PamelaQuilts: Happy Monday - I have a winner, and a new half square triangle quilt block!

Hope your weekend was great, mine was crazy busy! I was in charge of the Chili Feed that the Women's Ministry Team put on this weekend, but that wasn't too bad. We made three big pots of Chili, lots of cornbread and had a great time serving our wonderful church members. We made some more money to put toward the retreat this spring and had a great time mingling with the people and encouraging them. This happened on Sunday Morning.

Since we were all prepared and ready to go, Saturday afternoon was going to be fun sewing and I had a lovely project all ready to work on.

Unfortunately I didn't get time to work on it because after I made lunch I decided to clean out my refrigerator. I had a container of noodles that needed to go, but when I put them down the disposal the drain clogged. That's not a big deal, I usually seal the drainboard side of the sink and run the disposal which creates enough pressure to force the clog through. This time there was an odd noise, but I kept running the water. Then I looked down and there was water (and little noodle bits) flowing out from under the sink! YIKES!! That was a big deal!

When I opened the doors the mess was so terrible I wanted to cry. Water and noodle bits all over, even stuck to the bottom of the sink, the back wall, and everything under the sink. You know - paper bags, a grocery tote, my husbands old lunch box, roll of paper towels, vases....I guess it was time to clean out under there, but not like this. At first it looked like the ring holding the drain to the underside of the sink had just come loose. Then, when I went to tighten it I realized it had broken in half. So off to the plumbing store to get a new one.

(I am Mrs. Fixit in my house - I enjoy doing it! DH would if I wanted him to, but I like knowing how to deal with these things and tend to just take charge, in case you are wondering...)

The nice guy at Perry's Electric hooked me up with a nice new plastic pipe to replace my broken metal one and made sure I had the appropriate washers. Once I got home it was a simple matter of cutting the new piece to the correct length, putting the washers in the correct spots and screwing everything together. No fancy plumbing tools necessary for this job! Luckily the washers came in packs of two because once I hooked everything up I found a leak in another join as well. Plus a piece of wood in the u-joint under the sink which probably has been causing my back-ups. The worse part was cleaning up all the noodle bits and drying it out.

Yesterday I laid some nice contact paper down and replaced all the things that I wanted to keep under the sink, added some things to my donation box, and threw out some junk! Now it looks nice and neat under there so I am happy.

So, I am ready for a new day today! Hopefully lots of sewing will happen. I did get this week's alternate quilt block done for the Quilter's Recipe Box! This week we are going to use the same units again: Four colored half square triangles, four background half square triangles, 1 colored square and 4 background squares.

Sew the four half square triangles into squares and this time we'll place them so that the colored half is on the outside of the corner:

Now you have an O block! I hope you are getting along with your half square triangles! Are they coming out to the correct size? Keep working on accurate cutting and piecing - it will pay off as you go. You'll be able to piece more quickly and confidently once you have those skills down pat.