Life in the Last Frontier

Sometimes living through an Alaskan winter can be a bit of a challenge. Yesterday morning I took my shower, & when I finished, I stepped out & dressed, used the toilet & flushed, & water started flowing from under the toilet. Yikes!

I also found water standing on the floor in the mechanical room. Warren was out running errands, so I called him to tell him about this new development. He said to call our plumber Dave. Well, we've been having a long very unusual very cold, spell of below zero weather, & Dave the plumber is a really busy guy right now. After Warren got home we discussed the situation, & he called Andy, the sewer guy. Andy came within an hour & pumped out the septic system. It seems the builder put in the new system without pumping the old, & with all the rain we had last summer, our drain field was full. Hence the back up. So it seemed our problem was solved.

We heaved a sigh of relief, & then went to an Irish dance festivel/dinner/fund raiser with our friends Mindy & John.

There was lots of fun Irish music, & performers...
& of course the girls performed....
they were spectacular! This is Christy on the end above, & Hope on the end below, right in front of my camera.
The feet flew & their curls bounced.
We had a good time. Dinner was a traditional corned beef & cabbaged. I skipped the beef, as I'm not a red meat eater, but the veggies tasted good, & dessert was lovely.

This morning I was sitting & drinking my coffee,the temperature outside has warmed up to a balmy 17 degrees.

When Warren got up, & used the bathroom, he flushed the toilet, there was a loud hissing & running water noise. A pipe broke in the mechanical room. Suddenly there was a flood of water running into Warren's workshop & heading toward the carpet in my studio. I dammed the way with towels, while Warren waded in & shut off the water. I had to plunge the drain on the floor to get the water draining. Thank goodness that whole area is cement & unfinished right now. I'd hate to see what a mess we would've had if Warren's laminante flooring was down there. Dave the plumber was called again. He's got one lady with heating problems that he has to see to first, then we're the 2nd most urgent call on his list, so hopfully he'll be here to get our water running again.
In the meantime, I drove down to the grocery store to use the bathroom, then bought 4 gallons of water to use while we wait.

& here I thought I'd give you a sneek peek of what I'm working on in my studio. Oddly enough it's an Outhouse Quilt!
The white thing at the top is Broccoli's toes. He wanted to hold it down for me while I snapped the picture.

Happy St Patty's day!

Snowflakes, Grosbeaks, & a bit of Barcelona

I've been working on snowflakes for my friend Christy's Irish dance dress. I started with the simple one first, just to see how it would go with this unusual material, & it didn't go too bad. I decided after this one though to use black Totally Stable instead of white, because the blue fabric is a little transparent, & I think the black behind it looks better. I am leaving the stabilizer in place. It would be a nightmare to try & remove it from this stretchy fabric. Si I guess it's dry clean only.
This snowflake is a stylized French horn, as Christy plays the French horn. Below I've blocked it for you so you can see it better.

Next are wee-bitty fairies, cause don't you know they come from Ireland!
See them there?
Next are just some birds.

Simple.

And speaking of birds....these guys entertained us during dinner today.

He kept digging his beak down in the snow,

& his girlfriend came too.

Aren't they a cute couple?

I'm back to my usual set up, with my mouse pad to the side of the computer instead of on top of it. Much easier to type this way.

Kim commented on it in my last post. It was a souvenir from my favorite place in Barcelona, Spain. The Palau De La Musica Catalana.

The ceiling in the auditorium is the most fantastic stained glass I've ever seen in my life. When you stand under it & look straight up you see this beautiful image of the sun, but from the balcony you see the picture above, where that sun looks like it's going to drip. It was one of the most inspiring places I've ever been in my life. I thank God & Husqvarna Viking every day for that opportunity.

Oh, & the other thing I did today.. I made my reservations & bought my tickets for my Whidbey Island trip in April-May. I'll be teaching (hopefully there will be students), & then taking classes from Rayna Gillman the following week. Can't Wait! I also get to see my kids in Seattle too!

& here's one of those silly things that's fun to do when you don't feel like doing anything productive!

I found the link on Kim's post.
I apparently am an INFP

The IdealistYou are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop.You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

What's" Your Personality Type?

Life Happens

Well, I think we're back on track. The Pineapple Express wind blew most of the night last night, taking care of the drips . Warren had gotten a roof rake, & pulled off a lot of snow, in an attempt to get rid of the ice dam that was causing it to rain inside our living room. I had disconnected the computer to get it out of harm's way.We had to move everything away from the north wall. I finally got it hooked back up, but for some reason couldn't get on line with the old configuration of wires. I ended up plugging a USB port into my DSL box to get on line, which I never had to do before. The biggest problem with this configuration is that I have to unplug my printer to plug in my camera. Before I was able to leave myplug in for the camera. Oh well, at least it's working.
These sweet little surprises came in the mail this week from Sandy. I'm not sure why she sent 2, but I do love them. They're my favorite colors. I have several in these shades now. Thanks Sandy!
Another package that came was a gift from my DS & DDIL. These are going to hang over the larger window & closet doorway in my studio. Now all I have to do if figure out what I want to hang on them.

I finally finished the Iron cozy. I now think I have the best dressed Iron in town!

The face is a little gardian sprite, to help keep my studio safe.

Did you notice the little mousy?

I thought I'd add him for my DD Michelle, who loves all the little furry creatures.

These next few pictures are some of my thread painted jewelry, & mostly I was playing with another of my new lenses, to see how much detail I can get.

The problem with this lense is if it isn't a flat surface, the background will be blurry....

but look at the detail!

This last is the first snowflake cut for my young friend Christy's Irish Dance Dress. It took me about 2 hours to cut this snowflake. Hmmmm...how many more do I need to cut?

I also made a muslin of the dress bodice. Now all I need is Christy to come try it on to fit it, then I can actually start working on the dress!

Iron Cozy Progress

I've made a little progress on the Iron Cozy . I still have half way around one side & the back end to complete. I'm actually enjoying this little project. I guess it's a bit like taking a lemon & making lemonade!
Several of you comented on the difficulties of living with so much snow, on my previous post. We got several more inches during the night. It's so beautiful, & I love being home on days like this. They cancelled our quilt guild meeting today, due to the road conditions. Warren will be snow blowing today. The snow is so light & fluffy, it's like feathers. It's easy to shovel or plow through. I would like to do a little snow shoeing, but doen't know if we'll have time. Quilting is my favorite winter sport though.

I need to get started on Cristy's Irish Dance dress, I'll make a muslin form for the top first, to see how it fits before I cut into the special fabric we got for it. I'm getting anxious to get it going & get it done, as I've got a couple of big quilting projects I want to get going on, #1 being my how to book on my Reversible purses, & #2, the Syncronicity quilt, which is nothing but a large piece of paper on my design wall right now.

Sunday Afternoon Quilting

I took one of those red & white not so perfect star blocks, & turned it into a little quilt to go with a little teddy bear, for the ALCQ Teddy & Friends Tea coming up in 2 weeks.
The back side shows the quilting design. I think the teddy likes it, but she needs a little sweater too, so I'll get out the crochet hook, & whip one up for her, then she'll be ready to find her new home & new friend for Christmas. This was a fun little quilt, From start to finish (not including the star block piecing) it only took me a couple hours.

Here are the fabrics, & my design for my friend Christy's Irish Dance dress.
Sketch colors =fabric color:
Black=black
Silver=light blue
blue=dark blue
white= the holographic white squares

Mindy stopped by with Christy & Hope to drop off the fabric, & sketch, & Mindy wanted snowflake lessons. She's going to try to use some of them in her fused glass designs.

Guess I better go get ready for bed. "Sigh" , back to work in the early morning. I'm really hating my job these days.

ChEMo & WIP Wed on Thur

My sister Em, gets her 1st Chemo today. Please whisper a little prayer for her that all goes well.
Sorry I didn't get my WIP Wednesday posted on Wednesday. I worked the past 3 days, then we went to the Moose's Tooth for soup & breadsticks for supper. The gAHrlic-tomato soup was good, & so were the warm cheezy bread sticks.
When we got home, we went out & soaked in the hot tub under a lovely moon. It was a chilly 18 degrees Farenheight (what's that in centigrade? about -10?, I used to know the calculations). Needless to say, by the time we got in the house I was so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I'm posting it today.
I'm staying home today, even though it's a Quilt Guild day. I'd rather hibernate. I've started a fire in the wood stove & will enjoy every minute of staying home!

For my WIP (works in progress), I don't have much exciting to show. The white paper on the wall has some pencil sketching on it. Can you see it? Not done yet.

The green thing will be a small lamp shade when I'm done. It may stay in the shape it's in until next weekend when I do my lecture at the Anchorage Museum. I'm talking for the local Weavers & Spinners Guild. They were interested in some of my threadplay & embellishment techniques, so I'll be doing a trunk show & Demo for them.
The last 2 pictures are my young friend Christy, (from my last posting), wearing her friend's Irish Dance Dress. She borrowed it to show me an example of one, so I could see how they're constructed. I've drawn up a design for her, & last Sunday we went & bought the fabrics. She has them all, right now. I let her take the drawing home so she could study it, while she fondles her fabric for a while. Christy is a quilter too. I taught her & both of her sisters how to quilt years ago, so she appreciates a good fondling of fabric.

So that's all that's happening here. I had decided I would switch to Beta Blogger this weekend, & the button is no longer on my blog! It's been there for weeks, when I didn't have time to mess around with it! Oh well, such is life.