Still Here

Yes, we're still here!

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I've posted.

I was afraid this would happen after I started working.

I really don't have an excuse other than we've been busy and I was sick.

Not much to report.

We've been roof shopping.

We decided on a roofer and a color.

It seemed like it took forever to get to that point.

If all goes well (AKA the weather cooperates) we should have a new roof before the end of April.

The boys and I are now on Spring break! Woo hoo!

We don't have much planned for next week.

The one thing I really need to do is work on my full-sized quilt.

My goal is to be more than halfway done by the end of our break.

That leaves me roughly two months to finish hand quilting and bind it.

We'll see how it goes.

This was taken when I had three rows left to quilt on the Confetti table runner.

I have since finished the middle.

It took me a few days to decide how I wanted to quilt the border. 

I decided on feathers.

I have never done feathers.

I didn't have the patience to order a template online.

So I grabbed one of my old drafting tools, a french curve.

I'm so glad I kept all of my old tools.

They have come in handy on more than one occasion.

So much so that I keep them with my quilting supplies.

I used the french curve to draw the "stem" of my feathers.

Then I drew the feathers free-hand.

I'm about a third of the way across the first side and I'm loving the way it's turning out.

I can't wait for this to be done.

It will look really cool.

My mom gave me this old tin full of pins her mother used.

I ended up tossing all of the old pins as they were too small for my quilting needs.

I filled it with my ever growing collection of thimbles.

The one on the right is called an Aunt Becky's Finger Protector.

It seems to be one of my favorites so far... I just need a lot more practice.

...and in-case you're wondering, it's sitting on my full-sized project.

I'm just not willing to post many pictures of it until it goes to it's recipient.

In a nutshell our days have been eat, sleep, work/school, repeat.

I hand quilt between the end of my job and the end of Dwayne's job.

Although I may be doing less of that as I substituted as a helper on the preschool bus once last week.

My job is to buckle and unbuckle the kids on the afternoon route.

I've been asked if I can sub on several more occasions after spring break.

We figured I'm there anyways might as well earn some more money.

You want to pay me to ride a school bus for a couple of hours? Yes, please.

:)

Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

I'm slightly insane in that I've started another quilt project.

Technically I started this back in November just after I finished sewing the table runner.

I love hand piecing hexagons. (Some day I'll branch out to other shapes.)

They make good take-along projects.

Perfect for the spare time I have after work before we leave the school.

Project box all labeled and filled with stuff for my quilt.

I'm thinking of a grandmother's flower garden quilt.

I quickly made a mock up on the computer.

My goal is lap sized.

I decided to use the large stash of cut squares I found at the thrift store.

I'm making them in small bunches at a time.

If I stick to my original mock up, I'll need 100 flowers.

That's 700 hexagons in flowers alone!

This was the first flower I made.

Only 99 more to go.

It wasn't until after I made several flowers that I realized I should be quilting my table runner.

So I've reluctantly put these aside until the Confetti Runner is quilted.

But once it's done...

:)

We Have Reached Ludicrous Temperatures

I'm so late with this post.

Oh well.

These are a few pictures from the days when we had temps in the -20's.

Wind chills were in the -30's or colder.

Those are ludicrous temperatures.

It was so cold we decided to house the ducks in the basement for a few days.

Not ideal but it kept them from freezing to death.

We got a large tarp and surrounded it with a make-shift fence.

AKA one hog panel, an old table top, and a couple of boxes.

Not pretty but it worked.

All went well the first night.

It was funny to hear them quacking all the time...

including throughout the night.

Thankfully, it didn't keep us awake.

Of course our power went out the morning it was supposed to start getting super cold.

Without power the chickens had no heat lamp.

So they were brought inside as well.

The chickens weren't so thrilled.

At least they didn't jump the fence!

We had Pepper inside too... so that meant we had every animal we own in our basement!

Pepper hates being inside.

She would sit at the top of our basement steps and whine through the door.

She was very happy when we set her free!

This was from one of our attempts at going to school.

They cancelled school when we got to the end of our road.

It was bad that morning.

I'm hoping were past the worst part of winter.

There's always a snow/ice event the last part of February to first part of March.

I know we're not out of the woods yet.

However, each day is one day closer to spring!