Hurricane Ike blew through

Where were you when Ike blew through? I was in my usual place at the quilting machine waiting to go to guild meeting. Needless to say, the guild meeting didn't take place. With over 5000 downed power lines around the city nothing was going to take place.

Before I go on to talk about what's happened over the last few days.... here is the next finished quilt. It feels good to be getting back to normal things. This quilt is for a lady retiring from the fair.


I did meandering in the blocks, a swag on the outside border and lace on the inside border. The little border between had to be left loose.



I did a leafy design on the sashing. I put a dime on the quilt to give you scale of how small it was.



My challenge on this quilt was to keep the back from disappearing when quilted.




I used clear thread in the bobbin to prevent thread from overwhelming the designs written by the makers.



I underestimated the amount of bias stretch in the top so the backing is off center but it didn't seem to matter to the customer.



Now back to being without electric for several days. Compared to those in Texas my problems seem so trivial. There are people who lost complete homes while I still have a roof over my head. I am writing about myself only to have it in this journal for my decendants to read someday.

My post from a few days ago must have been my intuition warning for me to prepare myself. Little did I know that day when writing about not having utilities in the summer I would experience Ike. I should have listened to my own intuition and prepared myself better.

I lost everything in my freezer. I had just gone on my winter stock up trip to the grocery a couple of weeks earlier. Between my daughter and I; we lost between 800 and 1000 dollars worth of food. Not just meats but fruits and veggies too. I had already started making meals and deserts that could be taken from the freezer and zapped in the microwave for a quick meal. There is nothing for us to do but save money and start over buying food again.

I did learn a valuable lesson from Ike..... buy a gas stove! If I had a gas stove I could have saved most of my foods by canning it as it thawed. In the past I would can all my meats, fruits, and veggies because I knew the electric company would turn off the power in the summer. I'm pretty much broke from all the energy upgrades being done.  A gas stove and more canning jars are definitely on my list of future purchases. Saving the money to buy it will take a long time.

I don't think I will ever get a generator. I don't have a place to store one. It might get stolen when running it outside. A few people were overcome by carbon monoxide by having a generator in the basement.... I don't want that to happen to me.

During the power outage the baby stayed with me. Where my daughter works they used mega sized generators to stay open. Gas was in short supply since most filling stations were without power to pump it. Daycare was without power too. So it only made sense for the baby to stay here. She is also sick again. She must take after me like that. I was sick most of my childhood too. We spent a lot of time playing pattycake, cuddling, and sitting on the porch.

There is only so much pinning and prepping a quilt that can be done. I could have cut fabric for kits but I already have enough ufos and pigs. I didn't want to create more. What I did was cut fabric strips to crochet a rug or two. I needed to keep my hands busy.

I got out my kerosene lamps for light; took batteries out of toys to run my radio; made myself a hobo stove for cooking soups and making coffee; and generally kept things as normal as possible.




I didn't take pictures during the power outage. There wasn't any way for me to know how long the power would be out and I wanted to save the batteries in case I needed them for a different radio. As soon as possible I'm going to make myself a better disaster kit. I basically have everything needed but I want to add some things to it. Extra batteries for one thing. Extra kerosene for the lamps is another. Oh, and a bag of charcoal to use in a hobo stove.

I wanted to work on putting plastic on my windows while I had little else to do but the baby wanted my attention most of the time and I just couldn't get to that. It's hard for a little one when they are sick. All they want to do is cuddle and be comforted.

On Thursday evening baby's daddy came to pick her up for some time with them. On his way home he had a wreck and totalled his car. He either fell asleep at the wheel or it was a result of no stop light. He's not sure. He could have been knocked out for a moment from the accident and only thought he fell asleep. It scared the baby a lot. Probably from the noise of the crash. Both baby and daddy went to the hospital to be checked out and are fine.

I wanted to get back onto the quilting machine yesterday but I ended up sleeping the whole day. I was awake for a little while early yesterday morning then went back to bed. I didn't wake up until this morning. I guess I was just exhausted from staying tense and on high allert all week. I had heard about looting going on in areas surrounding my neighborhood and didn't sleep very well at night. Every time the dogs barked at something outside I woke right up. Luckily the looting was only in stores like the convenient store on the corner and a pawn shop a few blocks away and not in houses.

As of right now the power is still not restored at the day care center so the baby will probably be back here again tomorrow. I'm going to get as much done today as I can. Not quilting but other things like laundry and maybe some window plastic. I can get back to quilting again tomorrow. Starting with this one that is on the machine and ready to go.



I was feeling guilty about being another week behind schedule until the owner of this quilt pointed out that the power outage has almost everyone else is a week behind schedule too. Duh! Now why didn't I think of that?