winterizing, part 2

Lauren and I putting up a window quilt

I spent my Christmas break sewing insulated window quilts.

The saga of the window quilts is long, and my teammates are completely sick of it: back in early November, I bought a ton of flannel and heat-reflective batting to assemble window quilts for our house. Then, after Lake Tahoe, I tried to sew them. But I really struggled with Anna’s sewing machine so progress was extremely slow and, really, pretty nonexistent.

I then decided that I should bring the material home and sew it on my mother’s sewing machine. Problem: there wasn’t room in the car going to Presque Isle, with four skiers and all their belongings for a race weekend and a week at home. We crammed them in anyway, to the extent that Lauren and I couldn’t see each other from opposite sides of the back seat. Then, there wasn’t room in the Ford Sayre bus to get back to Hanover, so I had to send them separately with some parents and pick them up in Hanover Center later in the week.

Finally, I spent quite a few hours sewing, and my parents thought I was nuts. The payoff, though: Lauren helped me put them up on the eight huge windows in the living room today, so hopefully we’ll be a little toastier and our heating bill will go down!

The quilts roll up during the day to let light into the room....

... and hang down at night to keep out the cold.