When will it end?

This is getting ridiculous.  Since my last post, we’ve had a snowstorm:

An ice storm:

and another snowstorm today!  No grilling or sitting on the deck today.

I am very thankful for a warm house with no power outages, and an understanding employer that allows us to work from home rather than risk our lives to drive on the treacherous roads. 

I’m also extremely thankful for this wonderful package that I received in the mail a few days ago from Kaaren at The Painted Quilt.

I had seen pictures of Kaaren’s quilt on her blog, and I thought it was pretty cute.  Now that I have the actual pattern, I have to tell you that the stitcheries are ADORABLE!   The prize package also included the fabric to make the entire quilt.  Thank you again, Kaaren.

I missed out on OPAM for January, because I thought it didn’t start until February.  I’ll have a nice list for February.  I’m working like crazy on two quilts, and doing some hand work on each of them. 

And now I’m off to appreciate my Snow Sew day! 

Sunny

Catching up. Again.

It snowed today.  Again.  There are two more snowstorms predicted for this week.  Will this winter ever be over?  According to Punxsutawney Phil, it won’t be over anytime soon.

But, as any good quilter knows, a snow day = a sew day!  I planned ahead for today, and brought some work home with me, but I didn’t have to commute, so I have extra time.  Hence, this blog post.

On Saturday, Mr. QD and I drove up to Lancaster, PA to visit their market.  We came home with a lovely assortment of breads, veggies, meats and cheese.  I didn’t take any pictures inside because it was so crowded.  It was a fun little getaway. 

Lancaster Central Market, in the center of Lancaster, is the oldest continuously operated farmer’s market in the country.  This was our first visit, but I’m sure we’ll go back.

The part of our day was a visit to Conowingo Dam, to see Bald Eagles.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many to see that day, and they were too far away to get any decent pictures.  Except for this guy – he posed for us for quite awhile,

This was our first outing in awhile.  Last weekend we hosted a soup party, which was a lot of fun.  Our guests each brought soup, and we had an enjoyable evening eating soup, hot bread, and munchies, and had a lot of laughs.

I am happy to report that I’m am still on my fabric diet.  I made it an entire month!  I did have to buy some fabric for binding a small quilt, but I didn’t buy any extra, and I didn’t even look at anything else in the store.  And this was the second store that I went to look for the fabric – I walked out of the first one empty handed.  I hope they don’t go out of business because of me!  That particular quilt isn’t finished yet because I decided to do some more stitcheries on it.  Soon, though.

One of the projects on my to-do list was a sewing machine cover, and TaDa:

I used a Butterscotch and Roses charm pack.  Somewhere between measuring and sewing, I forgot how to count, so when I had all the hst’s sewed together, I realized that it wasn’t big enough, so I added the cream border.  And I think I really like it this way!

Speaking of hst’s, here is another pile.

Eventually, they morphed into these:

The final product is a secret, so you won’t be seeing these again for awhile. 

 

 

In other news, I had to pack up my quilting machine and send it back to the store I purchased it from because it refused to quilt!  Or do anything that matter.  It was getting power, but it wouldn’t do anything.  I had been piling up several quilts in anticipation of sitting down one day and mastering the machine.  Since that’s not in the cards right now, I pulled out a small quilt and did the quilting on my Pfaff.  Simple quilt – simple quilting!  And…..it’s a finish.

I’ve decided to join Sewyouquilt2 for her Relaxed Robin.  It’s similar to the Stay-At-Home Robin a couple of years ago.  For the January block, we were to try to find an orphan block for our center.  I didn’t have any regular sized orphans, so I stitched together four little nine patches that I found in a pile.  Then we were to add a small border of our choice, trying to incorporate an additional color.  Mine is a little bland right now, but I’ve decided on the direction I’m heading, so we’ll see some character develop in the coming months.  I hope.

We’re adding applique in February, and I’ll be able to show that soon.

Now I’m off to watch Castle, and stitch some snowflakes!

Sunny