February Happenings

I hunkered down in late January to finish, "Stars and Bars Sampler." It took me a few days to come up with a border after searching photos on Pinterest. I don't claim to be the original designer of this border but I didn't see one exactly like this. It was very simple to make strips to subcut and rotate to make an alternating pattern. It went pretty quick which was an added bonus.

 I definitely make blue and white quilts more often than any other colorway. Maybe that has something to do with our long winters. I have at least two more blue and white quilt tops planned with patterns and fabrics in reserve.

Stars and Bars Sampler

80 x 96

This pattern was free on Scott Flanagan's 4th & Main Designs blog last summer but he has removed it from his blog to polish it off and offer it for sale in the near future. He has another free SAL coming up this summer and he has shared a preview of the quilt design on his facebook page...I'm already picking fabrics from my stash for it. The center features 9-patches and snowball blocks with a fun border. 

I was pushing to finish Stars and Bars before I had to pack up my sewing area for a four-day retreat the first weekend of February. 

Now for a little diversion into lifestyle issues living in Alaska. 

My main quilt retreat group is the Material Girls. We usually have three retreats a year at a B&B in Wasilla...a location about 40 minutes away from Eagle  River. We have the retreats in October, February and May. Last year our retreat in February had waaay tooo much drama!

It all had to do with the weather. We often have sub-zero weather in February for several weeks which was the case last year. Most folks have block heaters for their engines with a plug at the front of the car engine where they can plug into an extension cord. Some hotels in the area will provide power outlets for guests to plug into at night. 

The B&B didn't have any way for anyone to plug their extension cords to an outlet and the temps were around -20. I had just put a new battery in my car a few months before the retreat...I was okay. Several ladies had dead batteries to deal with and the owners of the B&B were absolutely no help at all. 

It was an ongoing problem all weekend and  only one of our group wanted to go to the B&B in February this year. The rest of us chose to regroup and hold our February retreat at our local quilt shop which means only sewing during the day and sleeping in our own beds with our vehicles in warm garages.

The only downside is limited work space in the class room space for the quilt shop. So to plan accordingly, I needed to pick projects that were small. Instead of picking kits I already had prepared...I dove into working with panels in my stash.

I have collected a few panels over the years and continue to work through my stash to get them made up into quilts. I had two panels from Hoffman that I finally saw a pattern that fit my vision of what I wanted to do with the panels. 

Alphabet Zoo

59 x 70

I found a freebie pattern, "Circus Posters," on the Michael Miller fabrics  website. I made the outer border a little bigger because I had a fun fabric I wanted to use. 

Atlas of Animals

59 x 70

The colorful dot fabric used around the blocks is a Michael Miller fabric and I also used strips of it in the next quilt top.

Strippy Stairways

54 x 68

Strippy Stairways is from the GE Designs book, "Stripology 3."

My other major project in January was to make two cases for the American Girl Dolls I gave my granddaughters at Christmas. The second case only took me two days to make. 

The doll cases are a major hit with the girls.

When it comes to cross stitch projects, my January focus was a Mill Hill kit from 2017.

Ice Castle 

Our winter is so different this year from the last two years. We've had fairly mild temps in the 20s and 30s with very little snow. This has led to a lot ground water freezing and thawing...creating big areas of ice...most noticeably along road sides. Ditches are full of ice that is growing in size and creeping across streets. 

Some of the driveways in my area have been hit with this problem...so scary because it doesn't go away on its own until temps stay above freezing for a few days.

I tried to upload more ice creeping images but all of the sudden Blogger doesn't want to work like it usually does...heavy sigh.