Parc Monceau

My husband had the day off yesterday for Labor Day, so we strolled down to Parc Monceau, as did everybody else and their dog. So no pictures of the park - all you'd see is people people people.

A metro stop outside the park. The lamps remind me of the aliens in the original War of the Worlds movie. You can see the plus sign/red cross traffic signal is lit - not your usual boring red light.

Beautiful lamp post - I think this is Art Noveau (If I can even spell that properly) styling as was the metro stop.

A swirling manhole cover. My husband could not understand my taking a picture of this.

A look from inside Parc Monceau out through the gates to the Arc de Triomphe.

After our trip to the park we had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant. That was less intimidating somehow than going to a cafe. I know the arabic names for the food I love, so no surprises. Tonight we'll finally make that trip to the grocery store, since it was indeed closed yesterday. I'm too cowardly to go on my own, plus we need a lot and I'm not planning on schlepping it all home by myself.

My sweetie was surprised to see the number of changes in our neighboorhood that took place in just two weeks. A pharmacy and a cafe have closed, a new cafe elsewhere has opened. Several more places look to be closed until after the next holiday on 8 May, although they don't have signs posted.

Cats are doing better, although there is still some hissing. My sweetie and I went out of our way yesterday to lie around and not make noise so as to help them calm down and adjust. Yeah, that was the excuse.

I've been an atrocious correspondent, so I hope my family and friends will bear with me and enjoy the blog posts. I have a lot to do and no more excuses not to do it.

We're All Here

This is the window in the study, the sunlight peeking through the Egyptian mashrabiya screen.
This is the view out of the dining room (really the sewing room) window. The windows are more like doors - they open up completely. There is no screen and my husband is terrified that the cats will get out there and plummet to their doom.

A view down our narrow street. There is no place to pull over, so it's common for a driver to just stop, blocking the road. And then we get the honking. I can only imagine what a nightmare it was when our furniture was delivered.

Our big cats were delivered safely yesterday, healthy and relatively happy. I'm impressed with how quickly they've bounced back, although Howler has spend quite a bit of time going from room to room howling. Or maybe I should say meowing because it's not high volume. But it sure doesn't sound like a meow.

The little girls haven't been happy since their arrival. Pokey is hiding in the bedroom and Lily in the bathroom and they're both hissing at each other and the boys. Sigh. They'll be fine.

The loud floor noises are kind of freaking the cats out and it doesn't help that I was organizing and moving things around yesterday. Crashy bashy. Today the plan is to get out of the house and give them some quiet time.

Today, Tuesday, is a holiday. Labor Day. A lot of the local shops were closed yesterday, making a four-day holiday of it. We went to the Monoprix (a supermarket/department store, rather like Marks and Spencers) to buy groceries but left after seeing the lines that stretched to the back of the store. We went to Picard, which sells all manner of frozen food, and picked up some dinners there instead. At least this way we won't starve if everything is shut down today.

The sun is shining and today we're going to the Parc Monceau.

Bon Jour

I am finally a resident of Paris. My sweetie and I, along with our two little cats, arrived this morning. I am spacey as heck, desperately in need of a good long sleep (although the nap helped) and discombobulated. A pet transport company is moving the two big cats - they are just too hard to manage in the airport. The boys are currently in Frankfurt and will arrive tomorrow, if all goes as it should. And it better, because the French officials who have to accept the cats will be on holiday for a week starting Tuesday.

This is a picture of the one room in the house that is decorated - my husband's office. The mantle is gorgeous isn't it? The accessories are all Egyptian. The hardwood floors, set in a herringbone pattern, are beautiful but very noisy. I feel sorry for our neighbors downstairs.

I put little pink harnesses on the girls, and that helped amazingly getting them through airport screening. I had something to hold onto, as well as the leash wrapped around my wrist in case they managed to get away from me. Once here, it only took half an hour for Lily to start happily exploring. She's having a great time, but Pokey is still under the sofa.

I have to go explore the apartment myself. I don't think we'll make it outside - it's raining right now. See you later.

Paperwork Aggravation

We're going through all sorts of aggravation right now trying to properly fill out the beaurocratic overload of paperwork needed for our upcoming move. Most of that is for the kitties, but I'm also trying to remember all the places I need to do change of address forms for.

The trip to the vet's yesterday was the best one we've had yet. The sedative that the previous vet gave me helped with the big boys, altho Howler still managed to get loose and run around the office. At least his first instinct is to always run into the cage when it's on offer. I don't think the paperwork we have is done right - need to go back for the vet's signature - and then next week it's a drive to Miami for the U.S. Dept of Agriculture to sign off on. Stupidest system ever.

My husband is still sickly and pathetic, tho he held it together yesterday for kitty roundup and transport. I would love to get him out of the house so that he's not here while I'm cleaning, but no such luck. Yesterday we watched the first disc of Stargate Atlantis Season 2. I don't love it as much as the original SG-1, but it's entertaining. Loved the episode Duet in which Rodney gets a woman stuck inside him ala the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin movie All of Me (which I also happen to love).

I finished quilting the fans all around the Crumby Lost Love border. I also did individual quilting in each of the L-O-V-E letters - I wanted them to stand out from the rest of the quilt. My plan was to then quilt around each of the letters, continuing to do the fan pattern. This is how it looked (notice the past tense):

I didn't like it, so I took out the fans in the middle of the quilt. I'm now going to do each little bit separately and do lots of quilt in the ditch. That's how the quilt wanted to be quilted. See, Atet, some of us have fabric and quilts talking to us too.

I can't believe that some of ya'all actually thought I'd appliqued Elvis on the quilt backing. I can only imagine how much work that would be and remember, I am LAZY. It's a piece of V.I.P. fabric I bought to make gift bags and maybe for interest in crumb quilts, but further reflection made me realize that it would have to be used in bigger pieces to took at all interesting. Since I had the fabric, it was fun, and I didn't pay a lot for it, it ended up on the back.

You may notice that I don't worry about where I start quilting. None of that starting in the center and work out to the edges. I quilt in whatever order suits me and the quilt. For instance I positively KNEW this quilt needed fans in the border so I did that first. I don't know if this method works in a hoop, but I've never had a problem since I'm hoopless.
Melinda asked me about the crumby log cabins. This little block was pieced in the same manner as a log cabin, starting in the center and going around and around. The difference from a true log cabin is that the strips are different widths and I didn't pay any attention to lights on one side of the block and darks on the other. Oh, and it started with a rectangle, not a square. The center rectangle is a piece of Bonnie's chicken fabric, although only the eggs showed up in this bit.
And when playing like this, you can sew the logs on to any side of the center bit you want to. This one went from that terra cotta log on the left across to the dotted greenish tan log. And then the next log sewn on had a triangle pieced onto the end of it. You don't just have to use a whole bit of fabric.
So that's the basic idea. There are some crumb blocks in Crumby Lost Love that get even wonkier than this one. Just play and have fun - you can't go wrong.
Have you made it over to the latest issue of the blogozine The Bent Needle? Go, go. It's all about April In Paris (and other european destinations). Thank you, Sassenach.
I'm not sure how much posting I'm going to get done for the next couple of weeks. Think smooth-sailing thoughts for me and cross those fingers.

Crumby Lost Love

Lily on Love on a Shoestring Budget, in progress.

While making the above quilt, Bonnie decided she had an extra L-O-V-E 4-patch. I swiped it. At that point she wasn't sure if she was going to make string blocks to go in between the Loves or if log cabin crumbs would be better. She made a couple of the log cabins before switching to the diagonal string blocks. I kept making log cabin crumbs and then 3 more sets of the letters when she decided not only did she want that L-O-V-E 4-patch back, but an additional two blocks. I made her extra so that I could still do a little quilt with all these bits.

I wouldn't say that Crumby Lost Love is exciting, but I think it will look nice when the quilting is finished. I love throwing the letter blocks in amongst the crumbs.

Bonnie made a V-block that started coming apart in the middle. D'oh. I "forced" her to use a V that she wasn't happy with (not much bottom), but not this one. When the seam is already fraying out, it's time to lose the block. So I cut the bad block apart, losing the problem bit but gaining a couple of unexpected angles in the crumb units (they're to the left and above the E). See, you can't go wrong playing. Almost everything can be repurposed somehow.

I'm quilting the border with freehand fans. I know, what a surprise. But I bet you weren't expecting Elvis on the back of the quilt:

I've seen too many Monty Python episodes in my life. I can't help but add: No one expects the Elvis Inquisition. Anyway. These fan arcs are going in about 5/8" apart. I love the look of the fans close together and they are easier to do this way.

I want my husband to recover from his cold, but quick. He's rather pathetic and I'm afraid a sinus infection is going to be next. Despite all that, he got the taxes done and I got them to the post office in time. This is not how he was supposed to be spending his vacation.