no power!

This morning I got up early - lots to do!

First I baked a cake for a coworker.  Her birthday is this week.

While it was baking, I did many other chores - washing dishes, putting away laundry, etc.  When it came out, I jumped in the shower - grocery shopping awaits and doing that early is best for my mental state.

Lights had been turned out (it's not that dark at 8am any more, thanks to the time change, and I was headed out anyways) and I walked into my back room to grab my reusable grocery totes and heard the growl of our generator.  What?

No power!

Thankfully, we have a generator that kicks right on and runs part of the house.  The well pump, the furnace and the fridge, plus a few (and I mean few) outlets.  The important stuff still runs and guess what?  The computer is on one of the few outlets.  The wireless router (therefore internet), is not, but we have extension cords, so I'm in business!

The crock pot is plugged into one of the remaining outlets (they're all clustered around my longarm, which is odd, but whatever - not running the longarm on generator power) so we'll have a nice beef roast for dinner and I'm hoping the power is truly back on at 12:30, as the power company claims, so I can prepare the remaining dinner items and more easily make the frosting for this carrot cake.  (Because let me tell you how messy making cream cheese icing can be and I do NOT want that mess on my longarm table if it can be helped!)

On to the more important (quilty) things I intended to blog about before a minor inconvenience struck...

This week hasn't been the most productive quilt-wise, but I did get some stuff done.

The wedding quilt is coming along.  Once I got the last batch of quarter square triangle units trimmed...

...I could start laying things out.  I opted to do a single row layout at a time.  Otherwise this would have been a whole different kind of monster than the little guy above.  So far I have six of 18 rows sewn and joined.

It's starting to look like something, which is encouraging.  But there are a lot of seams and a lot of points and it's tedious.  I do like what I'm seeing, though.  I was worried the reds were all too similar, but they do seem to be different enough to give the quilt some depth.  Not a lot, but too much could cause a whole other problem.

Looks like no work will happen on this today - at least not this morning!

Last week I snuck in after publishing my blog to add an update on the Bramble Blooms Quilt Along, as I had pulled fabrics and even sewn my center.

A refresher, just to cover all the bases - the fabric pull:

The goal of this quilt along is to use up some of our older stash.  The stuff that gets passed over time and again because it's just not "us" any more.  Some of this stuff never was "me," but was just right for a specific project.  Or was gifted to me.  But some of it is just not me any more.  And some of it is just not really enough to do much with.  So into the bin it went.

Then the center.  I pulled some off-whites and started laying things out.  Puzzling over what could go where.  It's been a while since I tried any improv-type stuff, so this was a good stretch for me.

The next assignment was to design an applique for the center.  Since it is a flowery quilt along name, a flowery center was expected, though I'm pretty sure no quilt police would come after me if I did something else.

But again, this quilt along is meant to stretch us and I want that, so I asked the interwebs for some ideas.  Once I finally determined what keywords others called what I was wanting, I was off and running.  Too many ideas, maybe?

There were a lot of suggestions on how to come up with a design and I played along, doodling and cutting paper pieces as a start.

Of course, tweaking ensued, but I did like this flower.  I'm not great at applique, particularly those pointy-inny parts, so I wanted something I didn't have to struggle too hard with.

Selection of fabrics and making templates and cutting pieces was up next, and then laying it all out.  These are definitely not fabrics I would normally choose, but I like them here.

It is still missing something.  It looks kinda blah...

Maybe a center to those petals?  I pulled a few yellows from the stash (more like golds), but I wasn't sold on that.  I have another idea or two I'm tossing around in my head, but for now, this is where I stand.  Soon I'll sew these pieces down.  Maybe today?  I have daylight and don't need electricity!

Or I could continue stuffing cat toys?  My annual production of cat toys to give away to coworkers is ramping up again and until I have to sew them shut, I don't need power.  (Though I will have to fight the cats once catnip goes in, and once that happens, I like to sew them shut as soon as I can!  Less mess.)

Or I could just read?  I am going out with friends in a bit, so hmmm...

Oh boy!  I typed long enough that my power came back on!  (As all the lights were off (what's the sense in having them turned on if they don't work, right?), the generator ceasing its growling clued me into the power return.)

I guess my options just opened up a bit.  What to do first?

Happy quilting!

Katie