The Ugly Quilt Contest

Last week, after the big storm dropped 26" on us, we had to do some serious hand shoveling just to get the cars out.

The plow can only get so close.

So, when I tell you that my driveway is back to normal after a few days of melting, you can see how happy we are that it's not an icy mess now.

Matthew even helped me out by climbing up onto the snowbank beside Easy Street to retrieve the empty bird feeder so that I could refill it. Happy chickadees!

Last night, I went to my very enjoyable Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild regular meeting. We had all received the group email pleading with us to bring in our ugliest quilt/s for the Ugly Quilt Contest. I brought in my unfinished baby quilt with the streaks of lightening in solid cheddar.

Everybody put their quilt on a table with a number pinned on it. After the business meeting, we all went over as a group and looked at all the 32 "ugly" quilts. Some of them were actually quite nice! The quilt could be unfinished or not, seams mis-matched, colors that fight each other, or are just too blah!
Each person voted once for the number that they thought was the ugliest quilt and put their vote slip into the basket. After the votes were counted, we claimed our own quilt and stood in front of the guild holding up our ugly quilt while the third-most ugly, second-most ugly, and finally the most ugly quilt results of the voting were announced. It was hysterically funny! Each of the three got a small prize and the big winner got a $60 gift certificate to Keepsake Quilting. Alas, mine was not ugly enough to score, LOL! I was proud to lose!
I have been stitching hand hemming my binding on Sister's Choice Part II, but very halfheartedly. Fact is, I still have reduced energy levels from having been sick, and only half the 120 member guild showed up for the meeting. 
While recovering from sore muscles from shoveling and that horrid norovirus, I have poked along on the next 16 log cabin blocks in scrappy Civil War reproductions. Today I trimmed them to a constant 10" square.

This group had some burnt orange and some very bright cheddar.

I learned to run the diagonal on the ruler right through the diagonally opposed corners of my red chimney squares in the center of each block.

I sure did need to trim off an awful lot!

Once I got them all trimmed, I was anxious to see them! I threw Raven off the futon and spread out my twin flannel sheet as my design wall.

I laid out the pattern of another barnraising.

What is different is that this one is a reversal of the values from the first one because this center is light. Here is the one that is stitched together already from last week; see, the center is dark?

Tomorrow maybe I can get the new one sewn. In the meantime, Raven stole Felix's favorite chair!

Last but not least, Happy Valentine's Day!