Waiting for the Storm

We had a storm warning, it was not been as bad as initially forecast, so far. We had about 4" of snow last night and more is expected. The sound of the wind howling, keening, singing and sighing through the grain elevators about 1/2 block from my house is one I will forever associate with my stay in South Dakota. My home in Hawaii is in a very windy area so I am used to wind noises, (not that there is any comparison in temperatures of course) but I do like the extra, slightly eerie dimension the elevators contribute.

I can't help thinking about the homesteading pioneers in South Dakota. No tee-vee machine, interwebz or radio, living in a shack built out of sod if they were lucky or an uninsulated wooden shack if they were not. What a hard life they had and how comparatively easy we have things today. How lonely those bitter winters must have been. They were a hardy breed as were their children, the generation that is almost gone now.

The other day I read a blog post written in May of 2010 about

"... quilting blogs where we don’t just show finishes or occasionally confess about our moments of indecision, but chat openly and often about our works in progress, our inspirations, and our moments of decision."

This struck a chord with me and reading further I saw that over 850 quilt bloggers had signed up and linked to it. I was quite surprised because I do not recall ever seeing that particular button on any of the many blogs I visit. On the other hand it is quite old so maybe it was a passing fad, but it made a lot of sense.



This brings me to the batik windmill blocks I had made. I saw the project as a wall-hanging or very small lap quilt in an old magazine of Lori's and it caught my fancy as such things are wont to do. After making three of them I knew I didn't want to do another 27 for an entire quilt.

They are an odd size, about 13" because I put narrow sashing and a cornerstone in the middle. I did that because I just did not like the way the block looked with the fairly ugly and very mismatched "bought in a moment of madness bargain bundle of batiks" I decided to use. What to do? Waste not want not and all that. This is a moment of indecision if there ever was one...

I have some thoughts, mainly in the direction of a row or horizontal strippy quilt. This might (partially) solve my butterfly moments problem. What do you think? If I do go that route, what should I choose for my next row?

Y'all come back!

Monday Goals

Nothing has changed, still working on my Double X effect quilt. Still stitching the half square triangles on wrong and doing a fair amount of unpicking as a result. Grrrr.

Last night we had steady but light rain for most of the night. The morning after a rain is especially nice not only because the ever present dust is laid but the rain removes the VOG. VOG is the particlate from the volcano suspended in the air, the effect is exactly the same as heavy pollution with an inversion layer. The dirty yellow sky you used to see in Los Angeles. This morning the air has been washed clean and I can see for miles and miles.

Today I am going to be doing un-quilty things. Bills to pay, maybe even an office cleanup, or maybe not.

Y'all come back!