Snow Day Project

Here in Missouri we joke that if you don't like the weather just wait a few minutes and for the most part that is pretty true. Everyone has a fit about the snow removal system we have in St. Louis, but the reality is that it usually melts in a day or so. So it isn't really necessary or make sense for the city to invest tons of money in snow removal equipment. Well of course that comes to bite us in the behind every few years. Just this past Sunday we got about a foot of snow and boy did it come down hard and heavy there for most of the day. It was really pretty and all the schools and many of the businesses closed for Monday. The university even closed, so I got a nice free vacation day. Of course, other than shoveling the walk I didn't even get out of the house for two days.

With all of that free time I didn't put away Christmas decorations or clean the house. No, I did what any respectable craftsman does, I started a new project! The one upside though of not being tempted to leave the house was that I actually finished my project.

I received a cute craft book, Little Birds, for Christmas. It included 26 projects made of felt, fabric and buttons. I was just looking for an excuse to try one of the projects.

So after a few hours (well a few might be an underestimation) of uninterrupted stitching I had my little birdie complete.

Of course I had to modify the pattern. You were supposed to enlarge it 200%, but that would have made a cardinal about 10" tall. I thought that was too large, so I only enlarged it 150%. While this made for a "cuter" size, it did mean that some of my pieces were a bit small to handle. It all worked out in the end though and I am itching to make an even smaller version or baby brother.

There was one casualty of the snow storm. My glasses kept fogging up, so I put them in my pocket since I really didn't need to see anything other than the path right below my feet. When I got back in the house after shoveling and began to un-bundle I discovered I have a couple things in my pocket. I couldn't figure out what else was in there beside my glasses when I discovered that the objects were the two halves of my prescription glasses. Oh well, I still have my contacts and I probably really need to get bifocal lenses anyway.

Well after 5 days the snow hasn't melted and we even got a couple inches more this morning. The main roads are finally clear, but the secondary streets, like mine are still a horrible mess. It is supposed to be in the 40s for the next few days and rain, so hopefully the streets will clear. The big piles everywhere are going to take awhile to melt though.