This weekend was hot with thunderstorms, plus the air quality was Code Purple due to smoke from wildfires in Canada (not anywhere close by!) – Unhealthy for everyone! Definitely not an outdoor day.  Oh, did I mention our Air Conditioner quit working Friday night? We flipped a breaker and it started working.

Friday I cooked a 9 lb Pork Shoulder in my crockpot so dinner Saturday was Pulled Pork. Hubby & I have it with BBQ sauce in wraps. Daughter prefers it plain & crispy.

In the Sewing Room

After cleaning my room I know I found a number of Works in Progress, but of course I had to start something new. And you may have guessed what it was — Christmas in July table topoer.

Choosing fabrics drives me a bit batty. My brain has a hard time imagining how the yardage will look cut up and sewn into the pattern.

Do you do this? Thanks to modern technology I take lots of pictures as I pick fabrics. When I’ve picked fabrics I think I want to use I take another picture and use my phone’s photo editing program to turn it into a black & white photo. This will help to show me the light-medium-dark values. If you have old fashion 3-D paper glasses (you know the ones with one blue lens and one red lens) they will give you the same result.

Step #1 – Make 4 Bell Blocks

Tuesday was the first day of Christmas in July. The 1st clue was to make 4 Bell Blocks which have three colors – white, gold and Christmas Pointsettias.

I ironed the fabrics and gave them a good spray of Mary Ellen’s Best Spray to give them some body as some of the units are stitched on the bias (stretchy edge).

Since there are 4 of these blocks I laid the pieces out in order on an 18″ Design Board to insure I had them in the correct position.

These Plans were Interrupted

The air conditioner stopped working again on Saturday. Resetting the breakers didn’t work this time. We called our repair service but the tech was already on another job. To be honest, during a heat wave isn’t the best time to get an air conditioner repaired.

After all the cutting and ironing it just got too hot to continue. It was too hot to do anything in the house!

Plan A – It gets Fixed

The repairman came Sunday and did several checks. At one point the A/C  appeared to kick on, but shut down again in just a few minutes. We weren’t happy it stopped, but very happy it quit working while he was still here! After checking several error codes it was determined that a part needed to be replaced. So on to Plan B!

Plan B – The Part is available for Repair on Monday

Since it’s Sunday we have to wait until tomorrow to see if the part is in stock or needs to be ordered.

Our daughter is in the middle of inventory at her store so she needs a good night’s sleep. She and the dogs will spend the night in her air conditioned camping trailer which is parked in our driveway.

If Plan B works we’ll get a call in the morning that the part is on hand and the air conditioner will be repaired by night.

Plan C – Window A/C units

We’re hoping we won’t have to resort to Plan C. A friend has offered us the use of a window air-conditioning unit which we will put into our daughter’s bedroom and we will buy or borrow another one for our living room. With 2 units and lots of fans we hope it will keep us reasonably comfortable until the central unit is fixed.

Hoping for cooler weather but it’s still summer-like temperatures expected this week.

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Hope you are making progress on whatever you are stitching this week!

Happy Stitching!

Quilt Mouse