more snow!

another teaser from my work in progress (fabric by alexander henry):

wow.  it snowed all last night and most of the day today.  lots and lots of snow.  i got this link in an e-mail today.  any weather buffs out there might be interested in the graphs found there.  be sure to scroll down!

so i kept expecting to get a phone call that the library was closed, but… apparently we don’t close for anything.  or actually, i found out today that we stay open as long as the city buses* are still running.  not sure if there’s a direct correlation, but that was the rumor i heard anyway.  so, i shoveled the driveway, bundled up and made my way out into a white, snowy, blowy world.  here’s what the parking lot at work looked like when i arrived:

can you see the snow blowing sideways through this photo?  oh well, if you can’t see that you can at least see the drifts.  i went in, not sure if anyone would show up for my infant and toddler programs this morning. sure enough, some die hard (or cabin fevered) folks came to each program.  we even had some fun!  i had no other programs or meetings scheduled for the rest of the day and my throat was a little sore so… i decided to leave work a little early today.  i stayed long enough to give my co-workers a lunch break and left around 1:30.  by the time i left, the snow was up past my ankles (and no, i wasn’t wearing snow boots–brrr!  snow in my shoes!).  no one had shoveled the back sidewalk or the parking lot (we park in a private school/church parking lot behind the library and since there was no school today–no plowing!)  i called mr. happy stuff (who had chosen to work from home as he is fighting off a cold and, well, the weather thing) to let him know that i was on my way home early, wiped the ice off of my windshield wiper, the snow off my windows and headed out.  hooray for vehicles with a high ground clearance!  i successfully maneuvered myself out of the parking lot and onto the street.  the highway between work and home was moving slow (perfectly fine with me!) and there really weren’t very many cars out at all (even more fine with me) but about halfway home, the ice on my wipers started building up and i was forced to scrunch down in my seat in order to see out of the one clear spot.  i decided to take an earlier exit than usual (to avoid several potential awkward merges) and although visibility was so low that at times i wasn’t absolutely sure where the road was, the car in front of me seemed to be doing all right and i could see its taillights, so i followed them.  at the first stoplight, i looked over at my passenger side windshield wiper and realized why it had been even less effective than the driver’s side.  i hadn’t wiped the ice off of that one before i left, but i think it built up a bit more on the ride home:

(that big chunk was between the wiper and the window)  whew!  i finally made it home.  the trickiest driving was probably on my own road, but they always plow that last anyway, so i wasn’t taken by surprise.  hooray for being home!  here’s my doormat (isn’t it pretty with snow?):

i shucked my snowy duds and went to see how my hubby and my cats were doing.  one of my kitties is definitely a cuddly homebody.  the other one is more of an intrepid explorer.  she always begs to go outside, regardless of the weather.  when the snow is this deep, i feel a little less nervous about setting her loose (the snow slows her down and i can catch her if she tries to make a break for it) so i thought i’d give her a treat and let her walk around in the cold stuff.

she didn’t get too far, but then again, i didn’t let her go as far as she wanted to.  the rest of the day was dedicated to coziness.  i baked malt-o-meal magic muffins (recipe’s on the box).  they smell (and taste) so good and the ingredients are so simple that i always have everything i need on hand.  then, while i was waiting for them to bake, i curled up in the hammock chair with a pillow, two blankets and a bag of “tart apple snitz.”

i’d never heard them called anything but “dried apples” before i found these in virginia over christmas, but i like the term “snitz.”  i read a book and then took a long nap during which cuddly homebody kitty jumped up into the hammock with me and we were warm and cozy together.  mr. happy stuff said he talked to someone who talked to someone who is having to spend the night at her workplace because the roads are too bad to travel.  the snow plows are only doing the major roads and they can’t even keep up with that.  so glad i came home when i did.  i’d much rather be stuck here.

to extend the cozy just a little bit longer, i made easy black bean soup and cheesy grits casserole from the more-with-less cookbook.  my mom made this a few times, but always served it with pintos.  we eat way more black beans than pintos, so i thought i’d give a try.  super yummy.  very cozy.

okay, i can’t stand keeping you in suspense any longer.  my work-in-progress is actually done!  i finished it while i was waiting for the cheesy grits to bake.  wanna see it?

it’s a lap quilt!  this is the front.  it was inspired by this photo. i think they did their quilting a little differently than i did mine and if i made this quilt again (which is not particularly likely–i don’t like to repeat myself when there’s so many good ideas out there!) i would probably do the quilting much differently than i did here.  from this far away, you probably can’t see the large amounts of puckering, but since i just made it to cuddle with, i don’t really care.  i also had considered putting the binding on in a more correct manner, and i’d even considered making my own binding, but when it came down to it, i was too impatient and just sewed ready-made red quilt binding straight on with one seam through all of the layers.  no hand-stitching.  i am certainly a slapdash seamstress, but i looooove the way it turned out!  here’s the back:

the main fabric on the back is is what’s pictured at the top of this post.  i bought all the yardage they had at the store and it wasn’t quite enough to cover the whole back, so i pieced a strip that incorporates some of the colors from the squares on the front and used the pattern on the fabric to inspired a hand-painted strip of the pattern, enlarged.  what do you think?  i really need to learn how to take good pictures of finished quilts (is that possible without special lights?), but i hope you can get the idea here.  i’m so excited with the results.  i’m going to try washing it now.  cross your fingers that the reds don’t bleed!
*that word always looks wrong.  shouldn’t it be “busses” so that it isn’t pronounced like “fuses”?