Atlanta Shop Hop Day 1 Contintued

More photos from the shops, Janice and I visited on Thursday. My camera and computer were "difficult" on my last post. It could not have been "operator error."

The Bee Hive entrance to Little Quilts

Worker Bees

Little Quilts Shop Hop Quilt

Tiny Stitches shop hop quilt was a quilted book. Very cute!

Our last shop on Thursday was Red Hen Fabrics in Marietta, Georgia.

On the tour of homes, Red Hen was the Gingerbread House.

It was a pleasure discovering that Sue who was a participant at the Silver Thimble Ellijay Retreat works at Red Hen. Here she is with the shop owner's Mom. It was fun munching on gumdrops and jelly beans while these ladies stamped our Passports.

Thelma from Cupcakes 'n Daisies sent wishes for a wonderful day, one ending with a cupcake. I didn't find a "real" cupcake, but this display of cupcake fabric and pincushions put a smile on my face.

patterns were available for this unique Halloween creation.

patterns from Silver Thimble Quilt Company. The bottom quilt, Road to Romance, is one that I pieced for Pat. It's the first quilt I pieced for a pattern cover.

Silver Thimble quilter, Sheila with honorary "Thimblette" Babbette.

the Red Hen Quilt Mobile

Shop Hop is exhausting for participants, workers, owners and shop dogs!

More to come... 2 more days, 4 more shops....

Atlanta Shop Hop Day One

Shop Hop! A glorious day in Atlanta! It just doesn't get much better than this! 

It has been many years since I was able to attend the Atlanta Shop Hop on a Thursday morning, Day One. Our day began in Marietta, northwest Atlanta. My SIL Janice who is not  a quilter joined me on Shop Hop. She is making girlie playclothes for her granddaughter. Between us, we have five sons. It sure is fun to look at fabric for girls.

Our first stop was at Little Quilts.   LQ was transformed into a Bee Hive for the Tour of Homes. The shop was swarming with "worker bees" led by the Queen Bee, Mary Ellen, owner of Little Quilts.  The shop was 

swarming with quilter friends, like Silver Thimble ladies, Carol and Ann.

lots of neat bee decorations, quilts, fabric.....

a beehive of temptations!

Next stop: Tiny Stitches 

The Queen (shop owner, Maeta)

the "Engagement"

Tea

a cup for coffee lovers like me

a place of royal beauty!

A bonus at Tiny Stitches was visiting with blogger Melinda of Melinda Quits, Etc who works at the shop.

I'm out of time for tonight. More tomorrow......

Eventide Progress and Design Wall Monday

Sometimes  the saying, "One step forward, two steps back" is the perfect description of  my sewing. I spent two wonderful afternoons last week cutting fabric for my Eventide quilt. Everything was going great until I got to the sorting part on the pattern. Some of the cut fabric, I'm not really sure what to do with. Here is the step backwards. I need to take my pattern (Yes, the one that I spilled  coffee on Saturday morning) and label the parts again. It needs to be a day when I'm "fresh" and rested. I had planned on sewing some of the Ohio star blocks at Thimbles on Friday and Saturday. I quickly decided that I'd really need to concentrate to sew on Eventide, so I pulled out a UFO to sew instead. I made great progress on the UFO, but not much on Eventide. 

I enjoy doing Blocks of the Month. I signed up for the Sunday Sampler at Patchwork Cottage in Lawrenceville for their BOM. This Sunday our second block was due. The Block of the Month is designed by our  Silver Thimble Leader, Pat Wys and Debbie Frey. I made a color change in my blocks. Instead of a different bright fabric each month, I'm substituting different greens like the sample made by Debbie. Jane, a fellow "Thimble" is also doing greens. Next month, we're bringing our stash of green to trade with each other. Julie (substituting red for the brights) and Nancy, fellow "Thimbles" were also at the shop. We chatted and fondled fabric. This is what I love about Blocks of the Month.

I'm also doing a BOM with our guild, the Gwinnett Quilters Guild. I'm months behind on that one. I even lost the fabric I planned to use for it. BUT, I did find my fabric and cut out the block for March. It is "almost" complete.  It's not quite on my design wall, but is on my sewing machine ready to finish. Visit Judy's blog for other example of Design Wall Monday.

It's time to vote for your favorites in SewCalGal's Godlen Quilter Awards for 2011.  The nominations are in for the 10 different categories such as favorite teacher, favorite designer, favorite quilt store, favorite quilt book author......  Join the fun and vote for your favorites. Voting is taking place now until March 31. Not only is it fun to vote for your favorites, but SewCalGal has a collection of 30 prizes donated by very generous sponsors. Voting gives you one chance to win one of the prizes. Winners will be announced on SewCalGal's blog in early April. Good luck to all those nominated!

Cutting Up ... Fabric

I've taken the plunge. I've started cutting the fabric for my Eventide Sew Along quilt. (no new photos at this point)

I was a bit hesitant after reading about Nicole's problems with her first choice of colors. I was even going to abandon this project and use the fabric for another project EXCEPT for the encouraging comments on my last post about my fabric choices (I do so appreciate your comments!) This afternooon I took my container with all my French General fabrics - Rouenneries, Rural Jardin, Lumiere de Noel and Maison de Garance - and sorted the fabrics by value - light, medium and dark. I didn't focus as closely on the colors so much as using the fabric that read strongly in each of the three values. Just making a decision to BEGIN has actually helped. I now feel motivated to work on my project.


Question for those of you working on Eventide? Did you cut the quarter square triangles the size printed on the pattern or did you cut them larger to resize the blocks?


Visit Thelmas' blog Cupcakes 'n Daisies to read about the updates and links to the other quilters participating in the Eventide  sew along. It's inspiring to see the many different versions of Carrie Nelson's Eventide.

Eventide

Wish that all the thinking and planning and rethinking that has gone into my version of Eventide Sew Along hosted by Thelma of Cupcakes & Daisies, reflected more than a stack of fabric. I did decide to use my stash of French General fabrics. I've ordered and just received some additional blues from Rural Jardin and some browns from Maison de Garance.  My next step is to begin pressing my fabric and eliminate some of the lights. I thinnk I'll try making one block. That may jumpstart my progress. Won't you join us in the sewalong? As you can see, I'll be bringing up the end on this one:)