I've been working more on all the little subunits for Unity Part 2. First I made some HST.
Then I started on the square-in-a-square pieces. Definitely not my favorite thing to make, but better than quarter-square triangles!I didn't have quite enough of the pink to get all the dark pink/green square in a square units (three sets short). We decided it would look most intentional to make the corners out of a different pink fabric. Then I only needed to cut one additional set of triangles and set one of the original aside.
Now it looks like this and I have to piece together all the rows/rounds. This quilt is assembled in a round robin-type fashion. Some of the rows are inverted right now. The colors are so much prettier in real life. My camera really struggles with the lighting near the design wall.
I remembered to take a picture of the knit selvedge rug. I'm really close to a finish now.
I've also been slowly plugging away at the 16 items I need for our guild advent calendar. I'm just about half way done. I need to submit my items at our November meeting, so that means I have just over three months to finish.
I haven't started on the whole cloth quilt yet since I haven't pressed the fabric. I think that will be my project this weekend.
Of course I've been quilting a bit. I quilted Dave's Sunflowers on Cynthia's quilt.Then I quilted Trillium on her other quilt.
She brought me a bouquet of sunflowers, mums, and roses when she picked up her quilts. They are so pretty. 🥰
I quilted Toss Up on Christi's baby quilt.
Sharon selected Two Simple for this super-large quilt.
She also had me attach binding to the front.
I started stitching Christmas Bows on Christi's other quilt. I was near the bottom when the power blipped. Normally this kicks on my UPS and I can get to a point where I can shut down. However, the power kept cycling and the machine went a little nuts. I got it to turn off and I'll see how things look and try to finish today.
That was just before 5 p.m. We were having a bit of rain, lots of thunder, and heavy winds. Then it stopped and was sunny. Since we didn't have power and Duke didn't have an estimated repair time, we drove into town to grab dinner from a drive-thru. I was hoping to get home before the next wave of storms arrived, but the rain started on the way back home. It was very heavy and there was a lot of lightning.
My husband had turned on our back up battery to power the fridge, freezer, and internet (priorities!) and we were just sitting around, scrolling social media in the late evening light. We'd forgotten we could turn on the main living room light with the battery. Anyway, around 8 I noticed that my neighbor had sent me a message via Facebook (I don't normally check that) saying she'd seen the transformer on our property pop a few times and then start smoking around 5 p.m. The electric trucks were on the street around the corner, so my husband walked over to talk to them after talking to her. They came over and checked the transformer and determined that it needed to be replaced. By this time everyone else in the neighborhood had power restored except us and the neighbor right across the street. Kind of funny, but our barn is on a different transformer than our house, so the barn had power (to its couple outlets that have been wired) and the house didn't. The power stayed off until a bit after 10. It could have been worse. Hopefully my machine is fine; I haven't checked yet this morning.
Out in the gardens, I have weeded all of the upper front garden and most of the barn garden. We harvested a small bell pepper, a coolapeno, and a tomato from the vegetable garden. I forgot to take a picture of the bell pepper before I cut it up for dinner. As you can see, it was pretty tiny, but perfect for topping our pizza.There are a ton of beans, tomatoes, some peppers, and maybe the watermelons ready for harvesting. We just haven't made time to do it, unfortunately. We really have to pick through the tomatoes because most of them have been eaten by bugs. Most of the plants themselves look pretty terrible with the exception of the peppers. I'm not sure if it's bugs, lack of water, or a combo of both. It's pretty gross out there right now.
I've decided to clear out the lower garden during the winter. I know this isn't ideal, but between all the weeds, the bugs, potential snakes and other critters, I think it makes the most sense. I'm still avoiding the side garden since I know snakes like to lurk in there.
The chickens are all still alive. Penny will be out of quarantine and able to go back in the coop on Friday. She's doing really well. Smoky has started eating feed again, so that is good. We aren't sure Smoky, Henry, or Peanut are able to go back out and function on their own. Peanut's eyes have continued to be closed for the last week, so she unfortunately seems to be regressing.
The big college dorm move-in day will happen next week. We went to Target to buy a mini fridge that had a freezer and I decided I needed to treat myself to the new LEGO E.T. set. I've been slowly building it. He has a small phone and a tiny replica space ship inside. You can see the phone(red) and the ship just above the wide light blue piece if you look really closely. I thought it would be funny to move it around and hide it in various shelves (think doll closet in movie).Finally, one for the "what's going to break in Anne-Marie's house this week" category...our water pressure has been quite low for several years now. We knew that the water company needed to add infrastructure to meet increased demand. Our neighborhood has gone from sparse to built out in the last few years and they are always adding new subdivisions. Our neighbors haven't noticed having less water pressure. Our is so bad that if I'm running the washer or dishwasher, nothing else can be run. If someone flushes the toilet while a shower is running, the pressure decreases very noticeably.
My husband thought he should probably inspect our shut-off valve and pressure reducer. Well...the pressure reducer's lifespan is 10 - 15 years according to the internet. Ours is 14 years or so. The shutoff valve isn't rated for potable water. Great. Have we been having lead leach into our water all these years? Incompetent plumber strikes again. The plumber also put in a 3/4" valve instead of the 1" it should have been. My husband consulted with the water company about the outdoor shutoff valve and it's very easily accessible on our own, so these parts will be replaced in the very near future. We also need to look at our filters and replace at least one. Adulting is so fun. 🙄
All these things do seem to happen at once!! For months I pushed for a back-up generator when building our new house; thankfully one of our good friends and golf buddies is a very experienced electrician and he told hubs it's a must so yep, we're now having it installed and wired to certain priority things! The cost is better than losing an entire freezer of meats and veg to just one power outage.
ReplyDeleteAs for those snakes, personally they don't bother me but they completely freak my hubs out so I kinda get it but still, they're keeping the mice out of your garden at least! Nothing worse than mice bites on your tomatoes and other things!
Hang in there. At some point things have to stop breaking! I gotta say, this year of renting while we build has been a really nice break (pardon the pun) from that! Our previous home, as much as I loved it, was really getting too much in that respect. I'm sure things will still happen but we're doing our best to make our new home as maintenance-free as possible; certainly it will pay off (boy it sure adds up!!) in the long run?
I like the progress on Unity. So weird to have power in your barn and not the house - also kind of funny. Our well is on a different power than the house - so sometimes the house goes out but the well still works - its kinda creepy haha!! What is a coolapeno? That sounds more my flavor profile that Jalapenos...... maybe??
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