Why...Hello...Neglected Blog

It seems as though I have been doing a million little things and haven't gotten around to blogging in awhile.  Of courses there's all that Stuff-That-is-Not-Sewing-Related, but who wants to be bored with that. Let's jump right to the sewing.  

Edgar Poe and I are machine quilting a quilt and hope to get it done by the end of this month (oops make that the beginning of May).  He is doing an *excellent job* at whatever is the OPPOSITE of free-motion quilting.  More like dead-weight quilting.
He is so cute though, we forgive him for any extra hinderance.

Machine Quilting with Edgar Poe

Granny's Choice: "I'm the Anti"

I am about 2 months of Saturdays behind on my Grandmother's Choice Votes for Women Block of the Week. I better hurry it up and get caught up.  Here are some blocks I made that haven't made it to the blog yet, starting with this past Saturday's.

Coffee Cup: Not My Job Description

Contrary Husband

Mr. Roosevelt's Necktie

Tinted Chains: Click

Broad Arrow: Prison Garb

Ocean Wave: My Friend Erma

I have also begun the tedious onerous horrible terrible no good task of sorted, refolding, reorganizing, re-everythinging all my sewing stuff. Boo and hiss. But it is WAAAAYYYYYYY overdue. 

I'll be so happy when it is done right? 

End of Week Report

Happy to say that I did finish the baby quilt.  Done, quilted, bound, labeled, and photographed.

I just did some simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting along the sashing and outlined some of the shapes in the blocks.  I also added the wavy-stitch quilting down the middle of the sashing and borders.  Easy peasy and I'm happy that this top will have a new home. 

Don't you love Edgar Poe on the cat perch supervising S.'s quilt holding.  

I have the next gift quilt pin-basted and need to work on that this next week.  Hooray for more finishes in 2013. 

Mid-Week Report

Yes, it is that time of year again when Atlanta decides to be an overachiever in the pollen department.  (Atlanta overachieves in two areas:  traffic and pollen).  For people who are allergic to everything blooming (like me), we are stuck inside trying to avoid the vast waves of yellow pollen drifting over the landscape.  In case you are wondering what this looks like see this post from 2 years ago.

Today's pollen count is 4151 (extremely high is 120).  I will not be going outside today except to go to work...

Time for random cat photo:

"When all else fails, hide in your favorite box"--Remy

This week I am working on quilting two projects for gifts.  Here is the first: a baby shower gift for a co-worker at Starbucks.  I remembered that I had a top from the 2010 jelly roll BOM quilt along.  I think this will make a cute quilt for a little boy.  I hope to get this quilted and bound by the end of the week so I better hop to it.  I'll post a photo of the second later this week.  Hope you are enjoying spring weather without the allergies where you are!

Cutemous Cats for Friday

A chilly Spring morning brought piles of snuggly cats sleeping on quilts.

Remy and Gomez 

Stella and Edgar Poe

April Blocks

Some sewing but no finishes yet for this month.  I had a wonderful day visiting with my IRL friend and sewing buddy Karin at Life in the Slow Lane.  It was supposed to be a sewing playdate but we spent the whole time chatting and catching up since I haven't seen her in a couple of months.  Although no actual sewing was done, we did talk about:

1. projects we need to finish
2. projects we will probably start instead of finishing (#1) above 
3. speciality rulers that we bought but haven't used
4. the likelihood of beginning projects involving said (#3) rulers
5. the status of buying new fabric vs. using stash
6. new fabric lines that we would like to buy but really don't need to and will not buy even though we really want some
7. whether above #6 ever works in real life
8. the status on a scale of 1-10 of piles of fabric/projects/general chaos in our respective sewing rooms
9. the likelihood that we would do any or all of the above (#1-4) before organizing said sewing room
10. our cats

Thank you again Karin for a wonderful day and lunch too! Next time we really will work on hexagon projects already started (not new projects) and use fabric from our stash (not the new Minick and Simpson we kept talking about).

The first week in April brings new Block of the Month blocks:

Blogger Girl's BOM block #4, version 1

and version 2

Country Threads BOM (I'm doing a calendar month theme and trying to use up a bag of Jo Morton fabric.)

For this month's churn dash blocks, April reminds me of Easter (even though this year Easter was in March) and bright green leaves and newly opened flowers.

 6" block has purple and cream (similar to the irises blooming in my front yard now)

and fabric for the 12" version reminds me of the Eastern Redbud trees that bloom this time of year.

Friday Finishes

Yesterday was a day off for me and I sewed my brains out from dawn until bedtime.  I LOVE days like that!

After making the blocks for the Avalon quilt, I set them aside to make block #10 of the Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Quilt and decided I might as well get blocks 1-9 sewn together.

I changed the flying geese setting by alternating the direction of the strips and adding a few different prints. This is such a cheery quilt.  I can't wait to finish it up.  Two more months.















I finished a couple of little projects that were floating around my sewing table.

One of my favorite quilt shops to visit in Michigan is Guildcrafters in Berkeley.  They have a great selection of fabrics and wool, wonderful kits, and a series of irresistible little pincushion kits.  I bought this pincushion kit some time ago and I don't know why I didn't make it sooner because it was done in a flash.

I also made this little card holder that came with the February issue of Mollie Makes.  I couldn't resist this issue with the little fox and raccoon.  

Edgar Poe looks like he was meditating.  Maybe he is thinking of more new quilt projects like I am.

Probably not.

Probably dreaming of kitty treats and yogurt.

Hope you have a great weekend.  It's supposed to be chilly and rainy here all weekend. 

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.