No Mo' SNOW!!

Well, another snow day home from work to sew!! :-) Trying to stay positive about this! This was our street yesterday. Absolutely beautiful outside... bright blue sky and not a cloud in sight.

See the lousy job the county snow plow did on our street? My husband and several other men on the street got out their snow blowers and shovels and cleaned our cul de sac to make it drivable. Took them four hours to clear a single lane down to the pavement.

And the poor postman still had to park at the end of the street and

walk to deliver our mail. The snow is up the the mailboxes as it is!

We are worried now that this evening and tomorrow they are forecasting 12-20" more of snow for our area. Where will we put all this snow ???? The roads will be impassable again.

And there will be more power outages as this snow is also to be heavy and wet like this last one so more tree branches will come down on top of more wires. We have been so lucky in this - our power has only gone out for a little while a couple of times. There are so many folks in this area who have been out of power for 5 days now!!

My husband and I braved the roads today and got out of the house for the first time since Friday morning to get to the grocery store. Man, are they making out in all this snow. The parking lot was full and the shelves were pretty empty. But we got most of what we needed, so we will not starve!

I've got Italian sausages in sauce in the crockpot for dinner tonight and a coffee cake in the oven. My husband went to the wine store a few days ago, so, we are good to go! :-)

Wish us luck in the coming storm and say a little prayer we don't lose power!! nHope you are toasty warm where you are!! :-)

White Winter Done!

These snow days are really keeping me sewing up a storm inside!

Yogi and I sewed all afternoon yesterday! :-)

Last week on her blog, Sew Cindy showed us her completed gorgeous "Winter White" Scnibbles quilt. I had already bought that pattern, but had not decided what fabric to use. When I saw hers, I decided to make mine up in the Glace fabric too, which she had also used and the original one on the pattern photo had used, too. She used a brown fabric for the border and I chose a different blue one than the pattern photo showed.

I just LOVE this little quilt made in this luscious fabric. It was fun and easy to make. I cut out and pieced all the blocks Saturday afternoon and then completed sewing on the two borders and quilted it yesterday afternoon on my Bernina.

AGAIN, not sure why all of sudden Blogger is flipping some of my photos... any technogeeks out there know how to stop it from doing this??? It's beyond me! :-(




I kept the name "Winter White" because it is so perfect for a quilt made in these "cool" wintery fabrics during the Blizzard of 2010. I wrote all that on my label, as well! So, another project completed for February! :-)

Today, I'm still off from school...rumor is we may get off several more days as we are to get even more snow on Tuesday into Wednesday, so will work on that FQ bundle of pretty spring fabrics from the Full Bloom collection. I just finished my second cup of coffee and will be going upstairs to sew!! The federal government in the DC area is also closed, so hubby is home today, too!

I would have posted this last night, as I finished binding the quilt during the Superbowl, but just got too tired!! Hope you had a great weekend! :-)

Snow Day Scrapology

Have you ever done this? I went into my sewing room Friday to start on a planned project, then ended up doing something completely different? I bought two pretty glass vases at Michael's to use in my sewing room. The smaller one is for my tweeners. Tweeners are small pieces of fabric I use in between pieced parts of quilts to save thread and also bypass the birds nest at the beginning of seams. See this old "tweener" post for a better explanation. The bigger one will hold my leftover binding pieces. I keep them if they are at least 20" or so- to use on small projects. I like the look of them both filled with pretty fabrics... nice eye candy.

Anyhoo, I was going through an old basket I had thrown all those bitty scraps and bindings into to sort them into my two new glass containers, and I found a little stack of Kaffe fabric scraps 2 1/2" by 6 1/2"... all in a little pile. Not sure what project they were leftover from??



But, when I saw them, I thought what a cute little purse they would make. My bee friends and I are hoping the weather cooperates later this month and allows us to drive to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show, and I could use a little bag to take to the show, for my phone, money and keys. So I sewed them together and grabbed some black and whites from my stash and machine appliqued 2 fun flowers on the piece.

I used a fusible on the back of the flowers to hold it in place until I machine blanket stitched around the edges. I just free-hand cut out the flowers- no pattern was used.

I soooooo do not understand why Blogger flips some photos...do you?

Then I used fusible fleece on the back of the piece and a pretty multi-colored thread to echo quilt around the flowers. Here it is from the back so you can see the quilting better.

I lined it with another scrap piece of Kaffe fabric. I used a big zipper at the top and only slightly boxed the bottom corners. I used a manufactured pleather shoulder strap with rings attached to each side. And I used several ribbon scraps to make a zipper pull. I like the way it turned out. It's bright and cheery!

I think it is the perfect size to take to the quilt show! It will be very light weight and will leave my hands free to fondle fabric and carry new purchases!!

It was an unexpected fun project just waiting patiently in my scrap basket to be born! What did you make today?

Snoooooowed In

It started snowing in the northern VA/DC area around 10 am on Friday. When we woke up this morning, we had about 20". These photos were taken around 11am today.

Thank goodness for snow blowers!!

It still took hubby 2 hours to do the

driveway and the doorway onto the deck.

The snow there was up against the door and

was over 3 feet because of drifting.

It finally stopped snowing around 5pm today

and the sky slowly cleared.

We got another 10 inches during the day today so

we ended up with around 30".

But the wind made some drifts almost as tall as I am!!

Yogi really wanted to get out there in it...but would have sunk waaaaay under! And when his fur gets snow in it, it makes little balls and has to be washed out with warm water. UGH! We worried all day about the power going out...it did go out for a few hours during the night, but we were lucky that it was back on when we woke up! WHEW!!



Yogi is really loving his new bed.
It really fits his personality doesn't it?



Yes, that's his favorite toy... his duck.

He's a cutie patootie, huh?

First February Finishes

Yesterday, I was very productive on my snow day away from work! I finished my first two projects for February. This little quilt is made from a charm pack and a bit of yardage from the Authentic collection from Moda.

I quilted it just like the one in the book.

It's from On The Run by Anka's Treasures.

It's all pieced except for the leaves which

are machine appliqued using fusible web.

It's all quilted and bound and labeled.

I also made Yogi a new pet bed. My friend Suzanne gave all us bee-mates fabric and a dog bed pattern for Christmas. It was a fun pattern to make. I adjusted it a bit so that it would be reversible so both sides could be used.




The top and bottom are pieced and then all pieces including the sides are quilted after ironing fusible batting onto the back. It took 2 large bags of fiberfill to stuff it. I really love the bright primary colors with black.



I just finished stuffing it and hand sewing the opening closed and put it down on the floor in the family room. Yogi snuggled right onto it and hasn't gotten off it yet! :-)

We are expecting a huge snow storm tomorrow into Saturday here in the northern VA/DC area. Our school system has already cancelled school for tomorrow. So, another unexpected day off to sew! hmmmm... what to make? :-)

SNOW DAY ...again

Well, woke up in the dark at 5am this morning... padded down the hall to the nearest computer, checked the Fairfax schools site... "FCPS schools are closed"... "YESSSSSSSSS"....padded back down the hall and crawled back into bed with hubby and dogger.

So, then we got up at a much more reasonable hour to 6 more inches of snow! And we are told we have yet another big storm heading our way this weekend... UGH! I think this Florida girl has finally, for the first time in the 12 years since she moved from FL to VA, had her FILL of snow!

But it sure is pretty today. It was a wet snow

so it stuck to every branch on every tree!

We still had a couple of inches laying

around from last weekend's snow.

But all of this was lost on my dogger, Yogi. He is just glad to be inside where it's dry and warm and snuggled on the back of the couch snoozin' away.

I'll bet he's playing in the snow in his dreams.

Don't ya think?

OK, I'm off to the sewing room!

Can't waste this unexpected day off!

CGC and OPAM Projects for February

As I am still working full time, I am leery of biting off more than I can chew by posting too many projects to get done in a month...and this is a short month! So, although I do HOPE to do more than these four, here are my goals for this month!
I made this purse a while back from leftover Kaffe Fassett scraps. It's been in The Artful Quilter quilt shop for a few months and Sheri asked me to write up a pattern for it as folks had been asking her what pattern it came from...sooooooo, I'm going to remake it using yardage and create a pattern for it and teach it there later this spring. So, that's Goal # 1!!

Next, I have this awesome bundle of FQ's in this beautiful springy floral fabric called "Full Bloom", so want to design something of my own and get it made up! Goal # 2!

I also have about 3 yards of this succulent Amy Butler floral from her "Love" collection.... will try to pull from my stash and make up a quilt from that. Goal # 3!

And finally, I have a charm pack and a bit of yardage from the "Authentic" fabric collection , and I want to make this little spring wall quilt from Anka's Treasures book called On The Run. So , Goal # 4!!


And, as I said before, I really do think I can do even more than these four, but am soooooo incredibly anal, that with working full time, I gotta limit it or I'll burn myself out trying to get too much done. And that is not fun and certainly not why I quilt. Quilting is my therapy- my stress-reliever, not stress creator!!

So, what are YOU gonna get accomplished this month???

January Finishes

These are my 7 finishes for the month of January for

both the Charming Girls Club and for OPAM 2010.

A good start for the New Year, I think!

Anthony's VA Tech T-shirt quilt

"Madeline" quilt from the Schnibbles line of patterns

My Fall Swap Mini-Quilt for my secret partner

Strip Twist quilt from a "Nest" jelly roll

100 Signature Blocks for the Modern Siggy Swap

My quilted Dustcover for my new HQ 16 Sit-Down Machine

And I finished my Woven flower Basket Quilt yesterday at bee.

(Not sure why Blogger rotated this photo?)

My last project finished for January 2010, label and all! :-)

Got to get busy figuring out what projects to complete for February!!

What's on YOUR list for February?

Lookie What I Got...

I received my Fall Mini-Quilt Swap the other day.

Although it has nothing to do with fall,

I just LOVE it.

The top says "Quilt Naked".

My husband agrees.

But as you can plainly see, she's not naked.
She's wearing heels!!

But my favorite part is the little warning

stitched down the left side.

"watch out for loose safety pins..."

Fat Quarter Storage Idea

C.J. asked for fat quarter storage ideas on her blog and showed us how she likes her FQ's folded. Years ago I bought this $30.00 CD storage cabinet at Walmart. It was perfect for my folded FQ collection. I had lots back then. I used the baskets at the bottom for FQ bundles.

I just looked for it now on www.walmart.com and couldn't find it. Guess they don't sell it anymore. But I Googled "CD cabinets" and found this one. I think it would do just fine!

Back before I started quilting, I was a doll maker, and I bought this antique chest of drawers that I used for my buttons. When I rearranged my sewing room a few years ago, I removed the eight drawers and set the unit on it's side and it became a set of cubbyholes. So now I put my FQ's in there... I even set 2 of the drawers there next to it on their side to fit a few more FQ's there.

The long wooden thingy sitting on top is a very primitively made white-washed wooden box with a handle that I used to use to hold my patterns for display at craft fairs. I turned it on it's side, too and more FQ are stored there!

Just some ideas for storing those endearing fat quarters!

How do you store yours?