Still Life: A Quiet December

Quilt Blocks:  pieced blocks from the pattern "A Long Road Home" by Red Crinoline Quilts
Tea:  Allegro's Organic Breakfast Blend with a smidgen of honey
Cookies: one of my absolute favorites -- Chewy Sugar Cookies #2 from Food 52

A Million Things

I have been busy doing a million things but apparently blogging was not one of them ;)
The weather has been nice here with moderate temps in the lower to mid-80s F, rain, and low humidity for the most part.  I've been working outside on the garden and on various maintenance projects. All those fun chores--reglazing windows, washing windows, priming exterior trim and porch posts, buying paint, etc. etc.

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to Nancy, Near Philadelphia for the wonderfully fantabulous mug rug and sewing goodies that I won on her 1600 Post Giveaway.  Nancy's blog was one of the very first quilting blogs that I started reading lo these many moons ago. This mug rug just makes me smile and it will have a treasured place in my sewing room.  You bet these great purple fabrics are going to be featured in a quilt or two and those adorable embroidery scissors are going straight into my on-the-go sewing kit.

There has been some sewing going on here at Chez Stella Bella.   I finally decided to cut into my stash of Flea Market Fancy and Hope Valley fabric that I've been hoarding.  I am pairing it with my favorite Zen Gray Moda Bella Solid.  Here is a sneak peek of a new quilt I'm working on. 

After missing the past two Another Year of Schnibbles projects.  I'm starting this month's right away.  I dug through my stash of charm packs and found an early Fig Tree line called "A Day in the Country."  The blocks are cut out and I'll be working on those this week. Photos to follow.

How could I not include an update on the cats?  They are all fine and sprawled around the house in their favorite spots.  Isn't this the cutest photo of Remy?!?!? (of course I think he is the cutest all the time).  Remy loves playing in paper bags and I try to have one out for him to play in.  Paper bags don't last very long because he likes to run into them at top speed so he runs right through the bottom or he rolls around and rips them to shreds.  

Remy's "green" motto:  Reuse, play, shred and recycle. 

Remy loves paper bags from Whole Foods

  

Better.

Remy and Edgar Poe

Did everyone have a good Mother's Day?   The cats were on their best behavior yesterday and enjoyed another day in bed.  The cats loved the peace and quiet, all piled on the bed napping.

S. brought me ice cream and good (soft) food to eat. And many cups of tea.  He's a good nurse for someone who is not a very good patient.

I Skyped with the family in Michigan and explained to Mackenzie how I had an "ow-ie" And then we talked about how everyone has teeth--Aunt Gretchen, Grandma, Shiloh doggie, Remy kitty, Mackenzie.  I love conversations with two-year olds; they are very factual.

 

Today, I am finally starting to feel better.  My last sick day off of day job and Starbucks so I better be right as rain tomorrow (or at least tolerable).

I finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.  I am so happy I had a great, big, well written book to read as everything else made my teeth hurt.

Watching TV, eating, noise, talking, sitting, smiling, forget it.   I didn't even sleep that much.

It was a really great biography and a wonderful insight into a person who has revolutionized our modern life.  It made me love my Apple products more and really really really wish he had developed an iIron. Can you imagine an Apple iIron?  A quilter's dream!!  A perfectly designed, weighted, proportioned, temperature controlled iron.  Perfect steam. Perfect heat for different fabrics. Sigh.


I did venture out of bed to do laundry and iron S.'s shirts and decided that I was going to sew a little.  I finished two blocks of Doc and have the rest sorted.

The color placement is tricky in these blocks so I used my block design board that I made during retreat in February, which I had buried in the sewing room handy and ready to use.

Today was a fun mail day too.  For last month's Schnibbles parade, I won 2 charm packs of the new French General fabric from Sherri.  Thank you so much Sherri!!!  I can't wait to use these in a Schnibble later this year.

I also had a sweet note with some funny stickers from my dear friend Karmen.  Love you Karmen!!  You are the best!  Let's all be jealous of her going to Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City.  I can't wait for the report on all the great new fabrics and wonderful photos. (Karmen is a great photographer.)  Make sure you wear your boots for Sample Spree so you don't get your feet trampled.

Oh and look at how pitiful that is.  I am at 99 followers.  Anyone up for being #100?  I'll do a giveaway soon if someone will round up the number to three digits.  Just sayin'.

A Sunday Morning

Hello!  I feel like I have been away from my blog forever! Well it has been a week.  I have spent most of this week on the phone trying to resolve an issue with a bank.  Yes, 7 hours on the phone over several days, one day off of work, 1 1/2 hours at an actual physical bank (where no one could help me because no one in Georgia could correct the problem....), 6 days of not being able to use my checking account--all because of the BANK'S ERROR!  Grrrrr.....

The bank I've had since the mid-1990s was bought out during the financial crisis and was "converted" to this new national bank on Oct. 23. My problem started Oct. 26.  It was resolved late Friday Nov. 5. Guess who is taking their accounts and going to a new bank? 

OK enough with the evil, horrible, uncaring, too-big-to-fail, they-better-not-come-looking-for-another-bailout bank......except I have a suggestion of where they can park their stagecoach!!!!!!!

Moving on...
Yesterday was Groovy Girls at Sweet Home.  Before class, I talked with Melisa about her trip to quilt market. Can't wait for those new fabrics, patterns, & books to arrive.  Did a wee bit o' shopping.  Then it was time for class.  If your local quilt shop offers the Groovy Girls program, I highly recommend signing up and if they don't offer it, why not?  It is a super fun program with wonderful, easy projects (great for gifts) that you can make with your stash.
I came home and worked on this month's Le Petite project.

 These cute little churn dash blocks are 4 1/2 inches finished.  Sweet little blocks! The weird lighting is sunshine from the windows. It was freezing cold here in GA (in the 40s F) so I had the blinds up trying to get some warmth. I also made a big pot of beef stew and piled on the quilts.

Today is catching up on usual housework, blog reading, more sewing, etc.  Hooray for any extra hour of sleep and an extra hour to the weekend.

Red Nine-Patches and Yellow Tomatoes

Along with complaining about the heat and humidity resulting in heat indexed of 100-110F all weekend, I sewed the 899,000,000 little bitty nine-patches I had left from this post. I am determined to finish Scrappy Nines so I can start on a new project. I nearly finished sewing all those nine-patches (actually I have 24 left to go. Somehow I just decided to stop after 899,898,976), squared all those bad boys up, and started sewing the blocks.

With help of course... Mr. Gomez is looking too cute for words!

Here's a stack of blocks.

I also spent a large part of the weekend finding recipes for fresh tomatoes. Stella Bella Organics heirloom tomatoes are everywhere in the kitchen! Romas, Cherokee Purple, and some kind of yellow tomato that I can't remember what is the name. We are having tomatoes in everything. Example #1: homemade free-form thin crust pizza with fresh basil and tomatoes (from the garden) and fresh mozzarella (from the store!) I don't have an "after" baking photo because this was g-o-n-e in about 2 seconds YUMMY!

Scrappy Nines

I had a busy weekend--the usual errands and chores and also 2 dinner invites. I did get some sewing in yesterday. I decided to work on my Scrappy Nines quilt (designed by my good friend Pat of Silver Thimble Quilt co.). I have about 900 million nine-patches to make for this quilt. This is what 900 million nine-patches looks like in pieces. Did I mention that they are little bitty nine-patches? All 900 million of them finish at 3".
Aren't they cute? Now I only have 899,000,000 to go....
Pat is probably telling me to stop exaggerating now. I can hear her all the way across the other side of the county.

I also finished the Fat Quarter Shop Designer Mystery block 11.
Block 12 will be here soon so it's a good thing I got this one done.
This is my first attempt at taking a photo of the block. I had just ironed it and Stella thought it was a nice warm spot to take a nap.
Hope everyone had a great weekend and the mom's out there had a good mother's day. The cats thought their "cat mom" should get up early this morning. Morpheus especially wanted me up and about (or maybe he was just hungry). How can I refuse such a handsome guy?

Morpheus Makes a Quilt Part Two

Morpheus and I are continuing to work on his quilt from this post. We finished all the blocks and are ready to lay out the quilt and start sewing the rows together. Morph is checking out the directions again.

Here he is after laying out some blocks and sewing rows together.
The black fabric matches so nicely with his coat.

Wait a minute. This is not how you lay out rows to sew together....


Perhaps he got into some of Gomez's catnip.

I don't think twirling around on the floor is part of quiltmaking.
Obviously, this sewing session is over..... Someone is just too excited to sew....

Sundays go by too fast

Why is it that Sundays go by so fast???? I had today off from Starbucks (usually I work every Sunday in the morning) so I slept in, read the entire NY Times, drank a pot of coffee, made an omelet for breakfast, and sewed some more. I also had some house chores to do so it was not as fun as yesterday.

I had set up my Featherweight in the living room so I could catch up on some Tivo'ed stuff. Morpheus likes to hang out and help sew when I do this. Here he is picking out the next block to sew.
Morph is also good at keeping track of directions, apparently he can read upside down even... Or maybe he is critiquing fabric choices....
After squaring up 96 half-square triangles and sewing together half of the split nine-patch blocks, Morph needs a nap
...on the blocks....
Morph and I hope to finish this quilt this week. The pattern is "American Beauty" out of one of my favorite quilt books 40 Fabulous Quick Cut Quilts. The fabrics are all from my stash (mostly Moda) and match Morph's coat and collar quite well, so this will be his quilt.
Stella already has her own quilt but she just had to get in on this photo of some blocks.

PS: *karendianne this post is just for you :)

Quilter's ADD

Yesterday was my sewing group meeting and I dutifully worked on a UFO from last year (see above pile of blocks on the right). I finished the blocks last night, pinned all the rows together, and it's ready to sew.

So what is the pile of fabric strips on the left? A different quilt that I cut out this afternoon while watching a DVD. Does anyone know a cure for quilter's attention deficit disorder?

Finally...the end of May

If you have been reading my blog this month, you know that I am ready for the end of May. May begone! I am D.O.N.E. with May. Here's to June, may it be a better month. I was just kind of tired and worn out this weekend so I spent most of the weekend sewing. The cats spent most of the weekend napping and helping me sew.
Doesn't Morpheus look comfortable? How spoiled are my cats???!!? Edgar is in the corner watching over the block pieces.

Morpheus relieved Edgar of his guard duty, then promptly fell asleep.

Pat will be happy to know that the new project was not a jelly roll quilt. Look Pat NOT a jelly roll!! These little hourglass blocks are 3" finished. Bitty blocks, Pat, aren't they cute? I need to make 160 of these little blocks.
Hope Edgar and Morph are ready for more guard duty and napping.