My weekend ended up starting on Friday, inadvertently. Thursday afternoon, evening and night, we had a fairly substantial heavy, wet snowfall, about 10-12", along with driving 30 mpr winds. Then the temp started to fall and it was a mess. We live in an area where we have old overhead power lines and tons of mature trees, so we always have power outages - so many, in fact, that we just installed a new natural gas powered generator that automatically starts up when the electricity goes off. Thursday evening the power went off about 8:00 or so, and our new generator kicked in. I noticed that it sounded like it was running a little unevenly, but at least I had light, heat and flushing toilets. I was quilting away when I heard beeping and a woman's voice. "Warning. Carbon Monoxide." I went down the basement and I could smell exhaust, probably from the generator (which is outside). I immediately called the gas company and my husband who is in Colorado. I opened doors and windows and the snow was being driven into the house. Mike called a friend of ours who began digging out of his driveway so he could come and help me. I bundled up and went to sit and wait out in our solarium which is unheated and separated by a door from the rest of our house. The generator meantime had stopped working (good thing, because I didn't know how to shut it off.) The gas company and our friend Ron got there in about an hour and confirmed that it was the generator and made sure it wouldn't go back on, and I spent a dark, chilly, flushless, and mostly sleepless night. I was mostly bummed that my quilting weekend was turning into a bust. I couldn't get to work because of the 18" snowdrifts in the driveway. But miracle of miracles, the power was restored by 8:30 Friday morning, and the cause of the malfunctioning generator was found to be snow and ice driven into the filter, which caused excessive CO to be present in the exhaust. We do have to do find the leaks into the house and spray insulating foam into them though. I'm certainly glad I was awake when the power went off. I don't know if I would have heard the downstairs CO alarm if I was asleep. The one outside my bedroom needed new batteries, and we hadn't installed them. Lesson learned. Oh, and you're supposed to replace CO detectors every five years so the gas company tech told me. I'm feeling pretty damn lucky, and I've been quilting up a storm. I've gotten the top to Peekaboo Monkeys almost done, I made the PP lotto block and the weekend's just beginning. Yahoo!

I'm trying to get my big toe back into the quilting water. Being homebound six days out of seven from the snows, you'd think I could go quilting crazy, but I'm too blah with the cabin fever to have much patience quilting. Seems like despite the time I SHOULD have, it keeps getting cut short every time I go up to the sewing room. Stop and feed the chickens, stop and cook a meal, stop and etc. etc. etc. Pretty soon you just say to heck with it and unplug the iron. I'm trying to make one twelve inch block a day, and usually when I'm seriously quilting, I can bang our four or five, but this pattern has half the blocks consisting of 2.5" HSTs and after several quilts last year with those tiny components, I'm getting sort of sick of them. LOL. This was a twenty block New Year's Day mystery quilt, and it needs to be a thirty blocker minimum to be useful to me. I'll get there.

I was still in Ireland without my machine or any hand work but I did find the largest quilt shop in Ireland!!! It was so great to take a little getaway for myself and just meander among the fabrics. The owner, Maeve was just divine and we chatted away for a few hours as I floated around the shop. Most of the fabric was American so much of it I have or had seen already. What was fabulous was finding a few older American fabrics that are sold out everywhere on the internet but I was able to find among the hidden treasures of her shelves!!! I did pay dearly since the dollar isn't so great and they are imported fabrics over there. Some of them were $18-19 a yard!!! It was worth it for the unobtainable ones!!! I did find some domestic fabric in pink and purples (purples are my favs) that was very loud on the bolt but looked pretty in the pinwheel quilt she had hanging up so I took home a kit!! After 2 cups of tea, and wonderful conversation I left with my treasures, along with a great little reusable tote with her logo and shop info on it. I only wish I would have taken my camera with me. I will take pics of my goodies when I get home from work today, I was too exhausted last night after unpacking and starting laundry!!

SEW?? What's that? I feel like all I have done this weekend is work on winterizing the RV, yard work, picking raspberries, and staining a new door. I did go to the fabric store this morning and got a jelly roll for the retreat and a couple fat quarters to test colors before I buy enough for the quilt I plan on working on at the retreat. I borrowed a tote bag for my sewing machine but think it is too big ... back to my original plan! I am hoping once I get done with dinner I will have time to try a test block with the new fat quarters. Sue