Thankfully Thawing

Good morning, my friends. We've been in the national news spotlight with our bad weather. Sadly we've been in the news for weather-related fatalities. And I won't go into specifics...it's kind of a bummer...but it's always strange to see your home mentioned on national news with so much going on in the rest of the country/world. It was still too dark to see outside when I wrote yesterday's post. Daylight revealed a frozen world.

It was very slick outside, and so I took these pictures through our living room window. Our shrubs were coated with about a quarter to half an inch of ice. This is one of the azaleas.

This is our dwarf Japanese maple. It should be okay, even with this icy coating. I worry more about the more tender plants, like clematis.

This is the Andromeda. It too has survived cold weather in previous years with no problems.

There were drippy icicles hanging from the eaves...

And the windchime.

And let me just tell you, that sidewalk is slick. Best to stay inside, my friends.

Early on, Mike realized our water pressure wasn't up to snuff. It was then we remembered we'd neglected to turn off the faucet that feeds a spraying shower onto our bird bath. We knew it earlier in the storm, but it was already frozen when we tried to turn it off. As you might guess, the pipe broke, and as it began to thaw, it also began to leak, emptying our well's holding tank. Mike ventured out in his Yaktrax and was able to turn it off, stanching the flow of water, and our water pressure returned to normal. Phew! That makes two close calls with our water in the same storm. Fortunately, it'll be an easy fix, and there's no need to get after it before spring.

While I was sitting and tying the French roses quilt, I noticed these silly dark-eyed juncos luxuriating in this ice water bath where the snow was melting. Brrrrrrr...how do they stand it?

As I said, I thought I could finish tying the French Roses quilt yesterday if I did it in two sittings, and I did! It's a sad day for the kitties. They've been using it as a nifty fort.

Nevertheless, Smitty consented to helping me in the sewing room while I squared it up.

He was really just there for the catnip.

He held the quilt firmly in place while I trimmed off the excess backing and batting. (I want to make another flannel quilt, and there was quite a bit of the backing left to use again.)

His efforts were not particularly helpful as I attempted to rotate the quilt to the next side.

With perseverance, we got the binding sewn on.

While we watched the news last night, I stitched around the first corner. I've stitched about 1/4 of the way around it, and I'm expecting to finish it today.

I'm kind of excited to get it finished. It's going straight to the washing machine to rag the edges of the flowers. It's going to be interesting to see how it looks when it comes out of the dryer.

My day will probably be spent mostly slow-stitching. We could get more freezing rain or snow this afternoon, but after that, a deluge of warm rain. It's looking good for our carpet installation on Monday. It would be nice to put things away so we're not tripping over the boxes that are stacked everywhere. I want to get in a Bow-flex workout, but there isn't much more on today's agenda. Snuggling up under an unfinished quilt as I stitch the binding is sounding like a good way to spend a day. 

Also and FYI, Crabapple Hill Studios has released the pattern and instructions for this year's  International Embroidery Month stitch-along. I've always referred to this project as the "Stitched Inchies." Here are the ones I've done for the past five years.

They're really fun, and I practice some new stitches.

She did this next one a little differently, cutting out the little designs and adding them to some kind of backing board. I left mine all on a single piece of fabric. There's that feather fabric y'all liked so much when I used it recently.

I had some felt squares I'd used to repair a wool hat, and so I incorporated them into the next quilt that came from the project for 2022. It was finished while we were at the beach, and so it got a glamour shot.

Finally...this one from last year.

This year's project is all hearts. It looks like fun. Here's the picture from the website.

You can see that she's cut out her hearts and added them to a background for framing. I'm planning to leave mine all on a single piece of fabric. And all of that to say that I've already printed out the pattern, and I'll spend some time getting that ready to go today. You can find all the skinny on this project right here.

When I got up this morning, this was the temperature:

Now that's a number I can live with. From what I understand, some of you are still dealing with these frozen temperatures. Stay safe and warm my friends. I suggest baking your cold-weather sorrows away.