UFO Breakthrough

I first blogged about these Morningstar blocks here. I think I have a new plan. I was browsing through Liz’s blog Quilterie and found a setting I love. It's the first quilt in the Sept. 13th post. I don’t know if it will work with these blocks. If not, I’ll just surround each star block with hst’s and hope I can do it so it is relatively flat.   

I looked this star block up in Jinny Beyer’s Album of Patchwork Patterns and she lists 15 different names for it! 

I’m paper piecing the hst's with Thangles. While I have been on a hst kick, this one has sort of been assigned. This years McLean QU challenge is to make a quilt with at least 200 hst. At first there was a size limit, but then that rule was relaxed. Off hand I don’t remember the size limit, but I’m pretty sure I’ll meet the original challenge.

I’ve also been stitching hexagon blocks and have just 7 more to go and I can piece the top. I’ve been stitching one a day. The back for the churndash quilt is done. I'll baste that sometime next week.

I’ve spent a couple hours a day for the past 3 days painting the trim in our kitchen. We have a lot of trim! There are six entryways to this room. One is a bathroom just off the eating area (I know – Ugh – must have been designed by a man). We are painting the bathroom too and while taking the wallpaper off the wall near the toilet my husband found rotting drywall. The toilet has been leaking (and I thought the men in my house just had bad aim!) so we need to replace the drywall and the laminate flooring. Off to Home Depot we went!

The basket and board were my barricade to keep Len out of the kitchen while I painted. Lucky for me (and Len) he’s on dirty laundry.

Such a sleepy pup!

A shot of our side yard late yesterday afternoon.

And in front of our house looking across the street. We’ve been here over 20 years and have never seen it like this. Luckily my neighbor came home in time to move his truck. That is firewood in the water.

And look at his side yard. Amazingly, he didn’t have any water in the house. No, I did not take this photo! My husband grabbed an umbrella and my camera - any excuse to go play in the water. No use telling him it's dangerous.

We had 10-12 inches of rain over 4 days. The floor in the unfinished portion of our basement was a little damp. That was it - the sump pump did its job.

The dogs thought it was something, too! The only thing moving is Duke’s tail.