A Start and a Finish

It's Sunday early evening already? What happened to the weekend? Yesterday was Silver Thimble Club and it was big fun with lots of laughing as always. For our club, you have the choice of working on the kit or pattern for the month or working on your own projects. I am trying to be good and only get one kit a quarter. This month the quilt is "Glory Bound" by Bonnie Blue Quilts.
I got a good start on this and have everything cut out, the small half-square triangles done and squared up and have big half-square triangles ready for sewing.
I bet Karin is already finished with hers.

Next quarter is some really great projects but I was good and only signed up to do one of Pat's new patterns called "Scrappy Nines".

Now for a finish. ta da! Look Pat! Look at all the bitty blocks and no jelly rolls. I bet Becky would like this quilt with the blue and white, but it's a gift for someone. Sorry Becky. OK time to get dinner going and laundry folded and all that fun Sunday stuff.

Fun Mail

Don't you just love fun mail? New magazines, catalogs, results of button-pushing...
I kept looking at this quilt.

In this book
Ever since the book came out. I just love the quilt. Don't know why. It reminds me of sea glass. Which reminds me of the ocean. Which reminds me of not being stuck in the ATL all summer. Which is where I'll be this summer. So while I was browsing some of my favorite sites...I found a kit for the quilt at Lake St. Mercantile, one of my favorite quilt shops in Michigan. A button here, a button there, and a package came in the mail.

Nicely packaged with backing and binding and the fabrics labeled. A thank you and a cute little freebie block. Three cheers for fun mail!

Lots of Showers Bring June Flowers

I can't believe how much it has rained here in Georgia this spring. After years of drought, it's really weird to have so many rainy days (not complaining though!!!!! I love it.) My recession garden is doing great and I hope to have some squash and tomatoes soon. I have a huge magnolia tree in the yard and late May and June is when it flowers. The blossoms are huge and smell so lovely.

My hydrangeas are also blooming. This is a French hydrangea.
My lace cap hydrangeas are just starting to bloom and I'll post those soon.

Dinner at Chez Crazy Cat Lady

Every once and awhile (like yesterday), I like to cook a new recipe that takes at least three pans and dirties up about 17 dishes. S. found a recipe for Country Captain in the New York Times awhile back and thought it sounded good. Country Captain is a pretty obscure name for what is basically chicken in a tomato/curry sauce with some vegetables served over white rice. The dish is popular in Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, but originated in Philadelphia in 1857. This version is topped with sliced almonds, currants, and crumbled bacon. I served it with sauteed kale and glazed carrots and a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Et voila!
It's super yummy! And there's enough leftovers for about two or three more meals.

Remembering D-Day

On the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, remembering bravery and sacrifice.

An Atlanta Favorite

Hooray for Friday! I had a big meeting today for the day job. As with most all-day meetings, the best part of this meeting was lunch!
(all photos courtesy of roadfood.com--great website!)
Lunch was at a long-time Atlanta favorite--Mary Mac's Tea Room. Mary Mac's is a great place to have traditional Southern food. Fried chicken, collards, fried okra, whipped potatoes, chicken and dumplings, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, peach cobbler, the list goes on.
At Mary Mac's, you write what you want on a ticket. Good thing the pencils have erasers because a lot of times, it's really hard decide. I usually go for the vegetable plate because they have the best Southern-style vegetables (for all you non-Southerners, you may be interested to know that homemade macaroni and cheese is a vegetable in the South. It's true! So is Brunswick stew.) After much debate, I decided on black-eyed peas, fried okra, creamed corn, and sweet potato souffle with yeast rolls and sweet tea. Their tea is so sweet, you can stand a spoon up in it. Honest! I had three glasses and was on a big time sugar high (helps to get through the rest of the meeting). Tomorrow, I'm going to have a big salad and lots of water to make up for this decadent lunch.

Just to make you hungry, here's a photo of fried chicken, mac & cheese, fried green tomatoes, and broccoli casserole.
Mary Mac's is a definite stop if you are ever traveling through Atlanta. Let me know and I'll meet you there for tea!

A Quick Post

Here at last are the long awaited photos of the Portobello Market quilt (or as Karin would say Portobello Mushroom quilt). As you can see, not only is it a poor quality photo (due to the antsy-ness of my quilt holder-upper) but Gomez snuck into the frame also. I gave up trying to get a good photo after this one so here's a detail sans Gomez.
The quilt is from the book Jelly Roll Quilts and the pattern is called "Daisy Chain". I made the larger size quilt by using one Portobello Market jelly roll and a half of a Hemming House jelly roll (somehow I had two Hemming House jelly rolls--no clue how this happened). These two Moda lines played nicely together and I really like the result. Now to add this top to the many many many that are waiting to be quilted. I have to zoom off now, big meeting tomorrow and I need to get some laundry done.