Another cold weekend, with a lot of wind blowing down branches caused power outages yesterday. Luckily, we were not affected. The snow melted away, and it is now just bitterly cold. But this won’t last, it is doing to warm up to the 60sF this coming week. More gorgeous sunrises this past week brought color to the dawn over the mountains to the east.

I didn’t have a lot of time to take more photos of the birds that I know you all love to see. Here’s one I didn’t show from before the snow melted. The cardinal pair have been here a lot this past week. We have six titmouses that live here.

In the basement, the hellebore flower is making progress, growing taller and starting to open. The flower itself is smaller than I thought it would be.

During the snow days while I was stuck at home, I pulled out a couple of kitchen towels that I had embroidered. I put skimmers with these two to help make them more attractive as a gift. I used gold curling ribbon for the tie.

Then, I pulled the chicken theme towels and paired them with chicken theme micro-mitts and a whisk.

Progress was made on the Quilt of Valor started last week. When we left off that project, I had found a panel to work with the stars. Next was to sew fabric blocks to the star blocks for the first border. I put the light blue star fabric on both sides of a star to center it on the sides of the panel.

I pinned it to the side of the panel, and sewed it on.

Next, the stars were added to the top and bottom on the corners with fabric panels between.

It only needed one more border to bring it up to the right size. It is 60 x 74 inches. I used a dark blue for contrast with the lighter blue print.

I like the way this turned out, and it went together fairly quickly.

Our ceremony now has seven veterans to honor, so I am planning to make at least one more myself. I just need to get another panel, and make more stars. The director of the chapter says she cannot guarantee that she can have the other five we need by June because there are so many veterans on our list now. So, dear readers, if you have a patriotic 12-1/2-inch star block sitting around your sewing room, I’d love to have it.

If you can help, ship a block to me by March 1. Please use white solid or tone on tone for background. Any star design will do, just be sure it is 12-1/2-inches square unfinished. Send to:
Carole Carter
PO Box 524
Mountain Home, NC 28758

I’ll be working on the second quilt this week. I only have one meeting so I should be able to make a lot of progress.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday! It is a bittersweet day, as the games are usually not as great as the hype, and the commercials haven’t been all that good in the past few years. It marks the end of football season, and the start of a 7 month dry spell. Still, I’ll be making football food for tonight’s game, and watching some of the Olympics in the meantime. Did you see the opening ceremony? I loved the paint tubes!! And Andrea Bocelli was amazing.