February - winter weather?

Weather here is quite cold in the early mornings and those 7am practices require dressing in layers and a toque as well as mittens.  But, the sunshine is glorious and there is no rain!  So, am not complaining and this is the kind of winter weather I enjoy.

It has been a busy week with tennis but slow around our house.  See the crutches?

The good thing is that they aren't for me... my husband got hit in the knee with a wild hit in softball and is in agony and really grumpy.  sigh.  But he is hobbling around on the crutches and using one of our kitchen chairs on wheels to get from here to there.  He is not happy and of course, is bored and quite bossy with getting me to do the jobs he usually does.  For the first few days, I seemed to be on demand with all the things he couldn't reach or get to.  Four days later, he is at least able to get onto the sofa and watch Saturday night hockey (thank goodness for small mercies) and I managed to get a few hours of sewing time.
Last week I worked on the new colour for February for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Orange is the colour so  I dug out my scraps and worked on the various blocks that I making this year.  I am making less of each block so that I will have three or four quilts to make that are different from each other.

 I think I messed these up when I looked at the green rail fences from last month (dark and light are reversed in the first set I made) and I may have to do some frog stitching later if they won't play nicely with the other blocks when I lay them out. 

You can see the edge of the blocks I am working on for Quilts of Valour Canada.  The bento box block is being made all across the country.  I am playing with a different method for making the blocks and am happy with how they are turning out.

I also got caught up with my 52 blocks in 52 weeks and have them finished.  Later this spring, I will add the outer borders to the blocks and they will join the previous blocks made through the last 12 months.

I enjoy making these scrap buckets and made two more this week.  I am determined to have all my scraps sorted. Teal and purple scraps are in their new homes.  The colour doesn't look like teal?  But it is!

The heartstrings group that I belong to, chose charms for the February challenge.  I decided to try something new to me and this is a pattern by Cluck, cluck sew.

I cut up 30 charms and got busy stitching.  My goal is to make a preemie quilt which is 30 x 36".  With an afternoon of stitching (including cleaning my machine and winding 8 more bobbins and changing the needle... after I stitched for 10 minutes with no bobbin thread... grrr), this is what is on my wall.  They still need trimming but I think it will be ok for some wee baby girl.

I did decorate a little for Valentine's day but am not holding my breath that it will be a special day here with the man in my life being a little cranky and in pain.
Last Saturday was a great day playing in a US/Canada tennis tournament here in our park.  Sadly, we lost by 8 points but our excuse was that we were missing some key players due to injuries or having to go home for one reason or another. It was a perfect winter day!

I also got my 'pet' fix, looking after the neighbour's cats while they took a short trip.

I am hoping that my husband heals and gets back to his regular routine of tennis, softball and watching hockey and doing our yard work so that I can get back to my normal time spent sewing, playing tennis and enjoying some quiet time!