Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Happy frosty morning to you, my friends. It snowed most of the day here yesterday. It was hard to believe it was still coming down, particularly with temperatures above freezing. Nevertheless, the temperatures aloft were colder, and the white stuff came down, down, down. Yeesh. I'm thinking it might be gone by July. It was a pretty sunrise this morning, though.

When I sat down here to write, I noticed this frost on my window.

It almost looks likes its own frozen forest scene. I can remember the first time I saw frost on a window. It was at my maternal grandmother's house, and it was utterly enchanting. They told me Jack Frost had painted it, and of course, I absolutely knew someone named Jack Frost ran around painting scenes on windows overnight. It makes perfect sense when you're seven.

Passing through the breezeway yesterday, I noticed the snow was sliding off the roof where the icicles were hanging. The angle in this next image is a little strange. It looks as if the icicles are pointing off toward the left, but they were actually pointing inward toward me.

Turning around, this is how much snow has avalanched off the garage and house roofs. There was even more by day's end. 

Out front, this free-standing trellis is about three feet tall. Beneath all that snow lies our bleeding heart and some volunteer pansies. They have survived this assault before, and so I'm hopeful they'll still be alive when the snow melts.

When I left you yesterday, I was heading off to stitch time in a bottle.

When I finished stitching it, I started wondering if anyone had used the phrase "time in a bottle" before Jim Croce wrote a song about it. None of my Facebook friends could think of anyone. Can you?

From there, I did my treadmill walking, and then got started on the day's leaf quilting. For the first one, I did some swirling and pebbling.

Next, some echoing wavy lines. I kind of liked this one.

Sticking with the echoing lines, I did the next one with echoing triangles.

For this next one, echoing zigzagging lines.

Okay, so I'm moving to the larger leaves now, and I'm looking forward to having more room to stitch. You can see the veins are less pronounced on these. They're also darker in color.

After that, I made the 7th Tiny House. That took the remainder of my sewing day.

My friend Diana had a good idea about how I could fix the size differential among my blocks. She suggested making adjustments at the border to get them all to the same size. I was doing something similar, but not exactly in the way she described it. When I went to work on this, I looked at the blocks I'd already made. The largest among them just needed a quarter-inch trimmed off each side. The interior house blocks are different sizes, but the adjusted borders make them appear all the same. It's barely noticeable, and with some careful setting at the end, I doubt anyone will be the wiser. You won't tell, will you?

Sadie was my helper cat for this. She's looking pretty self-satisfied at having finished off that Tiny House, isn't she?

After watching the snow come down all day long yesterday, we decided to reschedule our camping trip yet again. Now we'll be going another week later (two weeks of delay) from our original date. It will keep us from gnashing our teeth about the snow. Nevertheless, we were both bored and feeling imprisoned by the whole thing. We decided to make our way down into the valley for some Mexican food last night. The food was good, and it made us feel less isolated. The roads are fairly clear and sanded once we get out of our own driveway.

Today I'll get back to work quilting the leaves, and I'll get back to the New Mexico Kitchen quilt. It just needs borders now. Also, it's time to choose a new project for March's

I'm setting as my goal to quilt and bind one of my small quilts...this one that I call "Road Apples," since I made it while we were on the road.

Mike is making noises like he's going to drive into town again today. I'll probably ride along. I have a package to take to the post office, and the change of scenery will be nice. Here's hoping we see less snowing and more melting today. I won all my word games this morning, and it seems like a good omen.