We were ready!

Up here in mid-Vermont, we missed last week's storm along the east coast of the US. Yesterday and today, however, we expected 5-12" of snow.  I went grocery shopping on Tuesday and made a pot roast in the crock pot yesterday.  There were quilt blocks to put together and books on the Kindle.  Even though our car has all-wheel drive, we don't have snow tires, just all weathers, and tend to stay home when the weather gets bad.  That is fine with us.  

It was only lightly flurrying when I went downtown for a meeting late yesterday afternoon (at left) and then picked up our food order from Farmers to You.  Then we hunkered down.

We had about 6" of snow when we got up and a little more during the morning.  Here's what it looked like - both pictures were taken by my neighbor, Winnie, who lives across the street.

What a difference!  Still, we are expecting temperatures in the 40s over the weekend, so much of this will probably be gone fairly soon.  It is actually a bit early for us to be experiencing spring, and the winter birds are still very busy at our feeders.   Every day we see lots of chickadees, pine siskins, and juncos, as well as a lovely pair of cardinals.  They are so pretty.

I have yet to figure out the borders for the orange and yellow swap blocks, but a center square of about 54" is all put together.   Because each block was a slightly different size, I ended up surrounding each with either white or black printed fabric.  I have lots scraps left so may add a piano keys border after adding a solid yellow border.  I plan to use the yellow solid as the binding also.  

Twelve of the blocks were made by four members of my local guild.  Each person made three blocks each month using the fabrics in the bag; we swapped bags at the meetings.   I enjoy working on these "block robins," as we call them, because it's fun to work with other people's fabrics and colors I'd never buy.

During the months we swapped, I also made the guild "block of the month" out of some of the same fabrics I had gathered in my bag.  I actually made four more blocks that I could add to make the quilt rectangular.  That's another decision for the next few days.   I'll let it percolate for a while.  But this has been a nice project for gloomy days.