Ice Ice Baby!

It has been a brutal week here. We finally got our power back on Saturday night after 4 days. As you can see from the picture above this is what we were dealing with, now multiply that by thousands! In this picture my husband and I went to rescue an elderly lady from her house that had no power. The truck would not fit under the tree so Bob walked up to get her while I stayed with the truck.

She was scared and very happy to get a ride to her cousin's house. There were many detours to get there and and it took over an hour, normally it would have been 15 minutes.
He also rescued a young woman whose car got stuck. She was on her way to her first day at work and drove her home. My hero!

Besides the generator this was a happy appliance to have! The gas stove came in handy too because it did not require electric.

My vintage cookbook came in handy as I did not know how to make percolator coffee. How long do you let it perc?

This was not a happy headline to see but...........I have one gripe to get out. There were people whining and complaining about not having power and why was PECO so slow getting it back, where were the trucks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....SERIOUSLY? remember that first picture? They had to have tree people first cut away the trees before they could even begin to fix the wires. They had twice as many workers out than they did during Hurricane Sandy and this was the worse ice storm in their history. I was not having a good time, it was uncomfortable but in no way did I want any worker to be killed or hurt so I could watch TV or be on the Internet. They are working 16 hour days in the cold and sometimes even in the dark. Ok I am done, just had to get that out.

Griffin and Elliot

On Friday I had my grandsons over for the day. They were very good considering there was not TV etc. they did play out side in the snow for a long time too.

Luckily all my yellow scraps had been ironed so I cut the rest of them up.

The day before the storm I got 2 Farmer's Wife blocks completed.

I organized about 13 blocks to take with me on our Getaway that takes place in about a week.

I keep all the fabrics I want to use in a separate basket so they are easier to find.

All packed up and ready to go!

Kelly

My New Best Friend

Four days without power and this generator has become a hero! I will have a proper post later on!

Kelly

Pink Snow Flowers

So once again we had a snow day. I went into my sewing room and decided to clean out my fused scraps.

I dumped it out and divided them up by color, and threw out all the little pieces that were not worth keeping.

I was rewarded by some pieces that I cut up and put away. I love when that happens!

I happened to have some very stiff interfacing, the kind you would use to make a fabric post card. I pieced a background together and quilted it with some straight lines. I did not use a backing that will go on last to hide all those stitches.

I laid out my design and took a picture of it. Next I took away everything but the stems and leaves.
I quilted the stems first.

The leaves were next. Just simple quilting.

For the vase I quilted it along the edge, not shown here.

Referring to my picture I laid out the petals and fused them down.

Again pretty simple quilting. A trick I will share with you.....for the petals the center is going to be covered up with a round piece of fabric. I start and stop my stitching there because it will not show. It also makes it easy to go to the next petal.

This picture shows that better.

Now all those starts and stops are covered up!

When all the quilting is complete I square up the piece.

Instead of making a sleeve to hang it I am making the triangle corners. Cut a 3" square and press it diagonally, wrong sides together.

It will look like this. You may want to adjust the size depending on the size of your quilt.

Fuse on a backing and place the triangles on the upper corners as shown. Be sure you have them at the top and not the bottom. Go ahead ask me how I know that!

To finish the edges, I decided to run a zig zag stitch in a variegated pink thread. I went around twice to give it enough heft. I felt like a binding was too much and it is an art type quilt, so you can do what you want.

I went out with my husband to do a couple of plows today, just to get out of the house.

It is not for the faint of heart! This is a very rural driveway and we were sliding all over the place! I was good and kept my mouth shut. While we are sliding, Bob's phone starts ringing and all of a sudden there is smoke coming out of the place where you plug things in on the dash. I felt like we were the 2 Stooges trying to plow a drive way. It was a plug that turns on the safety flashers and strobe lights that went bad. Tomorrow is snow and ice, I think I will stay home and sew.

Kelly

Monday Morning Snow

We are high tech here. My husband made this yesterday when he was in the shop just for our amusement. It is working, sort of....

He also got my peg board together and I absolutely love it! It feels like I am in a store. It even looks good in the room. I like being able to find the ruler I need at a glance.

Remember all my pinks scraps?

 Now they look like this. I am still so amazed how small the stacks are after they were overflowing in the basket.

We had our first family dinner this weekend. My daughter suggested that once a month we all have dinner together taking turns going to each other's homes. We also celebrated my husband's birthday. The kids, both mine and the grandchildren went sledding until dinner was ready. They had a great time and I think it will be a good memory for them. It is the women that glue the family together isn't it? Great idea Cait!

I have to find something fun to do with this fabric!
Happy snowy day!

Kelly

Strings

My scrap organization has taken on a life of it's own! I am almost finished with my pinks. There were these little bits that were really too small to save but I just couldn't throw them out. So I started to sew them together.

It was a nice break from standing and cutting. I like the bird heads, marching along. This will be an ongoing project.

I did some experimenting and was not thrilled with the results. I just don't like the colors I selected. What I did do was to free hand cut the angles and then mix them up and sew them back together. I will try again.

I have been torn between reading and sewing. This book is so good! Camperdown is the last name of the main characters. I like finding a new author, now there is another book of her's to try, called Apologize Apologize.

In my quest to change my eating habits I tried these. Yes they are good but too expensive. Does anyone know of a good recipe to make them yourself? I tried to make them once before and they were not good. Could they have any more labels on this?

Bob

Kitchen update. The cabinets are in and the hardware is installed.

Johnson

This is on the other side of the kitchen, the great room. My son, Johnson and his helper are preparing the fireplace for some stone.

It's getting there.

Kelly

Taming The Scrap Basket

We all probably have some of this, a large pile of scraps. While I love these, it is an inspiration kill when you want to dive in and use them only to see they have to be ironed. It also not fun to have no idea what sizes you have, especially when you want a certain sized piece.

So yesterday afternoon I dumped out the pile and started ironing.

I piled them up into sizes..... strips, big chunks and smalls. The Halloween fabric went into my Halloween stash.

Next I started cutting them into usable size pieces. Next will be how to store them, by color? by size and color? Let me know if you do this and how you decide.

This is all that is left! Pretty amazing. I started with the orange because it was my smallest pile of scraps. I needed an instant sense of accomplishment to get through the rest, especially my blues! I feel like this will make me more productive.

Here are all the orange scraps completely cut up.

It's hard to tell from this picture but they are in the basket that is usually overflowing.

Now on to the pinks...

I wanted to show you this tree block that a fellow quilter, Debby sent to me. I love the polka dot background that really feels like snow! If you ever make anything you see here, send it to me and I will post it.

Kevin

Kevin and Bob

Just because we love to see how things are created, I thought I would show you a kitchen in progress. My husband is renovating his brother Jimmy's kitchen. His wife is Denise, my trainer so I get to see it twice a week. I will show you updates as it goes along.

Today is another freezing cold day here so I believe lots of fabric will get cut up!

Kelly