Baby Girls

First things first. I have to apologize to Elaine and Leroy, and anyone else who may have gotten an unsolicited e-mail from me. I had e-mailed myself a link from work, and somehow that link did evil in my address book. I claim stupiditiy here. I really don't know how those things work.

One of the young men I work with has two brothers and both his brothers became fathers to little girls born within 24 hours of each other this week. Last I heard one was needing a great deal of extra medical help.

 I decided to make the cousins each a little quilt. I started them at Thimbles yesterday and now I need to quilt them.

I used similar dark purple plaids and the same denim blue fabric, but each little girl gets her own floral.

 I got up early today to do a little cooking (above is a scrambled egg with onion on a bed of lettuce with avocado on the side and salsa on top) before church. I have become a somewhat regular church-goer thanks to my oldest son's influence. I (sometimes accompanied by my husband) have been attending Fusion church in Flowery Branch, GA. Pastor Tony is amazing. He married Eron and Meredith, so that's where I met him. E & M are youth pastors, so they are very involved at Fusion.

Afterward I headed over to the Lakewood Antiques Market where I spied some treasure. Above is a pre-printed emboidery panel; I'd been wanting some handwork, and this one will allow me to practice French knots, so it's perfect for me. Then I discovered the vintage piece below.

 I love the painted roses, the stitched embellishment and the chocolate brown x-es. Charmed me right from the start. Thanks Ginny of Ginny's Vintage and More.

And from Annie's Ribbon Emporium this soft ribbon; perfect for tying up those little girls' quilts.

This weekend

I've spent most of this weekend sleeping off a three day migraine.  I am not sure what triggered it: perhaps tension, maybe salt or could it have been that chocolate bar?  I'll never know, but I did get some sewing done since my last post.

I chose some fabrics from my stash to finish the last round of the Lisa Bongean Vintage Nine project I'd started a couple of years ago.

Ta-da.  Finished stitching on the last row at Thimbles last Friday.

I think I will use this limey green and tan brushed cotton check for the backing.

Mary Ellen Von Holt from Little Quilts visited Thimbles; she had some charm packs of Curio by Moda's Basic Grey . Seriously yummy.  I bought all four charm packs, and, since I love the Vintage Nine pattern so much, I started a new one yesterday.

Never mind it has taken me three years to NOT finish the first one.

I just needed to stitch, and I already had a pack of coordinating wool bits for the flowers. It made sense to me at the time.

And I spied this pattern on a website (scroll down the page to see it); just had to have it.  Don't you know I cannot wait to start it.  Hey, what about my UFO list for guild?  Shoot!  I will have to make a list of priorities.

Little Jojo doesn't have a problem setting priorities.  He plays hard and just crashes whenever and wherever he needs to. That's what I call freedom.

3 little quilts

I finished piecing the mini-quilts (6"x9," pattern I bought at Sweet Home can be seen here: Suzanne's Art House) last night and I went ahead and quilted one while the TV was on (binder clips are temporary until I put hanging sleeves on the back).

Here it is hand-quilted and bound with turned-from-the-back yellow binding.

I have a good bit of yellow fabric ;-)

I often use my junipers as a back drop for photos.

Today when I walked out the front door, I found the yard guys had been by.

And they "shaped" my junipers.

Yep, squared them up and whacked them off.

I had always pruned surgically to keep a natural shape.

The damage will take years to grow out.

Hubby said he hadn't asked them to do it.

WTF?

Vacation Day 2

My plan went out the window yesterday, but I had fun.  I started out for the Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop two hours later than I'd wanted to, so I had time to appreciate the green March has to offer.  These are pictures taken outside my front door:  A star my Dad made-

Some pretty flowers from a past Mother's Day-

And a random bowling ball. Say what?

I was planning to make the bowling ball a beautiful yard ornament like this one: Beautiful Bowling Ball. So you see how far I got with that.

I made it to 6 of the 11 shops yesterday.  I got lost twice in the northwestern Atlanta provinces.  I am really scared about finding Little Quilts again when I take a workshop there next week. I saw samples from two other classes I MUST take, so I need to get a Garmon GPS.  Hey, hubby's 60th birthday is next week.  Do you think he'll pick up on the fact that I am gifting him something I need?

There was drama yesterday at Red Hen Fabrics involving police, fire and ambulance.  A police officer told me (when I was getting directions from him as to which way to turn exiting the parking lot) that there had been a couple of car accidents on the corner by the shop.  BE CAREFUL LADIES! Thank goodness, no one was hurt seriously.  

One other interesting thing from yesterday.  I saw a bundle of wet fabric in the dirt on the dumpster side of the building at Red Hen.  It was this quilt.  I am happy to report it was not a throw away, but a youngster's picnic blanket that had been forgotten.(You know how those little folks can be.)  It has now been returned to it's rightful owner.  I hope she washes it in really hot water.  There were a good number of crawly things on it.

 

This morning I am going to drive to McDonough to see A Scarlet Thread.  I keep hearing about this place, and I need to see it for myself.  My end goal though, is to make it to Thimbles.  Alas, are vacations ever long enough?

Atlanta Shop Hop, Tiny Circles and Aunt Millie

The weather has been just dreadful for the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop. Thursday I didn't get started until after 1:00 p.m., but I managed to get to Intown Quilters, Patrick's, and Sweet Home Quilt Co. I loved all three stops, but I have to tell you about Patrick's. The farthest point east on our tour of shops, Patrick's is in an old country store in Covington. They have everything from boots and jeans to candy and quilt fabric. I would have loved to spend more time there, but we had to get a move on. Sweet Home Quilt Co. is in an old home in the historic area of Conyers. It is a charming store with tons of fabric; they even had plenty of Miss Jump's Scrapbag fabric from Moda.

On Friday I got an even later start. The weather cleared up, so at 3:00 p.m. I hopped in the car for the ride to Marietta. Being a stubborn person, I decided to ignore advice to take the freeway. It took 2 hours to go the 30 miles, and when I got there Iwas totally lost. Here is what happened: I stopped to fill up with gas at a QT. A workman in a truck told me to go back to GA400, then 285 and then up 75. Did I do it? Oh, heck no. I did not want to use the freeway, so I drove a little farther into LOST and stopped at a Starbuck's. I don't know why I would think 3 young dudes of varios races would be better navigators than a working dude in a truck, but I did. They were not. A call to the store straightened me out. So I hit Tiny Stitches and Little Quilts on Friday. The wonderful woman who waited on me at Little Quilts said to tell my mother "hello" for them. She met Mom in Houston some years ago. I purchased the fabric for the Nantucket Basket at Little Quilts but had gotten the pattern (sorry no link to it) the day before as a freebie from one of the other shops. The other two pictures are from the project I am working on today. My 4th block from Aunt Millie's Flower Garden requires very small circles, so I am doing them assembly line style using Perfect Circles by Karen Kay Buckley. I did circles on the other blocks the traditional way. Trust me, you need Perfect Circles. Don't be stubborn like me.