Oh no, a Quiltnado

First there was Sharknado, and if that wasn't scary enough, now there's this ....

beware, this perilous phenomenon could be headed your way! 

It can strike without much warning and leave behind a massive trail of debris. 

 my recent category 2 quiltnado 

"Quiltnado"

noun \'kwilt -'n ā - dō\

definition:
A very intense squall consisting of fabric, thread and sewing tools.
Known to strike suddenly, very often coming on the heels of a quilt related activity such as
a guild meeting, fabric shopping, or blog hopping.

example:
"I was going to do some laundry, but before I knew it, a very intense quiltnado hit."

Intensity ranges:
category 1  - Mild, generally only lasts 1 hour or less and leaves behind a very small debris field.
category 2 - Moderate, can last anywhere from 1 to 4 hours and usually involves a combination of newly purchased and stash fabric. A moderate debris field that includes many fabric and pins.
category 3 - Severe,  a quiltnado in this category can easily last a day or longer. The debris field is very widespread and may include candy wrappers, coffee cups, ignored family members, backed up text messages, massive amounts of fabric, pins, empty spools and pizza boxes.

origin:
www.thistledownblog.blogspot.com
www.thistledownquilts.com 


There is not much you can do to ward off a large quiltnado. The best course of action is to make sure you have plenty of supplies on hand,  (including chocolate) then hunker down behind your sewing machine and ride it out. WOO HOO!

When was the last time you've been hit by a quiltnado? What category was it ?

Deja Vu all over again....

 I am happy to report that the lights are back on.  LOL
Since my last posting of July 22nd, (OMG not kidding) the lights again went out Tuesday night when our latest storm rolled through.
Now however, we are thoroughly enjoying the cooler temps here in South Florida. Only in the 70's today!
So where have I been all summer?????
It's been a bumpy road....

 it's a long story that I will edit extensively for your sake.

I had been feeling increasingly tired, and lackadaisical, along with a whole host of symptoms that kept piling on since late spring.
After several visits to several Drs. I finally found out why. I have thyroiditis.
The good news is I will be fine and I am feeling better than I did.
I am at least getting my energy and concentration back and will now try to keep up my blog once again and get back to visiting my favorites.

I did go to our summer quilt retreat over Labor Day weekend and took a few pix to share....

My dear friend Cathi is always prepared for fun creative play and this retreat was no exception.
She brought along tons of fun tools for creating journal pages.

lots of fun stuff to play with!

She and my friend Karen have started playing around with creating art journal pages and for a change of pace during retreat I gave it a try. It was fun getting paint all over, we finger painted some, but alas I didn't want to pick up my camera then.
Here are a couple of their pages. I still need to shoot mine.....

this is one of Cathi's pages

one of Karen's pages

unfortunately my camera dies just before retreat and I picked up a cheapie at the drugstore. It is very touchy and I didn't get a lot of good pix. Karen decide to try her hand at making a quilt ala Susan Carlson from her book Serendipity Quilts. She decided to make the sun project and needed lots of yellows and oranges. Can't wait to see it finished. Susan's book and quilts are really stunning. If you haven't seen them check them out here.

Here's the start.....just call him "Ray"

Well, I need to pop over to the grocery store before dinner. But I will be back with more....

no, really I will. LOL

There was a ransom demand that took place at retreat, more on that next time.

until then, be well

boom - boom out go the lights.....

Ah yes...just another ferocious afternoon thunderstorm in "sunny" Florida.  There were some real window rattling booms today. The lightning was super intense and had us scampering around the house unplugging vital equipment such as the computer, phones, printers, tv's, etc. We're a bit gun shy since getting zapped by a lightning hit last year which took our tv's, modem, intercoms and phones. Naturally our deductible was about the same as the damages - oh well.
 We just added some new phones a few weeks ago because we were using some backups we had but they needed replacing. My SIL bought my hubby a Vtech cordless for the garage for his b'day. We liked it and so I popped over to the CSN online store and found the same Vtech cordless set to complete the set for the house.
Happily we didn't get hit by lightning today but we did lose power for several hours. Luckily the buckets of rain had cooled things off considerably because without the A/C running it could have been very hot. Yucko.
I was working on a clients quilt when the weather went bad. I always unplug my machine during lightning storms.

Turns out a branch came down in the neighbors yard across the street and started on fire. He showed us the pic. Anyway....the power company showed up, cut away some branches and they had it back on in time to make dinner....drats, if it hadn't come on we would have had to go out LOL

Speaking of boom boom....I heard the double sonic boom when the space shuttle came in for it's final landing the other morning. A sad day indeed. We went to a shuttle launch years ago and it is an amazing thing to see in person. I hope that private enterprise will pick up where NASA left off and that the employees will all find work and the U.S. shuttles will orbit again.

Stay cool.......