White Christmas

We've had our White Christmas here today. It's not often that it snows at our elevation, but today's storm went down low as predicted. So this is what we had this morning.

Five hours later it was gone, so we were glad we got photos and walked around in it, marveling at the cotton blossoms of snow on the oak trees. It was magical how it all appeared and disappeared in such a short time, almost as if staged.






Just to prove to myself that it had really snowed in our area, I drove 10 minutes and 1000 feet up the hill to where the snow line usually is, and sure enough it was full on winter wonderland there still. It's a California thing to be able to pick and choose our weather and scenery.

This past week has been Christmas in the foothills for us. It included my guild parties, the Cornish Christmas street fair in Grass Valley Friday night, and then today's snow. Wow--I can't remember doing this much since the kids' Holiday music programs.

The rest of the time we have been preparing for our trip to see kids in Minnesota and Texas--in less than 2 weeks, we realized.

Quilting wise, I have been finishing old, old projects and successfully using up old, old fabrics for backs and bindings--very, very pleased with that. I have the blocks done on the Christmas pinrail--90 of them. The decision now needs to be made--one big quilt or two or three small ones.

Taking a breather from all that Christmas fabric, I pulled and planned a little service quilt. The idea was to use a couple columns of a toile scrap from a back. I got all of the pieces sewn and laid out and discovered a goof in the calculations. So I subbed 2 more light rows for the toile space. And then I thought it needed to be one row longer. Much better--I like the finished product and effect, however far it was from the original plan. No computer programs or graph paper for me--I can sew and fix faster than I can design. That's also the beauty of making service quilts from old fabric--not a lot to lose, and it's stress free fun.











These other two are another of the rail quilts with panel and Pam's sweet little baskets.








Today's best....SNOW!!