Hello, December!

It's December.  And I am doing the best I can to embrace the season and the cold long winter months ahead.

That's about as positive as I can get with the whole thing - I'm trying!

And then there are those days where even the best intentions create a complete cluster - I kid you not!

For instance, when housekeeper Susan arrived yesterday to finish prepping the house so we'd be ready for the December Quiltvillians' arrival yesterday afternoon she let me know by text message that "The house is 80 degrees!!  I can't get the Hen Den fireplace to turn off!"

Well shoot!

This is not Susan.  But it was this hot in the house!

Martha had come by to help make beds.  We had some other guests stopping by at 11am to tour the house - some friends whose daughter is rehabbing an old farm house in the area and who wanted to see what we had done with the mini splits for heat/air on the ground floor.

Martha and I headed over - she doing her best to help me remain calm while we opened windows and turned on ceiling fans.

It turns out that when the hubster relit the pilot light and changed the batteries in the remote that there is an obscure little slider button on the back of the remote box that is attached to the stove that has 3 settings.  Off.  Remote.  On.

The slider thing was partway between Remote and On...and chose ON to stay on instead of running by thermostat which the REMOTE setting would allow it to do.

Baby, it was cooking inside!

We slid the slider button firmly into REMOTE position and the flame instantly turned off.  Thank goodness.

While we were laughing during our tour with all of the ceiling fans on turbo, I was so grateful that the house would cool down enough by - oh, maybe BEDTIME so that we wouldn't have to circumvent the situation by turning the A/C back on this season.

The long visit with our guests lead to a trip to town for some groceries and needed things and by the time I was back it was only an hour before the Quiltvillians would start arriving.

ONE printer-friendly PDF was written and uploaded - I've made it all the way up to the String Spider Web tutorial under the Free Patterns tab.  But that's not nearly as interesting as what I really wanted to be doing:

Pressing fun hunks and chunks for cutting more triangles for this:

So I can add them to this:

And sew them into these:

Bad lighting.

But the stack is growing!

(Only yesterday there was also NO sewing.)

You know, sometimes you've just got to give it up and play with the dogs.  Some days there is just no way to carve out more creativity time - and the living beings within my four walls need to be at the front of my attention span.

Dinner.  Some TV.  Some flipping through my phone to check on things.  The sewing can wait for another day.

And this is today's sunrise!

The December Quiltvillians were nearly all settled in by the time I had to leave at 5pm last night due to these blasted driving restrictions.

With this being the last retreat of the year, I was thinking forward until we open again in February - if days start getting longer at the end of December, when will dusk fall in February?

Is this the last group I'll have to skedaddle out of there at 5pm for?  I hope so.

More #chilhowiequilt shares!

These look so great, everyone!

And of course you know what happens tomorrow?

Be watching for Part Two of  Chilhowie to be live here on the blog.  Soon after it posts, it will be linked under the Chilhowie Mystery Tab at the top of the blog where you'll find the introduction and all previous parts if you are new.

I'll be putting on the finishing touches today so everything is ready to hit publish tomorrow morning.

Anything fun happening for your day today?

Quiltville Quote of the Day -

Others might not understand the decisions you make for your life, and that's okay.

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You don't have to explain yourself to the masses.

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Keep your peace through the upcoming holidays at all costs.

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Vintage Chips and Whetstones quilt shared by Siobhan.

have a lovely Thursday, everyone!