Wowie zowie…that was a snowstorm!   On Sunday it began to snow, and snow, and snow… when it finally stopped on Monday (yes school was cancelled for the day) we had 11 inches of fresh, WET powder in the driveway and a prodigious snowplow pile.  The photo above is of our house, from the street.  Here is my handy dandy quilting ruler in the snow next to the snowplow ridge…that is an 18 1/2 inch ruler, dwarfed….:

I always take pics of the St. Francis birdbath and the nearby pot.  The latter is large, and buried.  Here, you can see the snow is almost up to the basin!

Paul and Joshua in front of the snow-crusted garage.  See that little bitty orange thing sticking out of the snow?  That’s the 3 foot post to show the plow guys the edge of the driveway…..

Eli took Widgeon for walkies, cross country in the little woods across the street.  Are those not the cutest two things on six feet?  Widgeon LOVES the snow and doesn’t care if his tummy and dangly bits get all cold and red! Silly sweet dog!!

And coming over the plow ridge…if we have much more snow we’ll have to park in the driveway or have a bonfire as there is nowhere else to push the stuff:

Shortly after the Oscars began, the power went out.  For 21 hours.  Since we have a woodstove and gas range, this isn’t too big a deal.  Except the water pump is electric.  That means each toilet has one flush.  Ooops.  So what to do?  Well….melt snow! All this barely made a dent in the mound on the front porch steps:

Then there is the mailbox…see that lump in the middle…that’s it!

The boys were at first at a loss without iPod (battery gave out), cell phone for texting (ditto), laptop (ditto), internet….so they got out the board games and I treated myself to reading a fluff quilty novel! Paul slept or read. Then, at some point, I discovered we had a scant half-loaf of bread, so decided to bake some.  I had forgotten that while we can light the burners (they have knobs), the oven does NOT have a knob.  So I had 12 cups of flour (4 loaves) kneaded, risen, punched down, and formed into rapidly rising loaves.  What to do????  Well, I figured if I could find a metal box (yeah right) I could improvise an oven…Paul’s thermometer on the stovetop tells him when the surface is 500, where he keeps it.  I needed a 375 degree oven.  So….I thunk on it….the canning pot!   Down to the basement.  But the bread would burn on the bottom…hmmm… my sad iron trivet…kinda like this … under the pan.

And here’s the improvised oven:

Guess what…It WORKED!

And one of my favorite pics just because….the ancient bike on the deck:

Good think I like it, because we have a LOT of it!   Here are two pictures from a snow in late January, and many more from this past week.  Won’t say much…just share the pics!  Here’s the view before I went outside to see how much we got:

The answer:  a LOT!  Even before the street got its final plowing and sanding, the snow reached back up almost to the mailbox:

Mailbox

Then, looking toward the garage:

Looking down the driveway to the house

Here, looking down the street, with lotsa snow (slip slip slide) and ice underneath….

Here's what a mostly unplowed street looks like...snowy!

Sun Glow

The sun was hidden behind high thin cloud cover, and just glowed across the landscape…

Amazingly, there was no breeze and for several days the branches were crested with snow:

I love the tracery of the branches, and played a bit with Photoshop.  I think the two tweaked photos would make great  screens for printing…..

More branches and tracery...remember the Medieval cathedrals?

Photoshopped (posterized)

When:    January 31, 2009 (snow date:  February 7), 12:30

Where:  Jewett Hall, University of Maine at Augusta (just down from the Convention Center where we have Maine Quilts)

What:  Lecture on Journal Quilts and journals for quilters

When Mary Coombs asked me to give the January lecture I said I’d love to, but at the time had only one lecture “on the shelf.”  Since I have already given it several times around the state, I felt I needed to prepare something new for the PTQG.  She suggested the journal quilts, and idea I immediately loved, since I feel the journal quilts have been integral and essential to the success I’ve had in the past few years as a quilter.

I’ll have all of the journal quilts that I made (that aren’t sold…have most of them), plus will do a “slide” (digital) presentation and talk on the journal quilt project, how it began, with quilts by Maria Elkins, whom I think did the best job of anyone throughout the years of the formal journal project in using the process to learn, a variety of journal quilts by various artists from 2007 and 2008, a bit about how to use paper journals to help your own quilting, and ideas about how you can use the journal quilts to learn and grow.

The PTQG meets regularly on a statewide basis (in addition to the many, MANY local guild chapter meetings).  This is one of those meetings, which begins at 9:30.  The business portion of the meeting will take place in the morning, they’ll break about 11:30 for lunch.   People can come as guests as far as I know.  Show and tell follows the lecture.

Hope to see you there… if you are come up and say hi and say you saw this on my blog!

My second article for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine is now out, and I’m really thrilled that I’ve been able to help folks.  Rayna Gillman (blog and website) was so kind in sharing on the QuiltArt list that I’d helped solve a tension problem she’d been having, and Gloria (my /designer and art quilter extraordinaire) actually said she made a copy to tuck into her sewing machine manual…Wowie Zowie!  Here’s the cover of this issue:

My article made the cover:  Taking the Tension out of Tension (I can’t take credit for the title, but I love it! thanks Kit and Vicki)

Here’s the opening pages (clickable for a larger view):

There were a number of good articles, including two on Colorado art quilters, both of whom were awesome… Here is the opening to one of those two articles:

*****oooops…I can’t share the pictures of these articles…sorry….. due to copyright laws

Oh how those quilts make me want to get into the studio and play and create!   There are lots more pics in the magazine (hint hint).

And Diane Doran from the QuiltArt list (among other places) did a great article on design, specifically how she develops a design.  I really liked the sequence of photos in her article showing how she begins with a digital image, then builds on it one step at a time:

*****Photo included with Diane Doran’s permission

For subscription information go to www.mqumag.com.

I just finished the draft of my next article for them, on the use of contrast in line.  I’m going to do a series of articles on how various elements and principles of design apply to machine quilting.   I’m on a mission I think to convince folks that art isn’t impossible to learn, and that it’s really actually easy and fun to learn and apply.   So the article for the next issue talks summarizes the elements and principles, then talks about line (since of course machine quilting is about creating lines) and how contrast helps lines stand out (or not).  What fun… getting to write about quilting!  Now…kids on vacation, time for quilting evaporated…ditto for time for blogging!  Talk to ya later!

This:

(The photo is shot through my glasses so you can see how blind I am!) I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, so I put on my glasses and saw THIS!

Yes, my dear sister in law arrived from Los Angeles last night.  I don’t know how many years it has been since she has seen snow, so this unexpected arrival (a day before the forecasts) must be just for her and for today, which is St. Nicholas Day AND Camden’s Christmas by the Sea celebration weekend (the kick off to the holiday season).  Here’s the front porch and yard… just a dusting, but still…yipppeeeee!

So of course, I  had to have my morning tea in this:

the mug Deborah Boschert gave to us Frayed Edges in 2005 (There’s a remarkably similar photo on my Dec. 27, 2005 blogpost!).  What a perfect morning!   More soon….