Snowmaggedon!

I can only imagine what Western Washington and Seattle must look like, if we only got hit by the edge of this latest storm. It's been close to 20 years since I've seen snow like this!  Today is my third snow day and at this rate, I won't be going in the rest of the week.

My poor little bug was buried up to the top of the tires.  I managed to get it dug out, but got stuck in a snowdrift just a few feet down the road, so I managed to get back in my driveway and here I am staying til I see the last of this!    Just a few hours later, the snow had blown back in behind my car, trapping me for the next few days until the rain comes on Saturday.  I dread the thought of the flooding that will follow - mostly in the local farm areas.

The upside is that Jack Frost has made a visit!  Both of the following pictures are of my kitchen window - so drastically different from one side to the other:

I have never had frost on my windows since I moved here to BC as a teenager.  This reminds me so much of when I lived in Labrador - and so does the weather today!  It's -25C with the wind chill factor, and the winds are blowing at about 70 km/hr.  I wonder why I don't remember this bone-chilling cold of my earlier years, standing waiting for a school bus, when it was even colder there.

I've been holing up in my sewing room and got my Orca Bay quilt top put together to the point of the outer borders.  Here it is on the double bed  in the grandkids' room - reading a measured size is so much different seeing it in real life:

Pardon the lumps and bumps, but I didn't take the time to move the stuffies out of the way!  I think this quilt might have found it's home. 

I've also found the time to make a start on the Just Takes 2 blocks, I have finished Blocks 1-5 and have to review the tutorial on back-basting before I attempt Block 6.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, since it looks like it'll be another snow day.

Here's four of my blocks - still not crazy about the lack of contrast between the aqua and white but it will make a nice pillow in my living room.  I'm going to wait until I can order some Bella Christmas Red to start over.  I love the way the Bella fabrics handle and are soft to the touch, so my true Red and White quilt will be done with the red and Bleached White.

When I was doing the blocks, I realized the instructions primarily used individually-cut pieces.  After analyzing them, I realised some could be adapted to quicker methods.  The Ohio Star is exactly the same measurement as the ones I did in my Orca Bay quilt, so I pulled out Bonnie Hunter's instructions and used my Companion Angle to quickly piece this one together.  Faster and more accurate than individual pieces in my opinion. I also tackled the large block in a similar fashion, and wrote down my notes right on the block instructions of both so that I have them to refer to when I do my red and white quilt (and future ones I might do). Here's my notes on the Ohio Star.



I love this Ohio Star so much!  I've already got another quilt planned out using a printed panel of quotes about grandchildren. Now if I could only find it!

Here's a picture of it from the website Block Party Studios.  I bought it in a kit at a quilt shop in Sumas, WA with the pattern they list (because they didn't have any individual panels left), but I want to do mine using the Ohio Star.  The quotes are based on 5" blocks, so they would make 14" blocks, and the two top quotes measure at 2 1/2" x 10" so they could go into sashing or the inner border somehow.