Brrrrrrr.....

No I haven't dropped off the planet since finishing the quilt, I have just been working on trying to stay warm and catch on the things I put off while working on it.

Our heater died wednesday, I woke up to frost on the windows (on the inside) thursday morning when it was 2° out. The service man came and told me they have to order a replacement unit for $2500 and they won't get it until tuesday. Ouch! not what you want to hear when the moneys tight, 2 weeks before Christmas and you are living in CHICAGO!

Luckily we have a second heater for the upstairs bedrooms, so we are not completely without heat. The last few days have been sunny which is all we need to warm up the downstairs since we have large south facing windows along the length of our unit. Once the sun goes down it gets chilly though, so I have been baking bread and other things to keep us toasty in the kitchen in the evenings.

Today it is rainy and cold with no sun to warm us up, so I have silk underwear under a polar fleece shirt, fingerless gloves on and a cup of hot tea in hand, oh yeah, I am also wearing a 5 pound chihuahua. Space heaters won't work in our place either because in the main living area/studio we have 26 foot ceilings.

I have been sidetracked by a reminder about the Lark Books Quilt it contest when I really should be working on one of the things on my huge to do list,

Required Elements
Entrants will create an original Quilt of any size that incorporates at least three of the following five required elements

Bird/s
Mountains
Silver fabric, thread, item
Recycled/repurposed material
Beads

but that sounds like fun! I could easily work up something, maybe around 12", incorporating at least 4 elements. I really like having to strategize within given parameters, I think when things are too open ended it is harder because there are too many choices. Now I need to get up and get my blood circulating.