Snowmaggedon 2014: Day 2

This great photo making its way around social media says it all:

Top photo is January 28, 2014 / Bottom photo: AMC's "The Walking Dead"

 I stayed snug inside my house with copious amounts of coffee.

I decided to take advantage of a snow day, my front parlor with no furniture, and no kitty helpers to baste Mr. SBQ's modernist quilt.

I spent the day happily quilting away, while chaos reigned in metro Atlanta.  Some poor souls were stuck in their cars for 21+ hours.  Unbelievable!

Snowmaggedon 2014

It's another BIG WINTER EVENT in metro-Atlanta.  I know everyone in the rest of the country (and Canada) is sick and tired of hearing about winter weather, snow, sub-zero temps, too-cold-for-polar-bears wind chills, and every other sort of winteriness possible.  Metro-Atlanta is once again in the throes of winter superlatives that haven't been used since the Great Snow-pocalypse of 2011.

You will have to forgive my excitement at the novelty of 2 inches of snow at my house.  We have had very cold weather (for Atlanta) but no snow until now.  Luckily, I am off work today and tomorrow.  I spent the day finishing up cleaning out the attic and packing the decorative items left out to show the house.  And checking the snow every five minutes so often.

view from my front street-level steps 

View from my porch

Now that it's evening, the snow is still falling, the grass is covered, and the roads are freezing over. It's going to be a bone-chilling (for Atlanta) 17 I am snug in my little house with the tea kettle on and (shhhh don't tell) the sewing machine set up for a wee bit of fun.

The latest request to Mr. SBQ for cat photos brought this one, which he titled:  STAMPEDE!

Must be dinner time.  

How to Procrastinate Cleaning Out an Attic on a Tuesday

Rewatching the Season 3 premiere of "Sherlock".

I highly recommend it.

First Finish and First New Project for 2014

I finished the binding on "Minnesota Hot Dish" and it's all washing and ready for gifting.  I machine quilted it myself with some basic quilting stitches so I could get it done quickly.  I did a simple stitch-in-the-ditch grid and wavy-line horizontal quilting across the main part of the quilt and two rows of wavy-line quilting around the border.

I'm looking forward to Another Year of Schnibbles.  These are so much fun to make and it's a good way to use up some charm packs (or find excuses to pick up new ones).  I doubt I'll make the deadline for this month with moving, but I did make a start. 

This month's pattern is "Jersey Girl." I thought I'd get a late early start on the holidays and use Kate Spain's cutemous "In From the Cold" line.  I'm suing the gray-on-white star print for the background. 

 Two blocks done and I put my improvised sewing station away so the house could be shown this weekend.

Mr. SBQ sent this photo of Remy in his box.  Remy's expression made me laugh; he looks a little annoyed at something.  Maybe being interrupted from his afternoon nap? Apparently, the spoiled little guy has TWO boxes now--one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen.  

Square One

I discouragingly report that it is back to square one with the house sale.  The contract fell through on New Year's Eve and I was too disappointed to report about it here until now.  I am leaving all the messy details on this whole house-selling business off of my blog in the interest of keeping kvetching at a minimum level but suffice to say--I think I'd rather go through my horribly painful puffy-face wisdom teeth surgery from 2012 all over again than deal with dealing with this.

Moving on.....

Literally.

I am moving on to Santa Fe in about 3 weeks.  The holidays have passed and it is a good time to transfer to a Starbucks in Santa Fe, so it is time to gather up the rest of my belongings and head west to my husband and cats.  I have more potential buyers coming to see the house this week so hopefully my real estate agent can sell the house soon and we can be D.O.N.E. with the house sale.

It is definitely time to be with Mr. SBQ and the cats and get on with this new life of ours. Besides I'm also missing lots of napping in the Santa Fe sunshine time with this little guy

Remy enjoying a sunbeam on the kitchen table, where he is not supposed to be

In between cleaning out the attic and keeping the fancy towels out, I am working on a gift quilt for one of my dearest friends.  I had the top made for a long time and decided to get it quilted and finished for a special coworker. The pattern is "Minnesota Hot Dish" by Atkinson Designs and the fabric is a Sandy Gervais Moda line from a long time ago (I don't remember the name).  Here is an in-progress photo and I hope to get the quilting and binding finished in the next couple of days.

Mr. SBQ, as you can imagine, is over-the-top happy that I have a moving date.  He sends me photos via text to remind me of how beautiful it is in New Mexico.  This is from one of his weekend hikes on a mountain overlooking Los Alamos.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at the wide open blue sky.

Hello North American Polar Vortex

You know it's cold when it's warmer in Anchorage, Alaska than it is in Atlanta, Georgia.  What?!?!?!?
This satellite photo from NASA is mesmerizing. You can barely see the Great Lakes under that big mass of cold air barreling down from the North Pole.

Image credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

It was all of 6°F this morning on my way to work with a windchill of -12°F.  Brrrrrrrrrrrr! I know the rest of the country and Canada is dealing with much, much worse, but the South is ill-prepared for such craziness.  I was relieved that the black ice/snow/wintery mix missed the Atlanta metro area and I didn't have to deal with slippery roads during my 4AM commute to Starbucks.  

In quilting news for 2014: I've been working on the second Silver Thimbles Quilt Club mystery quilt and am on the final steps of putting blocks together.  Wish I could show you this fabulous pattern but it's top-secret mystery so I'll just show my fabric choices for this two-color quilt.  Since the vast majority of my stash (stress that word VAST) is in Santa Fe, it was a challenge to find enough of two fabrics here to make the quilt.  I had some stacks of yardage left to pack in an armoire so I started packing that up and picking out fabric for the quilt.

I have been hoarding yardage of an old Kansas Troubles fabric line called Prairie Moon and had enough (about 4 1/2 yards) of the black moon print for the dark print.  Finding the light fabric was more challenging as I didn't have 5 yards of a good contrasting neutral. But I did have 2 1/2 yards of the green moon fabric and 2 1/2 yards of yellow moon fabric from the Christmas Past line by Minick & Simpson.  Bingo! Now I have really cool moon-themed mystery quilt blocks that I can't show you... 

What I can show you is this great special issue of Victoria magazine that I won in a giveaway from quilter/editor/writer/black cat owning/old house loving/all around fabulous Kimber from Heirlooms at Ashton House.  Thank you so much, Kimber!!!  During this freezing cold weather, I curled up in several quilts with a pot of tea and savored this issue.  The beautiful photos of spring gardens will have you planning tea parties in no time.  Also, there is a recipe for Honey Scones that I can't wait to make.

Gomez wanted to let you know that the Polar Vortex bypassed New Mexico and he was snug on his rug in the kitchen.  

Stay warm everyone and rejoice in all those piles of quilts that us quilters have to snuggle under. I know I am :)

Happy New Year!

Hope 2014 brings peace, love, happiness, and prosperity to all.

PS: No, I did not attempt this last night. I stayed home and went to bed early LOL!

photo: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA