Snowbound

The weather has grown steadily worse and we were threatened with up to 12" of snow, which is what we heard at about midnight last night, but then the morning reports of where the heavy snow was going to fall drifted further and further south until the worst of it was going to fall almost 100 miles away.  We still have more than six inches of snow on the ground and the roads are caked in ice (untreated in this neighborhood means that I don't drive when the roads are bad), and schools all over the western half of the state have been closed all week.  

We're starting to get cabin fever, which is a concept that Ben is having trouble understanding.  He and Cammie watched Muppet Treasure Island yesterday and asked a couple dozen questions...how you catch it?  is there a cure?  can you die from it?  I explained a couple times that it's just a figure of speech.  Later, at dinner, he said that he didn't understand a joke in a book about how it's impolite to go to a party in your birthday suit.  I know the wheels are turning, but I think they're oval.

I finished up a project in a day.  This was an experiment to see how this pattern would work and is a shorter 2 yard piece that I am going to donate to the Shire for a prize.  I'll have to tweak the pattern a bit to see if I can do it with fangs and a tongue, but I'm not sure it's possible.  After showing this to friends online, a high school friend asked if I could do one in anchors.  I can, but I don't know how to make it as wide as he needs without distorting the shape.  I'll work on it a bit more...

Then I found another pattern in Robin & Russ's book and warped it up.  Unfortunately, I warped it upside down *again*.  It looks cool on this side, but it's much smoother on the other side.  This is a color combination that was requested by a fellow artist in the SCA who wanted something in green, purple and white.  I used the fourth color, like the pattern called for, but I don't really care for how it looks.  The fun thing about this side is that in the center diamonds the way the warp & weft come together, it says, "HI".  (It's upside down in the pic.)  It's a very friendly piece.

Here's the front side.  Much prettier, but I don't care for the black.  It looks out of place, doesn't it?  Maybe I'll do it again and replace all the interior black bits with white and the borders with purple.  Her Lord wants a piece as well, but in his colors, which I think is red, yellow and blue.  I also have a piece I wanted to do for myself in Ithra colors.  Maybe I'll do this pattern for in various colors.  I know I'm going to go through the heraldic colors fast, so I placed another order today.  

I've been working on the Retro Girl Scouts book today and have gotten quite a ways into it.  Still have about 70 pages to go (finished 229 already, plus a section that I skipped ahead to).  I did about 55 pages today, so I could have it done before the next scout meeting...possibly.  I'm having trouble with editing as I go, having to omit outdated technology, adding new terminology (email addresses and web sites) and looking up information to see if stuff still exists.  Like the GSUSA address is now on 5th Ave, not 3rd; Rockwood center is no longer owned by GSUSA (sold to Maryland's parks dept. in 1979), and I thought I'd add in all the local campgrounds.  

School is cancelled again tomorrow, so I think I'll do some quilting and get some projects finished.  Stay safe & warm!