This n that . . .

Saturday morning turned into a cleaning project I hadn't anticipated.   The benefit of walking around barefoot is you find the wet spots when there is a leak under the kitchen sink.  The rug was damp, and that led to unloading everything from under the sink.  We've run water in the sink to try to find the problem but didn't figure it out yet.  My guess it's either the connection to the dishwasher or to that blue filtration system.  Either way we had a mess to clean up, and a plumber to call on Monday morning. Why do these things always happen on weekends or holidays?  

Saturday afternoon I escaped the kitchen mess, and enjoyed some time with friends attending a fun program put on by a couple of local ladies.  "If Quilts Could Talk" is a wonderful combination of an antique quilt trunk show, historical quilting stories, and humor.  I've seen their program several times over the years, but this was their "farewell" event as they plan to retire.  I took this photo last October at our guild quilt show.  They've kept a log of presentations and have given 104 presentations over the past 23 years.  Saturday's show was #105.

Ruby and Louise are both so knowledgeable about antique quilts, old fabrics, quilt restoration, and are both very willing to share their expertise.  Plus - they are a couple of ladies who love to have fun!

This was a stormy weekend for many, but those thunderstorms and tornadoes (and winter storms in the western part of our state) just keep missing us.  I'm OK with no tornadoes!!  However we got the wind to dry us out even more, but no much needed rain.  Our drought continues.  So my husband spent part of Saturday morning getting our sprinkler system going for the season.  We have our own well for that so we don't have to pay for city water, but try to be careful about still following the watering restrictions here.  The back yard is more dirt than grass this spring.  He has talked to a landscape guy about possibly bringing in some new dirt for this area and reseeding.  We've tried for 2 years to get new grass going here with no luck.  I've suggested sod, but was dismissed by the gardener (the husband).

A bit of sewing later in the day was a good distraction from the kitchen too, and I managed to make a little progress on Shooting Stars.  There are 2 blocks made with each jelly roll strip - the star and the diagonal one.  The completed rows are now hanging in the closet - horizontal rows 1 and 2 are done.  And the first 2 blocks of row 3 are made too.  Since I had this all kitted up it was very quick to just dive in and sew.  That was good therapy!  Happy colors again - yay!!

These are layed out in kind of a rainbow effect, starting with the warm colors (pink, red, orange, yellow) at the top and gradually moving into the cool colors (green, blue, purple) near the bottom.  

The technique for making both blocks kind of surprised me.  They didn't go together like I figured they would by just looking at the picture on the pattern.  The process is actually quite easy.  I'll try to take some pictures as I work on the next sets of blocks. 

And returning to that water issue, I'm going to have to run that dishwasher today because it was nearly full.  I guess if it is the cause of the leak, we'll find out soon enough.  And if not, then that will narrow things down to everything else under there.