Thanksgiving Time

I've been doing a lot of hand applique this past week. I have been doing a block of the month for a client. I began it last year and discovered I really enjoy doing hand applique in the middle of winter. It is a great way to still be working while not moving 5' from the wood stove. I started on it earlier than expected this year thanks to last week's power outage.
The devastation of wind-downed trees is quite sad and impressive. I am always in awe at the raw power of mother nature when in a mood. We did lose several trees on our property. Out back, the top of huge Blue Spruce came down and took out a Ponderosa pine and large aspen.
I've got Sid arranging another quilt for me at the moment. Our brains work quite differently and we try to use that to our advantage. He excels at creating chaos while I still try to find some kind of order even in a crazy quilt. This quilt is a memory t-shirt quilt for a woman to give her daughter for Christmas. The daughter is quite an accomplished runner with lots of track shirts. Sid is composing the crazy quilt look for the top and then he'll dye the backing too. I get to sit here and write to you folks about it. At some point, he'll announce he's done and go outside to blacksmith. That's when I'll get up and sew it all together into a top.
It is the time of year to remember how blessed we all are. I am continually thankful for all those who have helped me get this far in life. I am thankful for all those that love me and accept my love in return. I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

Crazy Week

It's a good thing I was feeling caught up last week. It enabled me to say, "Sure I'll do a cake and cater a wedding for complete strangers with 6 days notice for 11/11/11!" All I can say is that people are funny and YES, I am quite a sucker. The wedding went wonderfully from all reports and everyone loved the food.
I am quite exhausted right now. It was seriously windy last night. The wind has not been bad for a few years now so the newcomers did not even have a clue as to what wind might be. All the area gulches lost power for about 12 hours because of downed poles. We had one tree go down. As Sid drove to town, he saw lots of trees down and lots of people wandering around outside looking for things that they left out last night. Sid got to explain to these newcomers about the Wind Gods up here and their demands for sacrifice. Our hatches were battened down and it still felt like we might loose a roof or 2.
I remember the first wind we experienced many years ago. It was shortly after moving up to the mountains and we had a very sleepless night. (That house really rocked and swayed) We headed off for work the next day and came upon some tin roofing somewhere in the driveway. My husband & I both turned around to see if our new rental had a tin roof. Luckily for us, the roof was shingled. We certainly had a good laugh until we realized that someone else was in need of new roofing.
There are many of us up here who can cuss a blue streak and put many a pirate to shame. The absolute worst cuss word around these parts though is a 4 letter starting with W---. Mention that one word and you will get all the locals riled up. I'll talk to you all in January about our other 4 letter swear word that rhymes with tow.

Wind in the Pines

It has been so windy for a few days now. No snow in the wind today but my goodness the damage it's done is amazing. The first thing I saw when I got off the bus in Ned was a poor VW bus whose roof had been blown off. It was really quite sad. Heavily-weighted mailboxes were down everywhere. The Pine trees are all being whipped into frenzies every which way as I right this blog. We are used to wind up here, but this is pretty impressive! I wish I had a web-cam to share it with y'all.
I have been happy lately. It's because I've returned to work at the iris farm and Spring is approaching. I finished another 16 blocks for the silk tie quilt. So that leaves me with 20 left, and I've even gotten up to Strip 5 on all 20 of them. One of the reasons I chose to back the ties with interfacing was so that I could chain piece them. It's worked out really well for me. I can just zip through them with ease, knowing the strips are stable and behaving themselves. I always knew silk was tricky fabric, but it is nothing compared to velvet. I did a crazy quilt for a client once and discovered just what a squirmy, runaway, do anything but what you want it to fabric.
Okay, that's for all now. Keep quilting, dreaming, creating, and loving!