Quick update...hope power stays on

Lost power about 4 a.m. this morning (Saturday)......was back on but ONLY for 10 minutes about 11 a.m. .....and then off again until 10 p.m. Spent the day huddling near the gas fireplace and trying to keep the food from the fridge "safe".....on the screen porch in boxes and coolers (but couldn't stay out there too long or it would freeze)......so out there for a half hour, then back inside for a half hour. Not a fun day, but could have been worse. Developer had guys plow and they dumped a whole BUCKET from a small front-end loader of snow behind hubby's van....a 6-foot tall pile now of rock-hard snow. The SAY they'll send somebody to clear it out...we shall see. Conditions were too horrible for anyone to shovel today....bad winds...white-out conditions...lots of drifting....somewhere between 18 - 24 inches of snow here and going down to about 14 degrees tonight. I worry about some of the elderly in the area who didn't have the comfort of any fireplace to keep them warm. Roads were impassable...and a state of emergency in effect so you were not permitted to drive unless you were an "essential" worker. MANY poles and trees down all over, from what we heard on the scanner that we monitored all day. Will relate more in the morning.....want to send this in case we lose power again, which I hope we don't. Pray for those who may have been unable to keep themselves fed, warm, and healthy around here today.

Anyone for pineapple?

You can take your pick.......you can have this....OR....you can get yourself the wonderful, new Pineapple ruler from quilt designer/teacher Gyleen Fitzgerald and make some of these pineapple blocks.... (click to enlarge)

I got my ruler in the mail yesterday and had such FUN making these 4 pineapple blocks....TOTALLY scrappy, as you can see. (But I may make something with fabrics in a more planned color-scheme using this ruler soon.) These are a joy to make. If any of you want further information, let me know and I'll give you the link for the ruler. Please keep us in this area in your thoughts and prayers. We are in the midst of what is probably going to be the worst winter storm ever recorded in this area. A state of emergency is declared and only emergency vehicles and vehicles of essential workers (hospital staff, police, etc.) are permitted on the roads anywhere in the state until further notice. We have sufficient food and our medications and as long as we don't lose power, we should be fine....but with high winds and blizzard conditions, it's kind of scary.

Half a dozen......

Want to see my "half-dozen"? I'm not talking donuts here....I'm talking blocks. I now have half of the twelve done for the green-white no-sew block swap. Here are those half-dozen blocks grouped together. I won't be sure of the final order of the blocks (nor what I will use for sashing) until I have all twelve completed, but I thought you'd like to see them thus far. From top to bottom (left to right), the fabrics and blocks chosen came from: top row: Kaye, Cecelia, Kathy; bottom row: me, Tonya, Linda. Three more are on their way in the mail now. Then I will send out the baggies of fabric to the other 11 gals and they can start making their blocks/quilt. I can't wait to see the various ways they will be finished by everyone....as I know they will each be different....and that is part of the fun!AND....today is "the day"......the day we are to get a blizzard here and upwards of 12 inches of snow (with as much as 24 inches possible). For this area....where we usually have winters with little or no snowfall, this is a real hardship as the equipment and road-clearing supplies are not available in abundance. So....please hope we don't have damaging winds and high accumulations of snow or loss of power. A true blizzard could cripple this area for several days.

A fun table topper.....

This is a scrappy table topper I whipped up for fun...not because I needed another project, but I just wanted to do something fast and fun. Everything didn't turn out perfect, but it was a lot of fun to make! I used the "spider web" technique taught to me by my blogging friend, Rhonda. (Click HERE for her blog.) She was also kind enough to send me a template for it and some already-traced parts! This is about 20 inches square (actually would make a FUN quilt to do a lot of blocks this size and put them together, wouldn't it?) I am going to show this to our Lakeside Ladies (my neighborhood quilting group) when we meet next week as they might want to learn this fun technique, too. I need some advice, though. I am going to hand-quilt this and I know the "plain" areas need something done with them. (I can stitch in the ditch in the colored areas.) I need some ideas....so feel free to tell me what kind of quilting you think I should do on this piece. Thanks!

It's green block time again......

Here is another block I made from the fabrics the gals have sent for the green/white no-sew-block swap. (I only have 3 more packets to receive....two from Canada and one from New England...all on their way now) and then I can send all the block fabrics out to all the participants. This block is a pretty block and the fabric was chosen by Tonya. (Click HERE for her blog.) I like this block a lot as I enjoy making flying geese....and that is what is used for this block, which is called Dutchman's Puzzle. I like the fabrics and the directional prints in them.....makes for an extra-fun look for this block.

The brown bag fat quarters....Chapter 3...

After two posts on here and a lot of very-much appreciated feedback from many of you, I am going with the assortment pictured here. You may gasp and say, "What is she DOING?" Don't worry...... I will explain below the photo. Click on it to see it in greater detail.
A quilting friend who is known to be wonderful with color and does stunning quilted pieces stopped by my blog (at my request) and looked over all the combos I'd selected. She said the photo above is what I should do.....a combo I'd never have come up with on my own. She told me to take that photo and change it (with my photo program) to black and white and look at it that way....which I did and which I'll show you below. When I did that, it became apparent that I had a good blend of one light fabric (the dotted one), two mediums (the prints) and one dark (the green). Seeing them in black and white, she told me, allows you to see the color "value" of the fabrics...and you can see what is going to "read" as light, medium and dark and see if you have a good blend. At first I was skeptical of those two prints in the same quilted item, but even when I put them side-by-side, they do look fine together....and no matter how I rearranged those 4 fat quarters, each one looked good alongside every other one. So...this will be it. I wonder if the person who GETS my brown bag will be horrified when they see this combo??? LOL I will be eagerly anticipating when we get our fabric back MADE into something in July. Oh...yes...here is the black and white photo in which you can see.....1 light fabric.....2 mediums....and 1 dark. I'm sure it will work (but, of course, the person making the surprise for me with these fabrics can also add others, so that could change EVERYTHING!!!)

Micki has me as her February "star".....

Some of you know "Micki" of Irish Muses. What you might not know is......her life story is a genuine love story. She was a school teacher in Camden, New Jersey, and along came Joe, a nice Irish fellow. He swept her off her feet and convinced her to marry him and move to Ireland. She retired from teaching and off they went. She left the U.S. in 1997. They began their time in Ireland together by camping in many places, because Joe wanted to show Micki the beauty of his country. (Having visited Ireland for a few weeks in 1994, I can confirm that it IS a beautiful country!) They discovered County Donegal together for the first time and were hooked on its beauty and decided THAT was the place to call home. Dunfanaghy is where they settled, which is in northwest County Donegal and, Micki tells me, is called The Northwest Passage. They bought what she calls a "wee cottage" near Killahoey Beach and she says they have found their "piece of heaven". See....I told you it was a real love story....girl from the Philadelphia area of the U.S. falls in love and marries a handsome Irish lad and now lives in a wee cottage near a beach in Ireland. She asked me to be her February "star" for her blog and gave me some interview questions to answer. I was surprised, honored and humbled by her request. If you wish to view my interview on Micki's blog, THIS is the direct link.....but I do hope you will stick around to explore the rest of her blog. She is very talented and very friendly. Be advised that right now, she is battling a reoccurence of a painful health condition and she probably won't be able to answer any comments or do many new posts on her blog for a bit yet. BUT...stop by and tell her hello anyway as she will be happy to see she has had "visitors" when she is well and can get back to her computer. This photo of her is a bit "fuzzy" as I had to steal it from her blog and try to enlarge it (as it was very small there). I'm sure if she was feeling better, she'd have given me one that isn't fuzzy, but this is the best I could do for now. Thanks, Micki (and hubby, Joe) for getting me interviewed and posted on your blog. While I don't know why I was chosen (having followed such tough acts as Barb Gaddy and Gene Black), it was fun to do it and to know that a part of me is now IN Ireland, a country I loved when I first saw it in person on that trip in 1994. (Come back here tomorrow....I will reveal my choice of 4 fat quarters for the "brown bag" project that I discussed here on Saturday and Sunday.)