Cold, with something sunny

Hi all, and welcome to a very, very cold Wednesday.  I need another layer today, how about you?  It's actually not too bad here, but our friends and family in Wisconsin are really freezing.  One year when our kids were small (so at least 20 years ago) the actual temperature-- not the wind chill-- fell to about 20 below zero.  We hung blankets over the windows and everything because the furnace could not keep up.  It's a fond memory now, because we snuggled under quilts and played games and drank hot chocolate and such, but back then it was really pretty scary (for the adults, at least). 

Here's a somewhat commemorative block that I made just for the cold this week:

I call this a "polar vortex" block.  It's actually only 3 inches square and is going into my temperature quilt for the day my new granddaughter was born.  As you can tell, it was quite chilly that day, though the baby did not seem to care.  By the way, I am happy to report that she is absolutely adorable and a very happy tiny girl so far, not that we expected anything else.

There has not been a lot of other stitching going on the last few days, both because of the new little one and because I have a very big project due February 15 and I've had to be working on that.  I did figure out what I'm going to do with the little 4-patches I've been making, though.  I decided to put them together into these blocks:

This is a Sunny Lanes block, which is a Nancy Page block from sometime in the 1920s-1940s.  You can see that I decided to go with a green solid as an accent for the four patches.  I like how it turned out!  The green is Kona Cabbage, which is one of my favorite Kona colors because it's so nice and fresh.

Sunny Lanes doesn't look like a very exciting block until you start to put some of them together, which is when the magic happens.  Here are two of the secondary designs formed by multiple blocks:

Radiating squares

Stars and stripes

There are a lot of other designs that you can make with these blocks, including diagonal stripes, depending on how you turn them, so I think these will be fun to play with and will make a lovely quilt once it's done.

The blocks finish at 8 inches square, so I'll need at least 56 blocks for a decent sized quilt, depending on what I want for a border.  I don't seem to have made a dent in the 1-1/2 inch squares yet, though, so it's a safe bet that there are more than enough in the bin for at least one quilt.  We all know they're multiplying in there, too, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe.

Other than the shivering, that's about it from here! I'm hoping to have a spring-like top finished this week and I'll show it off if there is a chance for me to take it outside and get a few pictures.  Hope all of you stay warm and safe in the cold. Think warm thoughts! 

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