A Mixed Bag

Mr. Remy Mischief 

I just love this photo of Remy. It just makes me smile. 

Taken with the Hipstamatic app on iVan the iPhone.  

Lots of stuff went on this week.  Mostly stressful work stuff that's better left unsaid and forgotten.  Very little sewing happened.  Although I did work on hexagons.  

Here's some more fabric squares that will soon be hexagons.

Some retail therapy in the form of COLORFUL layer cakes.  I have a plan for these that is brewing.

I just adore this wintery line with polar bears and crisp, clear, icy colors.   This makes me smile too.  Don't know what I'm going to make from this but it is wonderful to look at wintery fabric with polar bears when it's been nonstop mid-90s humid hot icky summer here.

Did I show this already?  I can't remember. Block 2 for the Fat Quarter Shop Designer Mystery Quilt.  I finished it right after it arrived in the mail. Then found it in my photostream.   The photo is needs to be rotated 90 degrees.  Let's just pretend that it is OK?

Block 3 will be arriving soon.  Love this fun BOM.

 

Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop 2011

Thursday through Sunday is Atlanta's Quilt Shop Hop.  I missed the past couple of years and really didn't need to go this year but a little retail therapy would be good about now and well, there's my excuse.  The theme this year is A Quilter's Tour of Homes.
Thursday, I stopped by Intown Quilters on the way home from work. Intown's style is mostly modern fabrics, Kaffe Fassett, Amy Butler, batiks, and a lot of fabric from Freespirit and Westminster companies.  Intown was decked out like a coffee & tea shop. 

I can never resist gray and purple fabrics and I found a couple of fat quarters and a cute-as-can-be pattern for an owl tea cozy. 

I may have to make several owl tea cozies.

On Friday, I took a half-day off work and zoomed up to Little Quilts in Marietta.  To get to the shop, you turn at the Big Chicken.





 There is so much traffic in the metro area you can take photos from inside your vehicle. Not that I know first hand or anything...

Here is Little Quilts. 
Little Quilts can be very dangerous on the pocketbook....


I always want one of everything when I go there.... 







The shop was decked out as a bee hive.  With a super-cute display at the front door. 

I found some Barbara Brackman Civil War Reunion fabric for my Civil War block of the week quilt.  Red for the sashing and the purple-y fabric for  ????? I don't know but I really needed some.  I also picked up a few fat quarters to use in the quilt.  Little Quilts has the most tempting little fat quarter bundles all tied with ribbon. 



Next stop was Tiny Stitches in another part of Marietta.  I really should have taken photos of the shop dressed up as a castle and the Queen herself holding court. Check out the photos on my friend Becky's blog (she has some great ones).
Oh good you are back. Tiny Stitches is a great shop to find any kind of fabric.  They have LOTS!  Whatever you are looking for, it is probably there.  I bought some Lilac Hill fabric to go with the jelly roll I already have. 

I had to hurry before traffic got bad worse Dante's seventh circle of hell nightmarish.  I zoomed around the eastern side of Atlanta in a big arc south to Conyers to visit Sweet Home Quilt Co.
Sweet Home was decorated as a school house.  Since I am there at least once a month if not every other week, it was challenging to find something that I needed.   But look! I found a little bundle of purple wool.  Isn't that handy? Goes perfect with Lilac Hill.  Hmm. Needed that.

Saturday I stayed home and sewed sewed sewed on Eventide. I am ready to be done with this quilt!

Happy Mail

 
Don't you just love getting happy mail in the mailbox?  Happy mail like....

Pips!!! 

Oh Sherbet Pips how I love you so!

I pre-ordered this layer cake from Green Fairy Quilts and it arrived last week. Every time I walk by this fabric sitting on the ironing board.  It just makes me smile. 

Another happy package arrived today from Fat Quarter Shop courtesy of peer pressure from Karin and an irresistible offer from Vickie at Spun Sugar Quilts. 

I really didn't need another jelly roll and really, sincerely tried to talk myself out of getting a Lilac Hill jelly roll just like Karin had.  But when I saw Vickie's coupon, I lost all willpower and

with a voila....


and a Bob's your uncle....

Poof!  Goodies from Kimberly and the good folks at FQS.  

Thank you all my quilty enablers ;)

A whole lot of the usual

I’m rather behind on blogging this week. I am trying to get back into the daily grind (pun intended) after my vacation and am wondering how I ever managed this schedule. It’s also been a yucky week weatherwise in the ATL resulting in this equation: 90s, high humidity, plus Code Orange or Code Red smog alerts = runny eyes, bad allergies, and grumpy me. And yes, I’ve been whining about moving to the Pacific NW where everything was much nicer.

Anyway—moving on. As I noted in my previous blog post, last Friday I received a “Bat Signal” from my sewing buddies to come sew with them. Well Kristie showed us the cutest tote bag and of course we all wanted one, so on Saturday I went to Sweet Home Quilt Co. to get the pattern and a few other things. I have some Moda jelly rolls (Hemming House and Prairie Paisley) and needed to get some project ideas before the fabric was gone for borders, etc. I know for a fact that some of my friends put a serious dent in the bolts of Prairie Paisley at Sweet Home (on quilter’s honor the guilty parties shall remain nameless). I found two patterns in the fabulous book “Jelly Roll Quilts” and made a list of exactly what I needed. I was relatively “good” and didn’t deviate too much from the list. I told Melisa that I was going to go straight home and whip up these two quilts but having second thoughts at the piles of projects on my sewing table, I was “good” again and worked on a UFO from last year before starting new projects. I hope to finish the top this coming weekend and I’ll post a photo. I am really hoping to get a lot of projects done the rest of this summer so I don’t have all these UFOs all over the place.

In cat news: Gomez is doing fine and back to his old self again. Morpheus has been a “velco kitty” since I got back from vacation. Edgar Poe and Stella are being their ever-cute and adorable selves and can be found either sprawled out on the floor or following me around.

A whole lot of the usual going on here.

Perfect Rainy Day

It's been raining all day today, which is great since GA is still recovering from last year's drought. I don't mind a nice, steady rain all day especially if it is warm and not too humid. It's a perfect rainy day today. I've had the "blahs" all week. I think it's because I have been over-tired for too long (since sometime in November I think). But with gas nearing $4 a gallon, I don't think my work schedule will let up anytime soon. So I will suck it up and keep on keeping on.

The big news of the week is that my friend, mentor, teacher, and all around fantabulous person Pat has her new blog up. Check it out here. I know you will want to add it to your favorite blogs (and I'm not just saying that because she is my friend) because she is a wonderfully talented quilt designer and is really a lot of fun. I had the great honor of going to Quilt Market last fall with her to work in her booth and I have never laughed so much in my life.

The fabric I bought at Sweet Home last week was to make one of Pat's patterns called "Peace in the Valley".

I bought the FQ bundle at Fall Market and didn't know what I was going to use it for until Pat started her Civil War version of the quilt and I had one of those "Eureka" quilt moments and thought the design would look great in these cheery, saturated colors. The yardage is from Sweet Home for backing or borders or who knows.

Now for some retail therapy: Amazon.com is a dangerous website and should come with a warning every time I click on it (a warning that says "You have too many books already!!!! Put down the CC and step away from the laptop!!!!!" preferably in George Clooney's voice but I digress). I heart the comic strip "Mutts"; it is my absolute favorite. I have all the books and this is the latest with real life stories along with the "Shelter Stories" comic series.

The Jelly Roll book is a MUST for any quilters who are as addicted to jelly rolls as I am. There are 17 (!) projects in the book and all of them take one jelly roll plus some additional yardage for borders. I like these patterns much better than the ones that take multiple jelly rolls. The directions are clear and well written and illustrated. Well I guess that's 17 more projects to add to the "to do" list LOL!