What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I don't know where this month has gone. It's been filled with activity, not the least of which is keeping up with breadmaking from two different sourdough starters! What have I gotten myself into? Loaves are being gifted continually. I've branched out into English muffins, cinnamon buns and multi-grain breads too.Without a lot of words or explanation I'm going to catch up with a post 

I don't know where this month has gone. It's been filled with activity, not the least of which is keeping up with breadmaking from two different sourdough starters! What have I gotten myself into? Loaves are being gifted continually. I've branched out into English muffins, cinnamon buns and multi-grain breads too.Without a lot of words or explanation I'm going to catch up with a post 

It has been bitterly cold this past week, and the birds are stuffing their beaks to get enough energy to keep warm. Of course, this means the feeder empties out quickly on some days. We have a pair of hairy woodpeckers that live here year round. Here the female hangs off the bottom of the feeder, while a goldfinch sits on the left keeping a close eye.

The goldfinch flew off, and a bluebird stopped by to take its place. More goldfinches were visiting and taking turns.

A titmouse landed on the empty suet feeder looking for more sustenance on ...

It was not a good night -- Oh, I went to sleep early enough, fell asleep, and then BEEP BEEP BEEP woke me up. The lights are flashing outside, which means only one thing - the PLOW is passing. 

Actually, the plow had passed earlier and did a great job. They gave all the drives in the corner a huge berth, and that made me happy as I'm sure my low-clearance car could pass in the existing ruts. 

After the plow has passed the first time

So the beeping was the crews returning to deal with the corner mess. When I ...

For the moment, things are fixed here at our house. I should take a picture of the door, but with a couple of layers of duct tape and a piece of cardboard, that front door opens and closes with no issues. However, it must be locked to not pop open on its own, but I'm OK with that. No word from the lock company yet on a replacement part. 

And the dishwasher? Well, guess what I found in there. First -- I had to remove the lower rack and the strainer and scoop out the dirty water. Why does the ...

OH MY GOSH - I read the comments and HAD to take a picture. Tammy suggested I get some post-it notes for my new notebook. 

Ah --- I don't think that's necessary since I have an ENTIRE drawer of them in my desk. Oops -- how did that happen? I never use the darn things, but I should get out one of those small arrow packs and use them for my notebook! I also have BIG plans for that notebook, but I'm not ready to share them. 

A drawer of Post-it notes

Thanks, Tammy, for the suggestion, but I'm ...

I didn't even bother to look for the missing stuff. No time at the moment and I'll find it eventually! I almost forgot what I was looking for! No matter, the cropped version of the picture went in the homework assignment, and life is good! I bet that group NEVER asks me for homework again -- I sent them a whopper! 

OH MY --- I was so thinking about other things this week, that I forgot to mention there's a VIRTUAL RETREAT this weekend. Good grief -- I knew that but forgot to write it down. So here are the ...

So it was a good day and a bad day! GRR! 

It drives me crazy when I can't find something. I become obsessed with finding it, and when I can't, it throws my day for a curve! That was yesterday. I'm missing TWO things -- I wanted to take a picture of part of a UFO project. Can I find it? Nope -- and I've looked everywhere. But obviously, not everywhere! I'll try later today. 

However, the good news is that I already have a picture of the piece (I remembered that later in the day) and ...

It's that bittersweet day of any retreat -- it's time to go home! And we have a snowstorm today! Yippee!!! It's happened before, and I'm going to wait until about 1 PM to head out. The plows will have been out by then, and the heaviest snowfall is forecast to be over. I got snow tires, and we are Canadians, and it's not the first winter we've driven home in the snow. 

I had two Zoom sessions yesterday morning, which cut into the sewing time a wee bit, but that's OK. It's nice ...

You guessed it -- EVERYTHING takes longer than you think it will. Did I finish those improv blocks with the leftovers from Farmer's Wife? Nope --- and I went to bed with the problem of figuring out how many blocks I would need, how many I have, and whether I have enough fabric to complete the blocks? 

Thanks to a discussion with Katheleen, I will keep these blocks myself. I have a plan and hope I have enough craps to finish it. 

Here are the finished blocks. They look fantastic, and I'm very excited about them. 

My improv blocks

I ...

I have yet to go outside, but could we be snowed in? We had a lot of snow yesterday, but the retreat house is also on a hill, and the snow was blowing, so hopefully, it blew away from the yard and not into it! 

We'll be out for our walk once it gets light, and then we'll see. This region is on the ball for road maintenance, so that won't be a problem, but we have to get from the house to the road. And if we don't get out for our walk until later ...

      I live one block north of the Buffalo city line. Usually, the Lake Erie snowbands stay south of the city due to westerly winds. Because of a southwest storm, the wind came directly down the Lake and dumped itself for 2 days over my house and the surrounding area. Friday morning we had all green grass. At 7:30 am, the rain instantly turned to snow and heavy winds started (60-70 mph gusts). It stayed the same until 10:30 pm Saturday (Christmas Eve). On Christmas, the sun came out, but we were stuck and everything was closed. Then the ...

Or should I say a marathon of snow? Anyway, we had received a lot of snow, but not nearly what we got a couple of weeks ago. And it was a beautiful morning, so wonderful to see the snow, but not so wonderful to walk in it. 

And I'm apologizing for this in advance -- no, I'm not. I'm mad! But here's another rant about the snow.  

First, some pretty snow pictures. 

This looks like a skunk. Just waddling along in front of the house. The day before, it was a rabbit. It's like we have ...

We have had a winter snow storm that has been very beautiful.

I have cut for easy breezy, fish school, and the stashbuster 2022 in aqua/ teal for the rainbow scrap challenge at so scrappy. I can sit and do that.

what color is this one? I wish it could make up it's mind

I am linking to:

rsc21 super saturday
oh scrap
put your foot down

wednesday wait loss

     The blue green zig zags is done, bound, etc. I could not resist photographing outside in the snow. When Alycia, with her wonderful Colorado ranch landscape, shows her quilts outdoors, I always drool. I live in a tight little suburban lot which is not exactly photogenic for quilts, but due to the almost 20" of snow that fell on MLK day, I gave it a try.  I also know how to crop out.

Back detail

Back

 A quick note about the snow back home. So the neighbor at the end of the street had complained about the snow plowing or lack thereof in front of her house. The level of service was deplorable, to say the least. She had been told that the backhoe would be back yesterday morning to clear her out. The backhoe arrived around 8 PM last night. 

And while he did a great job at her end of the street, this is what happened in our driveway. Are you kidding me?? We had ZERO snow for two days, and the backhoe found ...

To no one's surprise we awakened to snow on Sunday morning, right on schedule and as forecast! A few hearty souls braved the elements to attend worship; all told, we ended up with about 4 inches before it turned over to sleet. Today we have crusty, icy snow remaining, the roads and driveway are still a mess. We've been warm and dry at home, I finished a book yesterday (will report on this month's