Diving in again. . .

.   .   .to another huge project.  Remember Orca Bay?  This is what I did this morning:

It's a 6" star block using Robyn Pandolph's Bowood House collection.  I just made one of them.  80 more and I will be - well, half way through piecing this quilt.  There's the pieced sashing and the pieced border too, you know.

When I made Orca Bay, I was hoping for a red and green quilt with a hint of gold.  Since it was a mystery, I had to just guess and select where to put the colors.  And I guessed wrong, because I have a gold and red quilt with a hint of green.  Not complaining because I have a beautiful quilt.  But when I saw the Bowood House fat quarter collection on sale, dreams of a red and green quilt resurfaced.  It's a gorgeous bunch of prints, stripes, solids and checks, which will make a lovely "coordinated scrappy" quilt. Of course, I'm also making it waaaay bigger than Bonnie Hunter's original = 94" square.

And - I hesitate to admit it - no string blocks.  I love ya, Bonnie, but I can't love the strings, and I don't love sewing the string blocks.  So solid patches where they were in the plan.  It will still be gorgeous.

Under pressure. . .

.    .    .water pressure, that is.  And that's a good thing.

Oh, the ridiculous repairs you have to do when you own a house.  For the past several years, the water pressure in my house had been decreasing, a little at first, then more in the last year, so much so that after you flushed a toilet you couldn't get enough of a trickle of water at the sink to wash your hands.  If you were watering the flowers every other water use in the house had to stop.  And heaven forbid that you needed to run a tap while the washer was filling.  The low flow starved out the pressure washer the house painter was using to clean the patio, and made doing the dishes a lengthy proposition.

Finally, it got on my nerves too much.  Something had to be done.  If it was corrosion in the galvanized pipe between the meter and my house, well.   .   .well, that would be BAD.  Expensive bad.  Hopefully it was something else.  I called a plumber to investigate.

The only water tap in the entire house seemingly not affected was the hose bibb on the front.  It was flowing fine.  He hooked up his pressure gauge to it and verified that, yep, it had 80 psi, just like the city water supply.  But the one on the back of the house only showed a pitiful 20 psi.  Under the house we went, where we discovered that the line to the front hose bibb teed off the supply upstream of the pressure regulator valve, whereas all the other water connections in the house were downstream.  So that was why the front was not affected.  Now, why the low pressure and pitiful flow?

The whole house is plumbed in copper pipe, except for one 6 inch long segment of galvanized iron pipe connected to the exit of the pressure regulator valve.  So either of these might be the problem.  Either that bit of galvanized pipe was corroded and inhibiting flow, or the pressure regulator, original with the house, was out of adjustment or plugged up.  The best solution was to replace both.  The plumber said he would pick up the parts and be back the next day.

A few hours later the next morning, he was done.  And boy, howdy, did that ever fix the problem!  I have water again!  You can turn on two faucets at the same time - heck, you can turn on THREE faucets, and still have plenty of water.  Yippee!

That night, I had my first truly enjoyable shower in years, augmented by a nifty new shower head.  I replaced the original 1968 one that put out a stingy spray about an inch wide.  I don't think they were thinking about water saving features back then, but this shower was miserable to use.  Just like kitchens with inadequate counter space and skinny hallways, it was a '60's thing, evidently.  Bathrooms weren't for luxury, they were for function.  But now my new shower head has a large lovely spray pattern, and it also pulses, thank you very much, if you want it.  Which I did, when I came in the house drowning in perspiration this morning after watering all my azaleas, trying to keep them alive in 100 plus degree temperatures and no rainfall.

I also had the plumber replace the flush valve in a toilet tank because I am too old, inflexible and grouchy to crawl under toilets anymore and hate to fix plumbing.  And he would have fixed my leaking kitchen faucet except whichever genius assembled it when the kitchen was renovated tightened all the connections so tightly the plumber couldn't get it apart without fearing he would scratch it up and wreck it.  He had to cease and desist until I could get replacement parts from Moen (thank you, lifetime warranty).  Now, if the worst happens we have new parts.

Just another day in the life of a home owner.

Sunbonnet Sleuth mystery quilt

Just finished Jean Ann's latest mystery and it is cute!  Had you ever thought of combining flying geese strips with courthouse steps blocks?  I hadn't, and what a good idea it is.  She was nice enough to review my fabrics before I committed to them, and save me from questionable choices.  I'd been waiting for something to use this Michael Miller giraffe print, and had all the colors to coordinate in my stash.  Now, if I could just quit starting new projects I could get it quilted......

Still assembling the Scrap Happy group's June mystery.  I added snowball corners on the plain blocks, using the border print from which the colors where chosen.  Here's a look at a few blocks, not joined yet:

This will make another great donation quilt.  I wish I enjoyed the quilting as much as the block construction;  heck, I wish I was nearly as good at quilting as at sewing, then I could finish some of these for Project Linus.  My machine quilting is only marginal and I dread starting to quilt something that I spent time on, afraid I will botch the job.

Mortality

I just got word that one of my second cousins just died (our grandparents were siblings).  She was four yours younger than I.

Oh.  Wow.  Kind of gives you a shiver.  My grandmother's generation is long past, my mom's generation is almost gone, and now mine is starting to pass away.  My cousins and I are now at the head of the line.  So soon?

Rest in peace, Deb.  Your life was far too short.

Baby quilt

Boy, I'm stretching to find a baby to make a quilt for.  I just finished one that will go to my brother-in-law's wife's niece's baby.  I've only met the niece once, at my brother-in-law's wedding, but I love to make crib quilts and no one close to me is having babies.  The only possibility is if my younger nephew gets married and settles down to start a family, and that doesn't appear to be likely, at least not soon.  Don't wait too late, dearie!

Here's a photo of the quilt for baby Rory, front and back:

The design on the back isn't so much from creativity as from lack of fabric, but it's cute.  

I hope Mama and baby enjoy the quilt.

Addendum:  I just found out from my brother in law that the baby's name is spelled "Rori".  Oops, have to change the label.  Supposedly, "Rory" is for a boy and "Rori" is for a girl.  Actually, I've never seen a girl named Rori before.  The only Rory I ever heard of is Rory Calhoun.  There, now that I've proved how old I am.......

Not the day I expected

Today was yard work day, so after feeding the stray kitty I set about watering my new shrubs and pulling weeds.  After four hours or so I had finished in the back yard and moved to the front.  After I set out the hose to water the front landscaping, I walked across the street to my neighbor's house.  He's old and is currently living with his son, and my other neighbor and I keep watch on his house.  I needed to check the mailbox and pick up the stray papers and such that seem to always show up in the yard.

My neighbor has been gone over three years, so checking up on his house is typical for my week.  What I found in the front yard wasn't typical.

A .22LR derringer.  As in, a gun.

To say that I was shocked is an understatement.  I noticed something shiny in the grass about 8 feet from the curb in the front yard.  Thinking it was a candy wrapper or something, I headed over to pick it up and was startled to find this:

It's so small I had to look at it twice to make sure it was real.  Yep, real, but it's only about 4 1/2" long.  A kid could mistake it for a toy.  I headed into the house and called the police, and the cruiser arrived in about 10 minutes.  The officer checked it out and saw as I had that the hammer was cocked.  He carefully examined it and found a live round stuck in the cylinder, which he cleared.  Then he locked it up in his cruiser and took the info on how I found it.

Interestingly, about half an hour before, while I was sitting on the porch setting the timer on the hose which was watering the front shrubs, a silver SUV had driven slowly down the road and pulled up to the curb across the street.  A young guy got out of the car, leaving it running, and started checking the ground close to the street but not near where I later found the gun.  You see, my neighbor lives on the corner and the guy was looking around in the yard on the side of the house facing the main street, not in the front yard facing the residential street that runs in front of my house and my neighbor's.  After a couple of minutes he got back in his car and drove away.  I noticed that it had Georgia plates;  I'm in Tennessee but right on the border so you see Georgia cars all the time.  Other than that, I couldn't see a lot of detail because I didn't have my glasses on (hate perspiring on my glasses).  When the guy got out of his car and started poking around in my neighbor's yard I stood up on the porch and gave him a stare, just to make sure he saw I noticed him.  I'm not sure if that contributed to his leaving quickly, but I hope it did.  We look out for each other around here, and I wanted it to be apparent.

I live in a very quiet older neighborhood, mostly populated by senior citizens who bought the houses soon after they were built in the 1960's.  I hadn't heard nor seen anything out of the ordinary.  And then a gun pops up in the grass across the street.

Definitely not the day I was expecting.

Which?

I bought a kit from Connecting Threads because I fell in love with the colors.  I'm not even a "red" person but the combination of aqua and red with this gorgeous tropical print did me in.  I sketched the quilt in EQ and decided that I would increase the block size from 9" to 12" so the quilt, designed initially without borders, would be upsized from 54" square to 72".  This would be good for a couch quilt.  Here's a picture courtesy of Connecting Threads website:

Using EQ, I determined how much additional fabric I would need and ordered the yardage with the kit.  When I cut out the patches, however, I found that Connecting Threads was so generous in their kit that I almost didn't need what I bought extra (only a bit for the aqua large print).  So I have some fabric to play with and am thinking about borders.  Here are two options:

Aqua outer border and red inner border:

 Or, red outer border and aqua inner border:

Both would have a bias striped binding.

I can't decide which I like better.  No rush, of course, because I have only made 6 of the 36 required blocks.  But I like to think ahead.

So which do YOU like?