Yes, It's Winter

We have 14.5 inches of snow (acquired in less than 24 hours). Yesterday, everything except the most essential services was shut down....and a very good thing, too. Now the cold sets in. It was -3 degrees when I got up this morning. The compensation is that it's too cold for clouds, so we have a brilliantly sunny, blue-sky day. Nice to look at, but I'm glad I can work from home.

Hanging around the house is certainly good for making progress on quilt-related tasks, although the stones quilt (not the most inspired name, but that's what I've been calling it) is not yet done. Only 12 more inches to go, but I've had to give my hands and wrists a four-day break from the hard work of pushing and pulling a needle through that tough fabric. Decision: No more hand quilting of khaki pants fabrics!

In the mean time, I'm planning a new project. Requirements:

1. Hand-quilt-able fabrics.

2. No purchases. Stash only.

3. Appropriate for a wall in the kitchen or living room.

4. Usable as a real quilt, too.

5. Cheerful and bright.

6. No templates, no exacting cutting, no matching of seams.

Here's what fits the bill:

I dug out all the reds, oranges, and yellows (the ones on the left are not quite as pale as they look here). I love these colors together! I drew the line at pink. (Frankly, it's a little worrisome to see how many pink fabrics I've acquired.) All are cottons. I don't have many linen fabrics in this color range, and I'd rather not mix the fabric types.

Two-thirds are purchased yardage---languishing in my stash for anywhere from 5 to 20 years. I remember buying several yards of red in 1989 for a planned red-and-white feathered star quilt. All the measuring and matching required to feather a star turned out to be more effort than I seem able to muster. Time to do something else with it. The rest (all the plaids and the stripe) are from thrifted clothing.

The current plan is to use log cabin construction to make a single, very large, square spiral. Each "log" will be pieced from (mostly) square and rectangular patches. Beyond this, I'm making it up as I go along. Which, if I ponder it too much, feels kind of scary.