I'd tell you that we are about to send an eNewsletter with new Piece O' Cake news except that I'll bet you get it before you read this. If not, go here to read our new eNewsflash. A big part of it is that Tulips in the Park ePatterns are now available. And we have dots!

Not much has changed pool-wise except that the waterfall is going and the sun came out. I promised pictures and here are some nice detail shots. The little tiles (below) still have a sort of scummy adhesive stuck to them. The guys are going to come clean that off when they seal the deck. I think it needs to warm up for that to happen. They look nice now but I'll bet they seriously sparkle when they are clean.

Luckily, the plaster has turned out to be an amazing shade of blue. I chose this color from a broken bit that was less than 1" square. There was no way to do a test swatch and no one in town has ever chosen this color. Being a quilter who works with color in little bits helped a lot.

It's funny – you can't guess what the temperature is from these photos and it looks very inviting. But it's below freezing and, trust me, I have no desire to jump in today.

C&T just posted some free computer wallpaper quilts. Click here to go to their blog post. They are easy to download – just click the picture of the quilt (or quilts) that you want. I'm pretty sure you'll want Winter Dance from our book, Once Upon A Season (below)!

It looks better with water in it! Of course now I can see how much more needs to be done to "decorate" the backyard. Later.

Here it is from the other side:

The sky was gray today. I'm going to be interested to see what color the water is when the sun is shining.

(If you didn't read the post about the dome going up, read it before you read this one.) Saturday morning, the plaster crew showed up around 9:00. It was above freezing. They worked inside the dome and they warmed up the interior of the dome with a propane torch/heater. You can see the orange part of the flame in the low, center of this photo. I think I would have set myself on fire with that open flame.

They drained the standing water off the bottom of the pool, taped off the tile, and filled all the remaining holes with a quick setting concrete. Then they brought out the plaster gun and started shooting and smoothing the plaster.

As you can see, we went with a deep blue color.

These guys know their job. They have skills and were fun to watch. Check out the fancy footwear!

They got the plaster smooth and dry and started filling the pool. Notice the water bottle taped to the end of the hose to make it float! Low tech, great idea.

As I write this, the dome is off, the crew is gone, and we have two hoses (with bottles) going full strength into the pool. Somewhere around 5:00 a.m. we should have a full pool and be able to turn off the water.

You know, this is day 10 of the actual pool building by the pool building guys. But we only decided to build a pool in September. Today, December 5, we are filling it! Steve and I are amazed at the speed of this project. Not so much amazed that the professionals did it in 10 days – we are amazed that we managed to clear the backyard, move and re-build our fountain, take down and put up a fence, and more. No wonder we are both feeling like we've run a race. But I have to tell you that we both have big grins on our faces tonight!

On Friday afternoon, two guys from the plaster crew came by to set up a dome. Our temps have dipped below freezing and this dome kept the pool above freezing so that they could start the plaster Saturday morning. They were sort of surprised by the small size of both our pool and yard.

They set up two fans. I thought they were blowing warm air, but they weren't.

This is what it looked like, fully blown up. The fans went all night…

I make Christmas ornaments every year to give as gifts. This year's ornament is a bird made from vintage fabrics. Each bird is made up of 2 sides and 1 bottom gusset. I used a different fabric in each position on each bird. Here are a few of the 21 ornaments I made:

I covered wood clothespins with glitter and hot glued a bird to each clothespin. Luckily I don't mind living with a little glitter because it went all over my studio.

I keep one ornament for myself. One side of my bird is light, and the other side is…

…red! The bottom gusset is the red and white dot. I ran three lengths of flexible wire through each bird after I turned them inside out, during the stuffing process. I glued a wool bead to each end of each wire, making the birds look more festive. We'll probably be putting this pattern in the Christmas book we are currently working on.