A Quilt for Ike

Wow! What a weekend. Ike has come and gone. I have a new found respect for hurricanes and Mother Nature in General.

We were so fortuante. Millions of others were not as lucky as we.

Going into the storm I wasn't really nervous. Here on the northwest side of Houston we were told to stay put and ride it out. The news was all about evacuations and preparations on the coast and in Galveston. I guess I just expected a big thunderstorm with lots of wind up here.

What I didn't expect was to hear and feel my house shake in the wind. We slept in our windowless, upstairs hallway. The winds started getting bad around 2 in the morning. I kept hearing a creaking sound and in my tired dilerium thought our house was just getting old and creaky. And then it started to annoy me because I couldn't sleep.
Later, as the creaking got worse and more frequent, I realized it wasn't a normal house sound. Both Hubbie and I slept in little increments for most of the night.

Around 5 am my husband woke me up and asked if I thought we should go down to our little downstairs bathroom because the floor was moving. I layed there and felt it shake underneath me. Being a California boy, Hubbie said it felt similiar to an earthquake. The winds were howling outside and I started to gain a little more respect and fear for nature.

Thank goodness our two little kids slept through the scariest times.

I also didn't expect the storm to last so long. The winds started picking up (here) in the early evening on Friday. The eye passed near us (not directly over us) around 5:30 or so in the morning. And then the winds and rains continued long into the day on Saturday. The rains finally subsided around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

We emerged on Saturday to survery the damage. Our trees out front were still standing as were most of the trees on our street. The next two streets over from us, and many others around town, weren't as lucky. There are so many mangled trees, trees on top of houses, and even trees completely uprooted and pushed over on their sides.

Miraculously our power came back on Saturday at 7 pm. I hate to even say that outloud here in Houston because there are still so many people without power.

Our water is still having some issues. We had low pressure again this morning. As a precaution we still aren't drinking our water.

Whew! Now, how did I occupy myself in the aftermath? Well, by finishing this quilt, of course.

I think this will always remind me of Hurrican Ike. Look at the swirly fabric on the back. I bought that a few years ago and it looks like a swirling hurricane! I started and almost completed this quilt several years ago. But then I just decided it was ugly or got tired of it or something and put it away. I'm happy with it now. I finished it a little hurriedly. Its not perfect- especially the quilitng. I sort of just had fun doing that. I attempted straight lines for the first time and then did fun little swirly flowers in the white spaces.
I got this pattern online several years ago. I think I found it at McCall's quilting site.