FNSI, Very Late, and Lots of Other Things

What happened with FNSI is that I did not even get an adequate amount of fabric cut to take a photo!
Aside from that, a lot has been happening.
Two weeks ago I had a job interview.  One week ago I accepted the job (actually about 5 days).  Yesterday I resigned from my teaching position and asked to be released from the 30 days' notice.
Last night the personnel director reported that the superintendent agreed.
Today I went to work and was told to gather my things and leave.  I had to negotiate being able to tell my students and say goodbye to them.  Interesting, since the district's excuse for so many things is that we have to put the students first.  I did say a very brief goodbye, and my heart aches for the kids who cried.  I wasn't even allowed time to write a note to send home with them.
Tomorrow I will report to my new job--much smaller school [a state chartered school in ABQ].

Because of being sent home early I was able to troubleshoot some computer problems with Wi-Power.  The router was bad, but under warranty, so I'll have a new one in a few days.  In the meantime my computer is tethered by a blue cord (remember those), so the placement is pretty inconvenient and I'll be spending more time doing something else--catching up on some reading, perhaps?

New job means two hours more choices every day since I won't be spending those two hours commuting.  I'll be able to go to bed later and get up a little later (and have more time to see my Sweet Teen), so I hope to have an extra hour for reading, etc., and an extra hour for quiltmaking.
Autumn is here.  Freezing temps every morning.  Mums are barely surviving, but pansies and dianthus have not yet given up their little ghosts. It will be interesting to see how many ghosts and goblins we have this year.  We've had none some years--and one year we had six!

I hope all my readers have a sweet old-fashioned and delightful Halloween!
Happy quiltmaking......

Color Issue Resolution, etc.

Hand pieced feathered star--each piece traced around a piece of template plastic--over 20 years old.  What to put with it?  It's so old that I don't have red-purply fabrics to put with it.  My sister-in-law said one of my nephews who has dealt with some pretty serious health issues since he was a toddler would love a prayer quilt in purple, gray, and white.  I've been trying to come up with one for over a year.  Of course, the additional challenge is that I didn't want to fill it with lots of "flowerdy" prints (Southern expression).  I finally just rounded up a bunch of violet/purple fabrics knowing I would have to follow the plan that enough variety in fabrics can make any combination work.  So, I reached this point last weekend, but too late to post for Sara's Whoop!  Whoop! celebration--I'll link up this week.
And then I'll go work on the next step.
My hope is that over the next week I'll get several quilts layered for quilting.
Our one week "spring break" got off to a delayed start when I realized I'd left some papers I'd need inside my classroom.  Went back to get them and as soon as I'd closed the car door, I realized I had my school keys in my hand but had locked the car keys in the car!  Thanks to help from another teacher and a fairly local locksmith, my departure was delayed by only a little less than an hour.  It's been eight years since my keys have been locked in my car--by a seven year old daughter who endured years of my saying, "Keep the keys in your hand or your pocket."  She's not-so-secretly thrilled that she feels entitled to spend the next few years saying the same thing to me!  The one bright spot, aside from how quickly the locksmith arrived, is that it cost a few dollars less than it did eight years ago.  Still cost a hunk of money, however.
My plan was to put all thoughts of school behind me for a few days, but I barely slept last night for thinking about it!  I mustn't let it mar my few days away.
The signs of spring apparent where I live are high winds and fire danger.  I'm hoping that over the next week we'll also see some signs of spring flowers emerging.  Those always brighten my outlook!

Cold Enough Fer Ya?

Where I grew up, that's how the old guys used to greet each other in weather like this.  My answer today would be that we've gone far beyond what's cold enough for me!  Knowing I didn't have school today, I slept later, and it was still -23 when I got up!
Although I left a lamp with an incandescent bulb burning to heat the space under our kitchen sink, the lines still froze--but we had them thawed before noon.  Needless to say, I now know that at these low temps, I'll need to leave the water drizzling.  Last night's temps beat the previous record for this date by nearly 20 degrees.
The official low temperature for Moriarty was 34 below zero.
Many parts of the state are suffering from lack of natural gas due to low pressure caused by Texas's rolling electrical outages.  Governor Susanna Martinez has declared a state of emergency.
Both Sweet Teen's school district and the one where I teach are closed for Friday, February 4. Shelters are being set up in areas supplied by the New Mexico Gas Company, but people are being told those are only for warming up, not for spending the night.
Here's what was under the snow ball in the last post.....

 Despite the fact that it was supposed to get up to +20 today, when it was only +9 about 2:30 we decided we needed to do some excavation.

We made a very slow drive to the post office and to get drinking water. Beneath the snow is a thick sheet of ice--and our trip was much more fortunate than those of a lot of previous drivers.  Of course, I've lived long enough to value survival more than speed!

Apparently today's cancellation for my school district was motivated as much by the fact that they couldn't get the buses' diesel engines to start as it was by concern for students' safety.  Albuquerque Public School had announced a two-hour delay but had to cancel because they couldn't get their bus fleet started either!

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  With today's predicted high of 21 turning out to be only 9, I'm guessing tonight's lows will be much lower too. Both our local electric cooperative and our gas company have said they are not expecting any outages although low temperatures led to some power lines snapping in the communities south of us.

I hope everyone else experiencing similar weather is able to stay home and rejoice in quiltmaking or some other hobby.

Homecoming for the Younger Generation

They had sooooooo much fun!

Split 4-Patch and New Quilting

This is the first Split 4-Patch I made.  I think I started with 6-inch strips, pieced light to dark, and then cut the strips every 6 inches, pieced into a 4 patch and the cut the 4 patches horizontally and vertically 1.5 inches each side of the center.
Details of free motion quilting:

...and the feathered border:

The second quilt was done much the same way...

...except that when I made the horizontal and vertical cuts to the four-patch blocks, I cut only 1.25 inches from the center of the blocks.  I like this one much better as far as block proportions go.
 Details of the quilting:

This is my first totally treadled quilt: piecing, quilting, binding.  I know someone will receive this quilt someday, but I'm not quite ready to part with it.

Thanks to all the folks at Treadle-On, who helped me get to the point where I could have a completely treadled quilt.
Some of us did start a yahoo list for people who quilt and embroider with vintage and antique sewing machines.  Let me know if you'd like an invite to join Q&E list.

The Autumn Split 4-patch in the first picture is a prayer quilt for our Victory Quilt Ministry.

A glimpse of the next treadle quilting project:

I pieced this one years ago when we were living on the Zuni Reservation.  The triangles between the prints are from fabrics I hand-dyed with Procion dyes.  I'm treadle quilting this one too, but only in short bits of time since I pieced the hexagons from repeated fractions of a very busy print, so the quilting doesn't really show up well except in the hand-dyed portion.  I thought surely I'd have this ready for my new house by the time we moved in, but then our lives fell apart, so here we are eight years later.....

I've spent the last two days in training for Transmath, a program I'll be piloting with fifth and sixth graders at my school this year.  Only 10 days before we'll return to school.  Summer never lasts long enough.....

Happy quiltmaking.....