Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Snowstorm


This winter "arrangement" of evergreens and dry stalks was given to me by my gardening service folks back in November. It was claimed to be OK for outdoors all winter, so I set it on the deck where we can see it from the dining table. I placed a statue of a nearly naked boy reading in front of it because the wind blew it over once or twice. This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago when we had had a minor snowfall.



And on the right, you can see what the classy arrangement looks like from the dining table tonight! Can't see the statue at all. I hope that little cave is keeping the wind off and the naked boy is warm and toasty like an Eskimo in his igloo.

The snow on the top railing of the deck is about 8 inches deep. Howevere, the wind is beginning to kick up, so it may fall off before morning.

Charlie felt it was necessary to cancel the evening Ash Wednesday service because of the terrible driving conditions. We had freezing rain so that turned to ice and then the snow fell on top of it. But there were services at 7 AM and 10 AM, so the work with the veil was not futile!

After staying in bed until 10:45 (!), I spent a wonderful day enjoying my sewing room with occasional glances out the window.

I bound the Baby bargello quilt and put it down the chute for washing.
I spent 15 minutes ironing scraps, and then 15 minutes cutting up some of them (ironing goes faster than cutting).

Then I was inspired by Patti of "Quilting is my passion" to make what she calls "crumb chaos" but I call "confetti" blocks from the scraps and strips. I just played and played with them. When I had one finally up to 6.5 inches square, I got down the shoe box with some previous confetti blocks to put it away, and I found there were already 44 blocks in there! That's the box containing the stack of blocks at the far end of my cutting table, then there are about nine confetti blocks laid out that I completed today. Plus I have quite a pile of partial blocks. I will put a couple of quilts together from these for Pine Ridge. Can you tell I have a project that I'm avoiding?

Closest to the camera is a block I made from seven orphan Drunkard's Path blocks which I also found today. Following on in Gwen Marston's liberated mindset, when squaring them up, I purposely made the circle NOT match each other's seams. I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but at least the seven now make SOMETHING. A perfect table mat for when we have a "blue moon", two full moons in the same month?


Sara


Gratitudes:

duvet
furnace that works
Slimfast when I don't want to think about food

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Bargello Bowl Baby


Here is the quilt made of the leftover strips from my Bargello Bowl top. I have finished quilting it today on my regular sewing machine with a circles on each square, and diagonals in the border following the "Michigan" printed there. Our Guild supports the Neonatal Unit at the regional hospital with a quilt for each baby. I figure that some father will want to have that border for his Michigan baby. The colors are for the University of MIchigan, but, hey, we all live in the state and can say it just means we are proud of our state! I'm going to use some scrap binding that is two different navy fabrics.


The other news of the day is that I made a new Lenten veil to cover the figure of Christ on the cross at the front of the church. Charlie, who is the Rector of HolyCross, wasn't able to get it to stay in place and recruited some help from the Junior Warden, Ken Race. First they tried again with the long bamboo pole from the basement.

The reason for the pole is to avoid having to get out a long aluminum ladder out from the shed on the other side of the parking lot, and then SOMEONE having to climb the ladder, which creaks and wobbles.

Well, here is Ken on the ladder, leaning his right arms against the wall for security. This project took all of 45 minutes because of all the attempts to get the darn veil to cling to the wire crown on Jesus' head, and hang evenly on each side. The Altar Guild has no idea what a good time they missed by getting all the other work done on Sunday after church and leaving this to Charlie!

Now with the veil in place, we are ready for the Ash Wednesday services tomorrow, beginning with the one at 7 AM in the morning.

However, there is a prediction of sleet and 3-5 inches of snow tonight, so maybe everyone will stay home waiting through the morning for better weather later in the day.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Toenails cut and feet checked by nurse today

Finished quilting the Baby Bargello

Supper with the Reunion group