the inner border and rest of the border strips.

I also cut out an entire quilt and started working on another UFO.  Yes, I really enjoyed my day off. It was like a little mini quilt retreat.

In house selling news, I have a contract on the house.  I am optimistic but it's not done until it's done and the keys are turned over so I won't be celebrating until I'm on my way west.  Let's hope it all works out and the closing is set for the beginning of January.

I need to have Mr. SBQ (I'm sure he loooooooves his new name ;) take more photos of the cats for their fans out there in blogland.

Here is a great one of Gomez, Edgar and Stella trying to adjust to the cold sleeping.  This photo shows how looooooong Edgar's whiskers are.

And here is Remy in his box.  Yes, this box traveled all the way from Georgia when we moved because it was his favorite.  You can tell from all the bite marks that this is a multi-purpose sleeping-biting-playing box. He has a little blue blanket and a bunch of toys in there too.  The box is near to the wall heater in the bedroom and according to Mr. SBQ, this is Remy's favorite spot.

June Schnibble

I am loving all the different versions of "Dulcinea" popping up for the Schnibble parade.  Be sure to visit Sherri and Sinta's blogs tomorrow for all the fun.

I am especially enamored with Thelma's clever interpretation of the pinwheels.  If you haven't seen it, jump on over to her blog.  I think she has captured the essence of summer in her little quilt.

After several attempts at different borders, none of which I liked, I decided to leave mine with a simple plain border to match the background.

I'm going to hunt around for a soft brown for a skinny binding at some point.


Can you believe it's the end of June already? I can't.  Summer is flying by.

Schnibbling

This month's Vintage Schnibble (called "Dulcinea") is coming along quickly.  The blocks go together perfectly.  I'm using an older Fig Tree line called "A Day in the Country."  I just love the soft buttery colors.

I have the center finished and just need to add the borders.  Wow I *may* actually get this month's done early!!

Of course Stella had to photobomb.  Her motto is "see a quilt, sit on it."

Celebrating Worldwide Quilting Day a Little Late

Well we are way behind on all the quilting festivities here in StellaBellaLand.  I missed Worldwide Quilting Day (March 16) as I was working a double shift at Starbucks.  I also missed the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop and Silver Thimbles Quilt group this past weekend.  I did not miss out on the fun, however, because my quilting friend Sarah (no blog) came to visit me at Starbucks, filled me in on the shops she visited and what was happening at Thimbles, and even showed me some projects she is working on.  Thank you Sarah!!!  It was great to see you and your beautiful projects and I was so happy you came by to visit!!

Somewhere in there was also St. Patrick's Day, which I didn't blog about but celebrated with corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.  I'm still celebrating that with leftovers tonight.

There probably is some other stuff that happened that I am forgetting.  Anyway-----

Today is a day off so I am belatedly celebrating Worldwide Quilting Day by working on the Avalon quilt from my last post.  After eeny-meeny-miney-moeing a couple of different projects in both Schnibbles books, I decided to make the large version of Lincoln.

Star blocks are done.  I am using some Moda Bella solid in Fig Tree Cream for the background. 

(P.S. If I had a Moda Bella solid named for me, it would be Gretchen Gray and would be the perfect shade of cool gray with a hint of blue, a hint of lavender, and no pink or taupe or yellow.  Similar to Moda Zen Gray but better.  Just sayin' in case Mr. Moda is reading.)

I made cutemous little bonus half-square triangles from the trimmed flying geese parts.  Adorable.  Don't know what I'll do with them but they are in a little baggie ready for a cutemous little project. 










The rail-fence blocks are halfway done.

I went searching through my blog to find the small-size Lincoln that I made and found out that it was nearly three years ago that I made that one. How funny.

Here is the post. (note: it's still not quilted and bound.)

Here is a recent Remy photo for all you Remy fans out there.  He was "helping" change linens on the bed and I was lucky to snap a few photos while he was running around and under the covers.  Here he is posing with his overly long tail on my version of Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush quilt.  I did mine in Mardi Gras colors and it is one of my favorite quilts.

Spring Brings...

Thoughts of new quilt projects.

Oh, I should be working on projects that are already in progress on my sewing table,

or

the UFOs scattered around, in boxes, and in piles

or

spring cleaning

or

a thousand other things,

but

the sun was shining,

and

Joanna of Fig Tree & Co. has a new line of fabric

and

a new project jumped out

and

couldn't be resisted.

That's my long run-on sentence and I'm sticking to it.

Another Quilt Finish--Eventide

the only place big enough to photograph this quilt is outside on my fence!

detail--I used the same plum solid for the binding. 

It has been too hot (everywhere) to do much of anything so S. and I have watched an unusual amount of DVDs lately (we finished both seasons of "Game of Thrones" in record time).

So I sewed lots of binding. Finishing both Morph's quilt and "Eventide".

I didn't realize it was only last year when Thelma had her quilt along.  Good thing I have a blog to go back and check these things.

I just love this quilt and wish it were cold enough to snuggle under it.  Maybe in October...

The fabric is a Fig Tree line called "Fig and Plum."  The pattern is by Miss Rosie.  I adore this quilt with all its soft yumminess.  My long-arm quilter did a great all over feather design (click the photos to enlarge).  Joanna's new fall line called Tapestry has a similar deep plum color.  I just *may* have to add this to my "gotta have" list.

This quilt is definitely one of my favorites. But don't just take my word for it; this quilt is also Edgar Poe approved.

King of the Quilts 

Eventide: Parade Time

Whew!  My entry in the parade almost didn't get posted because we lost electricity in my neighborhood for about 5 hours!!!  Right when I was going to post this photo!!!

So here it is..quick before the electricity goes out again.

Edited (on 4/6/11) to add:  Sorry for the hasty post.  It really was a miracle that I got this posted on Monday night.  We had horrible storms in GA and sadly 6 people lost their lives in the weather.  Along with countless trees (including one somewhere in my neighborhood that caused our power outage before the storm even hit). 

I do want to say a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to Thelma at Cupcakes n' Daisies for organizing and maintaining this quilt along.  It was so fun and supportive and I loved seeing everyone's progress on Tuesdays.  Tuesdays just won't be the same (until the next one??? hee hee). Thank you also for everyone who visited and commented during the quilt along.  Another reason why Tuesdays were so much fun--all the comments!

This is a big quilt and outside was the only place I had that was big enough to get a photo.  Really.  There isn't this much floor space in my little house.  I ordered some Moda wide backing and can't wait to get this to a long-arm quilter so I can use it this spring.  

Thanks again everyone!  To those who have asked the fabric line is Moda Fig & Plum, a line a few years ago from Joanna of Fig Tree Quilts.   I love Fig Tree fabric and I bet any of her lines would make a stunning quilt. Thank you Joanna for always designing beautiful fabric.  And a big thanks to Carrie of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. for always designing unique and challenging patterns.  Lots of pieces, but definitely worth it:)  

Eventide: Cutting and Sorting

As hard as it was, I did unwrap my fat quarter bundle of Fig Tree fabric and spent a good deal of time on Sunday ironing and cutting and more ironing and more cutting. 

Good thing I put a new blade in the rotary cutter. I love the colors in this line.  Peach, robin's egg blue, new leaf green, creamy white, a taupey gray, bright lilac, and a wine purple as a dark accent.

I always write all over my patterns with notes, check marks to show the steps I finished, and the colors for the different pieces. Do you?  










The next step after cutting was sorting all the pieces into block sets.  Voila!  Did that too. Now all of this fabric goodness is happy in its project bag waiting for some sewing time.   I bet lots of Eventiders out there have sewn blocks so this post is probably boring but it's progress!!!  Hooray for progress!!

Eventide: Fabric Choices

 Along with all the other BOMs, BOWs, UFO challenges, and whatever else I have going on (I really need to get this on a spreadsheet or all mapped out with my new personal assistant iVan), I am joining Thelma at Cupcakes 'n Daisies in a quilt along for the quilt Eventide. Call it Quilter's Optimism.

Quilter's Optimism:  the belief that you can accomplish many more quilting projects than are humanly possible in any given period of time.

I have successfully obtained the pattern from Kimberly at Fat Quarter Shop and chose a bundle of Fig Tree fabrics from my stash (I had the choice of three...count them...three different Fig Tree bundles in my stash...oh my!)  I chose the bundle Fig & Plum from (I think) 2008.  I had another project in mind for this but have repurposed it for Eventide.

So that's my progress.  This week.  Come back next Tuesday and see if I've untied that uber-cute Moda twill trim yet.  Why is that always the hardest part??!!??  Unwrapping that nifty (and aging) bundle...

Have you any wool?

This past weekend, I was digging in my fabric lair dungeon  avalanche  space and the old nursery rhyme "Baa baa black sheep, Have you any wool?" came to mind.

I updated the next lyrics to say:
"Yes, ma'am I do
 One bulging box full!"

My first inclination was to save it....
because....

you know....

they may never make any more again....

and then...

what if I needed some later????

But I really need to get o-v-e-r this kind of thinking because I am not going to end up on "Hoarders"!
Let's say this again--I am not going to end up on "Hoarders."

So yes, I cut up some of that wool. And then I found this little bundle of Fig Tree joy
from....

oh several lines ago....

maybe one of the first..... (ok I checked and it is one of Joanna's first lines from 2005)

why am I saving this?

Because it's so cutely wrapped up in a little bundle and it's Fig Tree and I may have had a certain project in mind at some point????
Probably.

OK let's be ruthless and use both the wool and untie and use this Fig Tree goodness.

Oh my. That's a lot for one afternoon.

But I did it.

And voila!  Here is block #1 of Bunny Hill's block of the month.


There, that was painless wasn't it?