Labor Day Weekend Rambles

Warning: Long rambley post....

I have been celebrating my first Labor Day weekend off in eight years. I used to celebrate three-day weekends by being happy to only work one job for three days. This not having to work at all for three days is really great. I did all my errand running, grocery shopping, and housework on Wednesday and Thursday so I could stay home the rest of the weekend.

Let's catch up on the past few days. The new fridge didn't arrive until 6:30PM Wednesday evening. I was the last delivery of the day and I felt really bad for the delivery guys having to deal with my crazy old house--steep granite stairs to the back door, sloping ceiling in the back hall because it is an enclosed rear porch, and galley kitchen with maybe an extra 1/8 of an inch to squeeze in the fridge.

The guys were so nice and professional, I called their supervisor on Thursday to give kudos where kudos were due. Good karma is a good thing.
So here is the new fridge. We have cold and unspoiled food again. I love the fridge except for one thing...
magnets don't stick to stainless steel. Who knew? Not me. So I guess I can't cover the front of this with Mutts comics, postcards, souvenir magnets, and photos of Mackenzie. Oh no! What is an aunt to do?
Cover the side. Here are new photos sent from my mom.

On Thursday, I received the giveaway I won over at Thelma's wonderful blog Cupcakes n' Daisies. Thank you again Thelma!! I can't believe how quickly it arrived all the way from Green Fairy Quilts in Utah. I think there is a fleet of green fairies that zoom all over delivering fabric goodies. If you are as addicted to Moda pre-cuts as I am, go visit the Green Fairy shop.
For the giveaway, I chose a Luna Notte layer cake and Arcadia honeybun.Luna Notte is another winner from Moda. There are some luscious grays in there and I am all about gray fabric.

Saturday was the first meeting of the Groovy Girls club at Sweet Home Quilt Co. I am excited about this new club by Terry Atkinson and even more excited to have another reason to visit Melisa at Sweet Home. The focus of the club is small projects and new techniques.
I was there bright and early (8:30 AM is early for a Saturday) on a gorgeous morning. Melisa had a groovy-themed breakfast table.
Click on the photo for Melisa's cool idea to make flowers from buttons and a table full of projects for neat gift ideas.
During this session, Melisa demo'ed bags and zippers. I've never tried doing zippers but our homework challenge is a bag with zipper so I will tackle this. I love the display of Terry's brightly colored zippers. Wonderful colors you could just look at all day. Melisa lived up to her Bad Melisa nickname so I came home with some patterns to use up some stash.

The rest of the day, I worked on Double Delight (ugh I wish this quilt would hurry up and finish itself!) and watched/listened to marathons of "House" and "Burn Notice". It was so nice out, I turned off the A/C and opened the windows. The cats hung out in the windows and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air.
Gomez looking sweet
and Gomez and Morpheus artistically posed.

Waiting for a Refrigerator

First of all, hooray for September on the first day of September! We are just a little closer to Fall, my favorite season. I am home today waiting for the new refrigerator to be delivered. Unfortunately, a refrigerator appears to be a necessity in the modern age (especially in Hotlanta). While at home for the day, I decided to get my weekend chores done so I won't have to do them this weekend and spend the long weekend playing with fabric instead.

I'm still working away on Double Delight
Good thing I thought of someone to give this quilt to because it's just a little to pink for me. I like the quilt, just not all the pinky pink. Pink is my absolute least favorite color. In fact I didn't even like pink as a little girl.

I liked purple (Still do!)....

Back in the early 1970s when purple was hard to find....

Among all that avocado green, rusty orange, and mushroomy brown....(I think these colors are coming back though...)

In honor of September, which is one more month closer to October (my favorite month), I decided to prep a new Halloween project from Minick & Simpson's most delightful (and purple-y) Halloween line.
Can't wait to start working on this quilt!

Party on the Porch: Post Game Show

Well I forgot my camera for Party on the Porch. I do have a photo on my camera phone, which is at the moment not talking to my laptop. Technology failing me, I took this one from Karin's blog.
We had lots of fun playing games from 7Pm until Melisa finally let us in. If you see Melisa, be sure to ask her about making up rules to games in the middle of playing them...she is very good at this LOL!!! We also received little goodie bags and won prizes including some little patterns and chances to win a big bundle of fabric. Then the shopping began. I did pick up a couple of items.
. The new Quilt Sampler magazine, a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's new line called "Arnold's Attic" and a couple of charm packs for more Schnibbling. There's my little goodie bag in the back.

Afterward, Sarah (no blog but needs one!), Cindi, Karin, and I went to Bruster's Ice Cream. Cindi, Karin, and I went all out on hot fudge sundaes with chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream (my favorite flavor!) . Sarah had a black cherry waffle cone (Sarah also has the incriminating photographs maybe it's a good thing she doesn't have a blog.....). Us party animals were out past 10PM on a Friday! Hope everyone has recovered... Friends, quilt shop shopping, and ice cream--what a great way to spend a Friday evening!

The rest of the weekend has gone by too quickly. I've worked on Double Delight in between doing some chores and having to go buy a new refrigerator today...More about that later...

I'll leave you with Morpheus doing some paw modeling.

And showing the last vintage collar wear.
He's so handsome!

Party on the Porch Pre-Game Show

Can I get a HOORAY it's Friday? Another rough week this week and I am SO happy it is Friday.

This isn't just any ol' Friday though.

This is Party on the Porch Friday!

"Bad" Melisa at Sweet Home Quilt Co. is celebrating the 5th b-day of the shop this weekend.

This is the porch that is going to be filled with quilters waiting to get into the shop for some late night shopping. Porch party starts at 7PM with fun, food, games, and general quilty rowdiness (yes, Melisa notifies Conyers Finest (police dept.) well beforehand...). She won't let us in the store until 8PM no matter how much we beg and carry on.

Why am I here writing this blog when I should be on my way? Well because ATL traffic is so bad either I got there at 4:30PM (and took a nap on the porch) or I get there at a fashionable time. I decided to come home and feed the kitties and get some chores done before I head back out.

Of course I don't need one little bit of fabric or a book or anything else but I could really use some fun-with-friends time so I'll be taking my camera and reporting back.

Giveaway Shout Out

Please go visit Pat at Silver Thimble Talk. She is having a giveaway in honor of some exciting news.

I am so excited for her! Three cheers and a Twizzler for Pat!!!

Thimbles, Loitering Quilts, and Little Quilts To Go

Yesterday was an overdose of fun at Silver Thimbles Quilt Club. If you could bottle up the energy, creativity, friendship, and fun in that room, we could power America for at least a week. The usual Saturday gang was there and also some Friday people who I don't get to see much of outside of blogland including Karmen. (PS: I forgot my camera so you'll have to visit Pat at silverthimbletalk.blogspot.com for photos)

I finally figured out who to give my Bonnie Hunter Double Delight quilt to so I brought that to work on. This is one of my Loitering Quilts. You know the kind. One of those projects you always carrying around and work on for awhile, then put aside, then pick up again, then wonder why you started it in the first place, then work on again, then get annoyed with because it's always in the way and taking up space on your work table...a loitering quilt. Now that this quilt has a purpose, maybe it will finally get done.

I was somewhat dismayed to find out the Squaring Up Elf had not visited the project bag and finished squaring up all these square in a squares.
She is so fired. These are all oversized, which is a good thing since apparently I sewed some of them on Planet Crooked. So I had lots of trimming to do. Trimming is good at Thimbles because you can chat and trim better than chat and measure.
These are the two types of blocks for the quilt
Did you notice that there are nine-patches in here? One of the reasons for this Loitering Quilt is there are 500 million 3 1/2" nine-patches in this quilt. I have just finished making 900 million for Pat's Scrappy Nines (although if you ask her, she says there's 168 or some such number). I have 70 (!!!!) more nine-patches to make for Double Delight. So I worked on that too. yea.....

The project for Thimbles this month is a quilt I have already made (see Karin's in progress here). Since I am on a one-job budget now, I am trying to resist buying stuff at Thimbles. It was really difficult this month because Mary Ellen of Little Quilts brought the whole dang store to Thimbles and showed us all the new kits, fabrics, rulers, projects, etc. (Little Quilts To Go!) I remarked to Karin that it was like none of us had ever seen fabric before! I bought a little bundle of shirtings on sale. Whew! It was close!! Mary Ellen showed me a great ruler for trimming square in a squares and I resisted for now. If I ever make another quilt with a zillion sq.in a sq., it will be nice to have but I really try not to buy lots of specialty rulers because inevitability a newer, better, easier one comes along in a few months.

I also received the directions from math genius Kristie for our next swap. Not only is she a wonderful person but she figures out all the fabric math figuring the rest of us avoid. This is the third swap for our little group and I haven't started the last two. Yet, it still seems like I am busting stash if not really. We are swapping 5" square for this quilt from the book Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth. Kristie figured out we needed to each give 28.8 5" squares to each person but she rounded to 30. Although I first (jokingly) insisted that I was going to do 28.8 squares, I then realized this caused more math ( 0.8 of 5" YIKES!) and capitulated.

So today is more sewing and making nine-patches.

Zooming Through the Week

This week was really busy for me at the day job, which means not much was going on here in the evenings. Here's what I accomplished during the week.
Two pillowcases (with owls so you know I am keeping these)
The blue one is mine and the green one is for S.

The continued 90+++F weather and no rain has just about killed my Recession Garden: Year Two. (Is the Recession over? No. Not here. This garden was supposed to last through the first frost in October) The last of the tomatoes, as pitiful as they are, and some scraggly basil are the only things harvested recently.

I made a huge lasagna from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook for lunches and dinners this week.
It was great! I'll definitely make this again.
I also made a blueberry pie with Michigan blueberries on sale at Whole Foods. (blueberries have so many antioxidants I bet the antioxidant factor outweighs the dessert factor don't you?)

Tomorrow is Silver Thimble Club (yea!). I better figure out what project I'm going to work on and get the stuff together before I crash. Happy weekend everyone!!!!