Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Back to Work

It is back to work for me this week. The lovely warm spring weather lasted through Monday. Tuesday we had big storms and now we are back to the cool, gray weather we expect in April. The storms yesterday made everyone kind of jittery because April 3 is the anniversary of one of the worst tornado outbreaks ever. You can read more about it here.

I was in college up north of the storms, but I came through southern Indiana on a weekend visit to my then boyfriend. In those days you could take a Greyhound bus from my college town to southern Indiana pretty cheaply. I came through the devastated area a day or two after the storms. It is something that I will never forget. In one area, there was a beautiful old Victorian farmhouse on a hill above the road. A tornado had come through there, and the house was just gone. There was shredded lumber, insulation, roof shingles, parts of machinery, bits of furniture, clothes, just anything you could name all over the countryside. The little house trailers that lined the road below the house were ripped apart, and sheet metal from their sidings were wrapped around the trees off in the distance.

The devastation in Louisville, Kentucky, was awful. One tornado ripped through a park, taking all the trees with it. Another, or maybe the same one, came through part of the east side of the city, tearing up buildings, houses, whatever was in its path.

It is difficult to describe the incredible destruction, never mind the aftermath of injuries and death.

Needless to say, most people who can remember that day get a little antsy when they see big, black thunderclouds on the horizon in the spring.

Fortunately, yesterday's storm went through with little destruction other than some trees and power lines.

There is very little quilty stuff going on around here this week while I adjust to the routine of getting up and going to work again. (I know, poor, poor me!) The mystery quilt is in the hoop. I am quilting in the ditch, just to get everything kind of set, then I plan to do some kind of design in the open patches and the border. No pictures yet--I still want to wait until the guild members have their big reveal.

I started back in on the Brave New World blocks because I really, really want to get this thing together before I get distracted with another project. It's a great work-in-front-of-the-TV project because it is so mindless. Comfort piecing. I'm going to keep going until I just get tired of piecing the individual blocks, because I CAN'T seem to get to the bottom of the bin I keep all the scraps in. I actually thought I was beginning to run low on the light background fabrics--then I discovered a whole grocery sack stuffed with MORE scraps, all lights.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you survived the storm unscathed. Your new blocks look lovely.

Pam said...

Sounds like it was such a terrible storm. I heard on the news once that the country with the worst weather in the world is the U.S.

Looking forward to seeing the Mystery quilt - now you have us all curious :))

Good luck with going back to work!

meggie said...

Hard to go back to work!
I love those new blocks, they look great.
We had a fierce storm yesterday- but it completely bypassed us. We could see it all happening, with the thunder & lightning, but we remained eerily dry, & untouched.
I would not like to witness the storms that occur in the USA.

Juliann in WA said...

I am just one day away from spring break here and looking forward to a week of not much to do- thanks for stopping by my blog to comment on marking quilt tops

Ali Honey said...

Glad the storm by passed you. Scary stuff. We too watch the weather closely because of our fruit crops. Yesterday thunder rolled around us but we only got light rain not hail luckily.

Tracey @ozcountryquiltingmum said...

Pleased it wasn't a disaster, Loke your blocks. tracey

Wendy said...

It's good to hear you made it through the storm okay.

What a nice surprise to find more fabric tucked away, can't wait to see your quilt.

I hope work goes good for you.

Unknown said...

In Europe we are lucky that we don´t usually get so terrible storms. Glad that one went without to much dammage. Your BNW blocks look great, well I love anything scrappy! I am curious about the mystery quilt too! Take care.

Jeanne said...

I hate storms like that! Your new, little blocks are very pretty. I look forward to seeing them evolve into a lovely quilt.