Waiting for the Thaw

It was supposed to warm up yesterday. Technically, it did...a little. When we got up yesterday morning, we were at 27°F. At bedtime, it was all of 33°F. So...above freezing, but just barely. Just before sitting down to write this post, I took this picture:

Baby, it's cold outside. Snow has been falling since before daybreak. Mike is just getting ready to leave for work. I fully expect him to return before I'm even finished writing this post.

Yesterday I thought I might get outside to take some pictures. I even took time to charge the battery on my DSLR camera so that I could use my macro lens. Freezing rain continued falling throughout the day. The wind chime was coated in ice, and even though the wind was knocking the tubes together, the sound was muffled nearly to silence.

Not really being in the mood to have my body encased in ice, my only foray into the great outdoors was across the deck where there was a layer of ice over the snow. As I planted my feet to avoid falling, I left a trail of broken ice footprints.

This was the object of my photography desire...not a great picture, but it's better than nothing.

You can see there is about an inch of ice on the roof of the catio. To avoid any more roof collapses, we've propped up the offending panel with the head of a push broom. Mike has figured out that he can install cleats on each side of the rafters to prevent this from happening again in the future. That will be a project for warmer weather, however.

After seeing this, I decided to go out on the catio to see a kitty's eye view. You can see that they've been outside, albeit briefly.

Here's how it looks to their eyes.

As you might guess, I had plenty of time to finish up Wind in the Whiskers yesterday. It sure feels fine. While I was working on this, I realized I'd reserved my two most pesky projects for the month of January, and I've defeated both.

This one gave me a little trouble in the form of applique pieces that weren't completely fused down. The fabric is a very densely woven batik, and the fusible doesn't adhere well sometimes. I've used this 606 product in the past when a fusible gave me trouble. It's always been before it was fused to the quilt however, and so I couldn't really spray it onto the quilt top.

Instead, I sprayed it onto a thick piece of paper. It's the backing I've pulled off the printable fabric from Ernestine, the bag lady. So I sprayed a virtual puddle of 606 onto the paper and then used an old pencil point to apply it to the applique, then ironed it down again. That worked great, but it is kind of messy. A bamboo skewer would make a better applicator, but I was in grab-the-closest-pointed-object mode. 

Also, you have to work pretty fast because the 606 drys fairly quickly.

When I was finished with that, I made this heart block for the Block Lotto. Kind of fun. The red portions are from "made fabric". I just sewed together a bunch of scraps until I had pieces large enough, then trimmed them to size. My friend Marei does a lot of "made fabrics" and she's the only one I've ever heard use that term. Apparently, I'm again the last to know this well-known quilting term.

Then I was ready to do the small quilt for Kathleen Tracy's January small quilt challenge. I blogged about this last week. Yesterday I went from cutting to a completed little top in a single afternoon. I'm not as happy with my fabric choices as I thought I would be, but oh well. The top is done, and this is just a fun way to use up scraps.

I'll use a solid blue for the binding, and in the image below, I've laid the strips around so you can see how it will look.

Here's the fabric I'll use for the back.

And so I'm hoping to get this one quilted and finished up today. Aside from that, I'm staying inside and trying to stay warm.