SNOW!

It's snowing in Atlanta! Now you gotta understand, it very, very rarely snows here and then it's only a little bit that doesn't stick to anything. But it's been snowing since around 11:00am this morning, varying from big, fluffy flakes to just little bits of snow/ice and now back to big, fluffy flakes! I love to watch it snow. Usually when we get winter precipitation it turns quickly to ice which is not good. My first winter here we had an ice storm that knocked my power out for three days. I had only my gas stove for heat. At least I could cook soup on the stove and snuggle under my quilts for warmth!

Here are a few pictures if you want to see what snow looks like in a southern city!

First, here's Petey turning white - she's supposed to be Cool Vanilla!


Here is what it looks like in the back yard.


Here's Peanut Butter contemplating the snow. He used to love to play in the snow when he was a kitten and we lived farther north of here! But now he's an indoor kitty and can only dream.



Miss Peaches wants to go out too!



It's still snowing, maybe I'll post more pictures later. For now I'm going to be sewing and watching it snow!

Yeah! I was lucky enough to sign up on Tazzie's blog for her Pay It Forward and so now I'm posting the fun for three more lucky bloggers. In the spirit of paying it forward I will make a gift for the first three bloggers who leave a comment on this posting. They in turn will need to make the same promise on their blog. Within the next three months I will send a quilted giftie to the lucky three.

Believe it or not but since I've begun blogging I've really been getting a lot more quilting done! This serves as a great motivator. I'm looking forward to creating something fun for you!

I have the best sweetie in the world! It's true...and I have proof. He was worried about me not being able to get to my sewing machine due to the shifting and shuffling of cleaning and storage so while I was at work one day he did more shifting and made room for me to be able to access my sewing machine again. AND, he made it so I can still access those bins of fabric and UFOs, WIPs, etc. that I need to access. He's such a sweetie...I think I'll keep him.

Anyway, with that being the case I've been able to sew more on the Carolina Crossroads mystery. I'm still behind many of the other mystery quilters but I don't mind. I'll get there eventually! As of now I've pieced parts of part one, two, and three (see picture below) and I think I'm going to like these colors. I'm not the greatest machine piecer, I much prefer hand work but this is challenging me to get better on the machine.



Along with piecing this quilt I've begun piecing little 4.5 inch four patches from my scrap box as a leader/ender project. I'd never heard of this before really reading Bonnie's Quiltville website.

But this isn't all I've been doing since I last posted. I've also been doing a lot of handpiecing. More of the circles from the previous post and quite a few 6.5 inch 9 patch blocks. I don't know what I'm going to do with them but I had cut up some of my stash into 2.5 inch strips which I then cut into 2.5 inch blocks. I have used the same background fabric for all the blocks. I have about 60 done now (not all in the past few days, I'm not that good!).



I have been trying to get in one hour a day of quilting every day and so far so good. Some days are better than others but I can see a difference in my projects so far. Happy Quilting y'all!

It's been a few days since I've posted. I really wanted to include an update on the mystery quilt but I haven't been able to get to my machine to do more piecing! I've had to do some moving and shifting around the house and I can't even get to the sewing machine for storage boxes right now. Bummer...

So, I have cut more strips and pieces for the mystery and I've been doing some hand piecing. I've been piecing on a circle block from a pattern that I modified (shrunk in size). I can't remember where I saw the pattern but remember that it was much larger and was designed to show off the designer's fabric line. I didn't want a quilt that was just one huge circle so I reduced the size and am using mostly 19th century reproduction fabrics. I just love handpiecing circles...call me crazy but it's fun! The blocks are about 10.5 inches and I think I'll only do about 12 blocks then a couple of fairly wide borders but who knows! Here is a picture of a few of the blocks put together.



Update on the missing Baby Jane blocks ... still missing! One of the reasons for shifting storage is to find these little babies, they are lurking around here somewhere.

Where, oh where has my Baby Jane gone? No seriously! Not my completed blocks, I know where they are...in the notebook I have with the book pages cut up and the blocks kept with their page in page protectors. But, I had several blocks prepped to sew, or at least with the patterns printed and the fabric picked out. I had planned to sew some blocks on January 1, the 10th anniversary of when I started this quilt. And when I went to the basket where these little packets have lain dormant for years - they aren't there! When, where, and WHY did I move them? Oh well, the day was not totally lost. There were two little baggies in the bottom of the basket, one with a completed block that just needed pressing and one almost complete that needed a couple more pieces stitched in. I pressed the completed one and stitched the other on January 1 so I did meet my goal, somewhat. The picture below is not so good but it is the two little orphans (laying on a piece white fleece for the photo so you can't see the muslin background of the one on the right but they are the same size). Now I know one of my projects for this weekend is to find the other lost little lambs!



I did get some other sewing done on my Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt and another UFO. I had to go back to work yesterday and didn't stitch a single thread when I got home, just too tired!

Ah well, only one more day to work this week and it's back to my sewing sanctuary this weekend.

TTFN!