A Friday Finish

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I posted here.  Spring just flew by in a busy flash and we are now in the long warm days of summer.  We are all fine here; I just haven't gotten around to blogging in a long while.

I finished this small lap quilt recently quilted, bound, washed, and de-cat-haired (for all of five seconds).  The pattern is Charm Box Quilt, a free pattern by Fat Quarter Shop.  I used two charm packs of Persimmon by Basic Gray and a Moda Bella solid in Prussian Blue.

I quilted it myself using the ever-so-easy squiggly stitch using Aurifil thread.

The backing is from the same fabric line.

We are slowly adding Southwest art and colors to our house and this fabric line seemed perfect for a quilt to throw over the chair in our living room (which is actually a quilt for cats to sleep on, of course).

This quilt matches nicely with the Native American ledger art we bought last year at Indian Market.

I have several other projects in the works but was inspired to start a new project (left).  Perfect colors for summer :)

Tourist Season Begins

May is the start of tourism season in Santa Fe. From now through the Fall, artists markets, the Santa Fe Opera season, numerous festivals, and cultural events bring tens of thousands of tourists to town.  The biggest event is the third week in August when 150,000 people come to the Santa Fe Indian Art Market, the largest Native arts market in the world.  Wow! That's a lot of people for a town of approx. 68,000 residents.  I am looking at that with some trepidation let me tell you.  Being new residents to Santa Fe, we are having fun exploring all there is to see and do in town.

Our own little tourist season at Casa Stella Bella Quilts has started this month too.  This past week, E. (Mr. SBQ's son) arrived from Georgia and spent a week site-seeing around town and sampling a lot of wonderful New Mexican food.  I joked that I was going to have E. eat his weight in green chile before he left LOL!  We had breakfast burritos at the Santa Fe Farmer's Market, huevos rancheros at the Burrito Company, fajitas on the Plaza, and green chile cheeseburgers just to name a few examples.  (Good thing we did a lot of walking to and from downtown to wear off all that food LOL!)

My favorite dish is Salvadoran-- steak pupusa and chicken tamale in a banana leaf

We also went to Tune Up Cafe, one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants a short walk from our house. YUM!

Tres leches cake which we started devouring before I remembered to take a photo

Santa Fe is home to about 10 wonderful museums right in town.   We are slowing making our way through them.  On a gorgeous Friday afternoon, we took E. to visit the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. A short distance from downtown is Museum Hill, where several museums and the botanical garden are grouped together.  This makes a great way to see lots in a day or a few exhibits here and there. The Indian arts museum has an amazing permanent collection of Pueblo Indian pottery and we saw two special exhibits--Native American Portraits (historic photographs including some by Edward Curtis) and Turquoise, Water, Sky (an amazing exhibit of turquoise jewelry). No photographs allowed inside but here's some photos of the sculptures and gardens outside.

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture

I just love these yellow flowering shrubs. They smell wonderful.  It's called Spanish broom and is grown a lot around town.

View from Museum Hill.
















We were sad to see E. go back to Georgia after a fun-filled week.  Hope he can visit again soon.

Time to prepare for our next guests.  This Friday, my parents are coming from Michigan for a two week visit with their travel trailer and their dog Shiloh.  I can't wait!  During their visit, we'll be celebrating my mom's retirement and her birthday weekend too.  I'll post photos of our adventures and hopefully some quilt shop visits (wink!)

A Bit of Culture and A Big Surprise

Well another roasting day here in Atlanta (upper 90s). Got up this morning and decided to spend the day at the High Museum of Art in nice icy A/C. The new exhibit is Monet's Waterlilies and there are four waterlily paintings on loan from the Museum of Modern Art. Here is Claude in his garden.
Impressionist paintings are amazing in real life with all the color and texture. There was also a really interesting photograph exhibit of Richard Misrach's On the Beach series. It was lots of fun and a great way to spend a too hot day. Lunch was a trip over to Howell Mill Road to Taqueria del Sol, one of my favorite restaurants. I always have fish tacos and queso dip and chips. Today was a perfect day for a margarita on the rocks with salt so I had one of those too. A toast to a long hot summer in Atlanta.

I came home and was checking through blogs in google reader. To my huge surprise I won a blog giveaway!!! Good golly miss molly, it was the way fab bag sewn by Anne Sutton and her talented Chelsea!!! I nearly fell off the couch! See photos of the stylin' tote I will be toting soon here. I'm so excited I can't stand it.

An Artful Saturday

I finished one Xmas gift last night. Hooray! Of course I can't show a photo but do a happy dance with me cause it's done. One more left to finish up.

Today I went to the High Museum in Atlanta with S. and E. to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. This is the second place the warriors have traveled outside of China; the exhibit came here from the British Museum. The warriors date from 210 BC and were made for China's First Emperor. There are over 8,000 figures of generals, cavalry, infantry, musicians and civil officials, and horses, birds, chariots, and more that were made to protect the First Emperor in the afterlife. Here is the Wikipedia entry for an overview. It is a truly amazing archaeological discovery. The site is over 22 miles square (the size of Manhattan) and only a portion of the site has been excavated.

(This soldier and horse were in the exhibit.)

I have been fascinated with the terracotta warriors since undergrad when we studied the site in my world archaeology class. This amazing site was unknown for over 2,000 years until a farmer discovered it in 1974. Can you imagine? I am fascinated by the fact that each figure was individualized with different facial features and hair styles and expressions. Even the horses have different expressions and mane and tail lengths. These figures were all painted in bright, vivid realistic paint and I imagine if you saw this in 210 BC it would look like a living army!

(this is a view of the actual site in China).

I bought the exhibit guide which has a lot more detail about the history, discovery, and artifacts. If you are anywhere near Atlanta, you need to see this exhibit!

While at the High, we also saw the latest installment of the Louvre exhibit. This time, there was a really great Vermeer (The Astronomer) and two drawings by Michelangelo.