Winter, Oh how I hate it! We’ve been lucky up to now, very little snow. I went to bed last night with the promise of 2-4 inches of snow and woke up to a prediction of 3-6 inches. When I left for work, we had at least 2 inches already. I really shouldn’t complain, according to the weatherman, if all the rain was converted to snow that we’ve had in the past couple of weeks, we would have 36” on the ground already. The trip into work was another jaw clincher for the first five miles and took twice as long as normal. The highway when I got to it was pretty good, although most people were driving with caution at about 40 MPH, even the big rigs. There are always some that think having 4 Wheel Drive means going 70 in a 55 zone while passing in the less plowed lane of traffic, when everyone else is doing 35 to 40 MPH, they are usually the first ones you see in the ditch on a snowy day. I made it to work and wasn’t late which I was the last time we had snow during travel time. I’ll have to call the grandson to get the snow blower out and work on the drive before I get home, too much to hope he’ll get his lazy buns out of bed and do it without being told.

Things are progressing towards me teaching the “Incredible Coat”. Yesterday, I picked up Pat Coulter’s remaining patterns (only 13 of them), she gave me some sewn coat samples, and a coat that was lent to her from another friend (of mine as it turns out), gave me her class handout, and got her permission to have additional patterns made if I need them……let’s hope I need them. I called the local blueprint company where she had them made and got quotes on the prices. I thought it would be cheaper to get copies made from a copier (they can do up to 36”), but it turns out that the blueprint is a third the cost of the copies…..I don’t know where I got the idea that it would be more expensive for the blueprints. I’ll probably be able to keep the coat as a sample because Patti hated it when she finished it, mainly because she didn’t like putting the accent strip in it….so she gave it to Pat to use as a sample and made herself another one. Of course that’s the way Patti is….she never makes one of anything. In this case, she ended up making 4 coats before she finished, she said she’s never going to make it again, but I bet she will when she wears out the coat she has! I can’t believe how incredibly warm this coat is in the winter….it’s like walking around wrapped in a quilt. All I have to do now is finish my lesson plans and directions for the class and take the sample coats to the shop.

Well, I did get one little thing done this week. I made a " Little Treasures" big enough to hold 4 FQ's for the Susquahanna Guild's delayed Christmas dinner. That should spark a lot of crazy trading back and forth before it gets to it's new owner. I enlarged the pattern 300% on the copier and then had to tape it together. It's just big enough to fit 4-6 FQ's in it......I will not think about the time I spent embellishing it. I also didn't use a piece of my Timtex or Fast2Fuse, but used a piece of Shade Interfacing....I just wanted to try it out and didn't want to waste the "really expensive" stuff. I had to use a layer of "fusible" for the second side, since the shade interfacing is only fusible on one side, but I need to use that stuff up anyway, it's pretty old and seperating from the paper. Inside, I put 4 FQ's of hand dyed fabric, one of them being a piece of Complex Cloth that I made.

I spent a lot of time, all day yesterday, listing books on eBay and doing a little shopping there myself. I spent more money on novels, as though I don't have hundreds here on the bookshelves that I haven't read yet. If I ever get laid up for a while, I'll have tons of reading....

Got to get busy and get the BOM done for the guild and get them emailed today....late as usual. I really need to stop making Betsy email me that she needs them...Maybe today, I'll do three of them, and get ahead of the game! I hope.

Off to Williamsport to pick up the patterns and coats from Pat. She has given me permission to teach her coat pattern and will sell me all her patterns.

What is that saying about the "best laid plans of men & mice"? All my good intentions wiped out for the last few days. I've been in one of those "vegetative" moods the last few days and haven't gotten anything done....other than a little housework (long overdue I might add).

What a crazy winter this has been so far, fluxuating from warm (in the 50's) to fridgid (below zero). Weather has turned cold with howling winds....no snow, so that's a small blessing. We did get quite a bit of rain last night when it warmed up, but it's cooling down again, to warm up again tomorrow, for the rest of the week. The creek across the road is out of it's banks and almost into the neighbor's house....how they put up with it flooding 2-3 times a year is beyond me. I notice there's a For Sale sign up, but I'm not sure it's for their house or one of the others along the road. They just built an addition to the side of the house, so maybe it isn't theirs.

Great news yesterday....my friend Constance Favorite, late resident of New Orleans is indeed safe as is all her family. She is living in Baton Rouge for the time being, her house had six feet of water in it for over 2 months. She has hopes of moving back home soon. You cannot imagine my relief when I got a short letter in return from the one I sent to her old address before Christmas. I spent a month or more looking at the "Safe" lists everywhere I could find one, before giving up. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to write to her before....the post office would find her if she had put in a change of address. Guess I was afraid that she hadn't gotten out and I didn't want to face that. Constance and I have a long history going back to the bombing in OK where she lost her daughter, Lakesha Levy. I made her an angel quilt and then a series of memory quilts.

Today I finally went to the doctor about my hand. My family doctor thought it was tendonitis, this doctor thought it was a combination of carpel tunnel and tendonitis. I'm to wear a wrist brace at night, double up on the Aleve and go for tests next week. I am not looking forward to it....they put the brace on me at the doctor's office and then I had to sign papers and make out a check.....wasn't that a barrel of fun.

Considering that the Quilt Shop was just across the road, I went in to chat and set up classes. I'm going to teach "The Incredible Jacket" and a Casserole Carrier in March and April. We'll see how this one goes before I set up any more. I'm already teaching Basic Sewing classes at Strobel's in Williamsport. All that should keep my Friday nights tied up for a couple of months and maybe keep me out of trouble.

Off to figure out what I want to eat for supper, the grandson finished eating the whole second pizza I made the other night by himself. He also finished all the golash, so there is nothing in the way of leftovers. I'll find something or have to cook.....later!

Lynn

I decided to start a Blog to show family and friends what I'm working on. Seems like it would be easier than setting up and maintaining a web page....besides, I'm not selling anything, but I would like to keep track of what is going on in my life and I keep forgetting to write it in a journal.

I'm having a lot of trouble trying to get this started. My computer freezes up trying to download the photo hosting program Hello, but it appears that there may be other ways to insert photos....I sure hope so. This is frustrating and it's only the second day I've tried.

Like the silly "Red Hat"? My mother bought each of us girls one for Christmas. It's nice to see women finally celebrating getting older instead of trying to deny their age. By the time we hit our 50's and 60's, we've earned the right to kick back and enjoy ourselves a little. If donning a Red Hat and Purple clothing is the means to break out, then so be it. I only have 2 1/2 more years before I can retire and "play" all day, and frankly, I am looking forward to it, grey hairs and all.

Today our two days of good weather broke and the thermometer plunged 25º, the day started out with rain and finished with howling winds and snow flurries. Gads, how I hate winter! I don't like being cold or dealing with the jaw clenching 30 mile drive into work on snowy days. I'd like to crawl into a comfy chair, pull a quilt over myself and curl up with a good book until winter is over. I find it hard to motivate myself to go downstairs and start a fire to warm up the sewing room so I can sew. I'm okay once I get down there, but getting down there seems to be the trick more often than not. If I have to leave the house for anything, forget it, the rest of the day is shot!

I taught a class on Mending and Hemming today. The first time I gave the class, half of them only wanted to learn the mending and the other half only the hemming. All of today's class worked hard and learned all the techniques and signed up for the next two classes, and went away happy, of course so did my first class, but I went home the first time shaking my head as to why someone would pay to take a class and then not learn everything that was offered. There seemed to be a need for basic sewing classes for adults in this area and the manager of the Viking store, asked me to develope some basic skills classes. It's been working out well and provides me with a way to pay for extra feet for my sewing machine, books, stabilizers and other accessories for my sewing machines.

Oops, I just noticed the time....somehow, four hours have passed by while I was trying to figure all this out. Time for me to go to bed.....hopefully, tomorrow, I'll be able to get some housework done and then get into the sewing room to work on the Butterfly dolls.