Today's thoughts

I mentioned before how cold it has been here, lows below 0 degrees, lot's of cold wind.

I hadn't been to the store in awhile, so I decided to brave the cold weather and head out to Walmart this afternoon, and wouldn't you know it, they have the summer stuff out. Sandals, bikinis, shorts, etct. Not a glove, coat or sweater to be found. Sometimes I think the stores are all mixed up.

I'm making Creamy Broccoli soup to take to the next ladies meeting at church. We are having a Tea Party! I'm so excited, I think it will be really fun.

But, I have a small problem.

I'm taking the soup in my crock pot. And while the pot still works wonderfully, it's not the prettiest thing in the world. So, I was thinking I could dress it up with a little quilted cover. I figured I could just go to google and do a search and get a pattern, just that simple. Of course not. I guess people really don't care if their crock pots need a little dressing up for a Tea party. I think mine does, and I will not give up. Guess I'll just have to "wing it". Make my own pattern. Who knows, maybe it will make me famous! Not likely, but, if I do manage to make a pattern and the cover, I'll post a photo.

Wish me luck.

Sunday

It's been a sewing sort of day. It's very cold and windy here in NE Indiana. I think the wind chill is something so entirely horrid, like -20 degrees. So, it is definitely an indoor activity day.

I've been working on my Hawaii quilt, as the previous post stated. And I've been working on some blocks that I'm going to make two wall hangings from for my sewing room. The center squares of these blocks come from some wonderful new friends I've made on the Quilting in Indiana Yahoo Group. We all cut 3 1/2" inch squares and put our signature on them and swapped. I ended up with about 30 different signature blocks.

Also on the group we do a Birthday Fat Quarter swap. As January is my birthday month, I received several beautiful fat quarters from my friends. I'm using these to make the blocks surrounding the signature squares. All in all, I think it's going to be really special when I'm finished. Here's the first 3 blocks.

Hawaiian Quilt

The quilt is finished. I got it back from the quilter on Friday. Then I pieced together the binding, which consists of 2 1/2" x 6" strips of the same fabrics in the quilt sewn together length wise.

I still need to sew down the binding in the back, it's just pinned right now. I really love how this turned out!

Today

Nothing interesting going on today. I was playing fetch with Louis and snapped these pictures.

It's snowing again today. We had rain for the last 2 nights, complete with thunderstorms. Then today, it turned to snow, and I think we got a couple of inches. It's rather pretty outside.

Desi

Desi and Louis were outside playing in the snow today when they happened upon a shrew. They thought it was a great toy!

By the time I got outside to shoot a few photos, a dog was barking and Louis ran to the safety of the screened in porch.

Desi on the other hand, was happy to stay and "play" with the shrew so I could take my pictures. You can see the shrew if you click your mouse on the photo.

The shrew of course wasn't thrilled with the situation.

He eventually "quit" playing.

More about Louis

As you have probably figured out, I love talking about my cat. I've only had him about 8 months. Louis loves his toys. I've never really had a cat that liked playing with toys before. A few months ago, I got one that looks like a little bug. It has 4 little stringy legs and buggy eyes. I named it "Bug". Now, Bug has been in hiding for a few weeks, so (yes, I talk to my kitties) I asked Louis, "Where is Bug"? Of course he didn't answer me.

But, when I went to bed, up jumped Louis, and who did he bring to bed with him?? None other than Bug. Now, was it coincidence or did he understand what I had asked him? You decide!

Snow, day 2

Well, the weather man missed it again! Kind of. We did get about 6 inches of snow, so, he did get things partly right. We haven't gotten the wind, thankfully. I kind of like the snow. It keeps the ugly brown mud from showing! That's the one part about thawing out that I don't care for.