Snow and Sun

More snow again yesterday. Now the pile pushed together by the plow to the side of our garage is about four feet high.

But today we had SUNSHINE most of the afternoon. Hurray!

I carefully positioned myself in the livingroom next to the window so I could have the sun on my hands while reading. What a lovely feeling. (But I had to have a shawl around my shoulders because it is cold next to the window. 18 degrees F outside.)

No quilting today because of errands, tutoring, and grocery shopping.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Bright, white landscape

Solomon's eyes twinkling with humor

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

Swim, Snow, Sew

30 minutes of Swimmercize this morning, and then another 27 minutes of aerobic laps under direction of the coach, Sandy. So I reset the Ticker for this next week.

We have had a light dusting of snow off and on since last night. Since 11:00 when I was home from the swimming pool, Zeke has been in and out of the house about five times. I let him out the front door when he "asks". He finds his favorite place in the front yard and rolls and rolls, wiggling on his back. He just loves the snow and wants to really get close to it! I give up on watching him and go back to the sewing room. About ten minutes later I hear a "Woof". He is waiting on the deck by the slider to come back in. Dark photo because of the clouds.

Zeke feels that after every outing he should get a treat. Dad agrees, but I don't.

Yesterday and this morning I made some of the extra mini-blocks for Carolina Crossroads so that I can make the quilt top longer to fit our queen bed. I have constructed the 20 railfences, 20 and 35 of two kinds of 9-patches, and the 4 half 9-patches. Tomorrow the 20 Hourglasses! I want to get the extra Onio Star blocks made before Bonnie's new clue on Thursday.

I have been working on Secret Sister stuff again this afternoon, and having fun with it. Our Bee, SpoolSpinnners, will meet on Thursday evening, so I want to have something ready then.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Mango for breakfast

Granola bars, all set for needed snacks

Zeke at play