Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, friends and readers! 2014 started with a cold, icy blast here in the Midwestern states. My kids had already been home for the two weeks of the holidays, when Snowmagedeon blew into our region. A cold, polar vortex brought the temperatures well below zero fahrenheit. Snow mounted above twelve inches, and the winds blew to bring the wind chill to about -30F. 

I have lived in cold places before.  When I lived in Montreal and Mongolia, the weather bottomed out at -40F/C several times. And, while I do not fear the cold, I certainly do respect it.  Add three kids with cabin fever and cancelled school after a two week vacation, though, and I begin to understand why some wild creatures eat their young.

See that?  That's a picture I took of the school parking lot snow pile when I went to get the kids.  That's a handicap parking sign on the left at the normal height.  That's a lot of snow.

it was interesting to see the dog's reaction to the cold.  She's stand at the door whimpering (like she's doing right now), but when we'd open the door, she'd back away quickly flashing us a look that said, "you're kidding, right???"

Now, the snow is slowly melting as we are back to above normal temperatures. I can see grass peeking out from the blanket of white from my window.

I'm also back to "normal" work: charting patterns, writing designs, and making submissions. For the past three weeks or more I was not able to concentrate on these things.  Instead I had lots of travel projects and… quilting once again! My dear friend, Apryl, challenged me to a quilt-along she was interested in in December.  It was from the temecula quilt company blog, specifically their Christmas quilt.  It really was beautiful, and because I love Apryl so much, I decided to do it!

Well, except for the 2" finished star blocks (EEK!), it was a lot of fun!  Here is the finished project:

It is a relatively small wall hanging.  The center area is 2.5' x 3.5'.  

It got me on the quilting train again, though.  I dug around and found several half done projects.  They are more or less complete now, but as I haven't yet taken a picture of them, I'll close off this day with the one I am so happy about:

Unfortunately, there is no way to convey the beauty of this fabric.  It is from Oakshott fabric company, a British family run company that imports gorgeous fabrics from Madras, India.  This series is called Lipari.  The weft is black and the warp is the color.  As a result, these fabrics have such depth -- they just shimmer!

I now adore this fabric and long to make a wall hanging out of the Impressions Fat 8ths. This series has a white weft. Check out some of the projects people have made with this stuff! 

Now, I'm off to knit again.