What The Hell??

We had a nor'easter yesterday. Considering where I live, not a terribly unusual weather event, especially for this time of year. What was unusual was that this storm came armed with snow. And serious snow, too. Not the "oh, look, it's snowing" kind of light fluffy flakes, either. It was Mother Nature with PMS and no Motrin to take for it. The Jersey shore got socked with torrential rain; we got snow, then sleet, then rain, then back to sleet, and then, oh goody, ice! What fun! The entire mess finally turned to snow around 6 pm last night, and continued on that way through the rest of the evening. While this could have been a disaster of major proportions (and is such in other parts of the state), we lucked out. Just about 2 inches of snow, and no high winds. I was nervously watching my trees, which are still fully leafed out, bend ominously towards the ground from the weight of all that snow on them. Happily, I did not hear any cracks during the night, and all my trees stayed put, with only the loss of a few minor branches.

The real annoyance came today. I wanted to make a quick trip out to my not-so-local quilt store. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I wanted to take advantage of the last day of a sale there. Ran out of the house to the driveway, only to be greeted by the sight of my truck locked in a frozen cake of sleet, snow, ice and oak leaves. Grrr. It took me 20 minutes to pry all that stuff off my car, and to hang on to the roof rack with one hand while prying ice off the roof with the other, and not break any bones in the process. Finally, the truck is in driveable condition, and I hop in and drive away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a little yellow light. Uh,oh. Low on gas. Zip over to the local gas station, get gassed up, and finally I'm on my way. Got to the store in time for the sale, and stocked up on Windham Fabrics "Kingdom" line by Jessica Levitt. I'll try to take pictures tomorrow, because it's dark here now, and I want some natural daylight for those shots. What I have in mind for this fabric is this.

Woo Hoo!! I Love A Good Sale!

While clicking through my email today, I noticed that there was some thing from my favorite not-so-LQS that they are having a sale starting tomorrow - 20% off all regular-priced fabric! I'm not sure I really NEED anything, but for 20%, I think I can find something.

In the What's Happening At Chez Knitting At Night category, I got my recert in CPR. So, for the next two years, I'm good to save your life. The new guidelines made it a bit more difficult physically this year. 100 chest compressions per minute is hard work. My shoulders and arms are killing me. And lastly but not leastly, here are some shots of my favorite season. The afternoon sun was so gorgeous today, I couldn't resist dropping my studying for a few minutes and grabbing my camera.

Civil War Stars

Just to show you I have actually been quilting lately, here is a bit of my Civil War Stars Quilt. I have 21 of the 30 blocks completed, with fabric for six more cut out. After much searching, I think I finally found the perfect border fabric. Each block is separated by a strip of Kona Cotton in Sand, and the lovely border print is "Toast II" by Jo Morton for Andover. I love it! Any thoughts??

Signs Of Fall

Let me begin by saying I love fall! I love everything about it. I love cool, crisp days, blue skies, awesome sunsets, pumpkins, gourds, indian corn, mums, and Halloween! It's been a bit rainier than I would like, but I still got out today to take some shots of some of my favorite things on my front porch:

The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly On The Terrain...

Ok, bad joke, I know. But, I am now the proud owner of at least fat quarters of all the fabrics in Kate Spain's Terrain line. All except for one - pebbles in Stream, I think. Oh, well. Not a big deal. I also have 4 yards of Fern in Foliage. I'm not sure why I have 4 yards - I'm pretty sure I said two yards at the quilt store. Anyway, not a big deal. I think I mentioned before that I was not impressed with this line when I first saw it on Moda's site. It looked so flat with dull colors. I was amazed at the actual colors when I saw it in person, and am happy I was able to get my hot little hands on some!

Much to everyone's amazement (mine included), I have actually had Some Quilting Going On! Really!! I cut out some more pieces for my Civil War Stars quilt, and worked on several blocks. I now have 19 of the 30 blocks sewn together, pieces for four more cut out, which leaves me only 7 left to do! The hardest part of this quilt is picking out the fabrics, and deciding how I want each block to look. It's also the most fun, and I'm afraid time gets away from me when I'm in the Deciding Fabric Zone. I think it's a close cousin to the Twilight Zone.

I do have some shots of my Terrain Fabric, but no shots of the finished blocks of the Civil War Stars quilt. I blame that on my photography assistant. He was being a fuzzy pain in the a** today, as evdidenced by this shot of him on my Terrain fabric:

Yes. That's my little stinker bicycle-kicking my fabric!

It Followed Me Home - Can I Keep It?

I've been looking forward to the Quilts On High show in Burlington County for nearly a month now. Put on by Olde City Quilts in Burlington, NJ, the pamphlet promised 500 quilts! Wow! I was itching to go to that show. And since it was to be outdoors, along High Street, keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather. We haven't had much of that lately. Once again this week, it's been rain, rain, and more rain. I think if I look carefully, I have rudimentary gills growing. However, the nice people at the Weather Channel gave me hope. Looking at the long range forecast at the beginning of the week, there were the familiar little thunderstorm icons under every day except, lo and behold, Friday AND Saturday! Could it be true? Could we really be able to participate in something that could be loosely grouped under Outdoor Activities? Really? An outdoor activity that did not involve a raincoat, umbrella, boots, bailing pail, water pump, rowboat or snorkel? I checked that little icon every day, and everyday the little sun was sitting there right under the word "Saturday". Until, that is, Thursday. I brought up the weekend forecast on weather dot com, and there it was. A raincloud. On Saturday. 60% chance of rain. And, given the fact that we have just had the wettest summer (and August) in history, I just knew it would be 60 percenting all over the place.

When I woke up this morning, there were dark murky clouds covering the sky, and the roads were wet. Crud. However, Olde City Quilts said that the show would go on rain or shine, and a quick check of their facebook page upheld this. The show had been moved indoors, to the Quaker Meeting House, and a few empty storefronts, but it was going on. I'm so glad I went. I've been to quilt shows where every quilt is completely spectacular, giving me the feeling that these quilts were not made my mere mortals. Talk about inferiority complex! Now, not to say that these quilts today were not spectacular, because they were, but when I looked at some of them, I could see points that had been nipped off, and some blocks were not matched perfectly. I can't tell you how happy that made me. These quilts were gorgeous in spite of tiny imperfections. I had a great time, and loved seeing everything. It would have been wonderful to have this show outdoors as planned, but I still loved it.

I swore that I would not buy any fabric. I have enough fabric right now to make a quilt for every citizen of any small country you could pick. So, naturally, before I go, I'm trolling around on the web while eating breakfast, and I come across a blog I've never seen before, by Sill Mama Quilts. And there is a gorgeous small quilt made with Kate Spain Terrain fabrics. Well. I've seen Terrain fabrics on Moda's site before, and I wasn't impressed. I don't know, maybe they need to have better color reproductions on their site, but the fabrics in this photo of the quilt looked drop-dead beautiful. So anyway, to make a long story short (why couldn't I write this much when I was in high school and had to produce a 500 word essay overnight?), I stopped in Olde City just before I went home. What's the first thing I see when I walk in the front door?? You got it, a display of Terrain, looking even more gorgeous than the quilt picture, and certainly more appealing than on Moda's site! Somehow or another, I wound up with two yards of Footpath in Foliage, and 5 half-yard cuts of a few others in that line. Honest mom, can I keep it?

Some images of the quilts: