Week 20: Project 365, the 2015 Edition

Thursday, May 14

We've been doing a lot better at taking a walk every day. Walking is a win/win because it's helping increase my stamina and, since we're next to the river, the scenery is beautiful. I've mentioned in the past that after we bought this property, the municipality paved the street right along the river near our house. Someone convinced them to save this algarrobo (carob) tree down the road. This tree has become a marker for turning around and heading home some days.

Friday, May 15

It was pretty overcast today but still no rain. Perfect weather for walking, and we actually made it all the way to the bridge by Playa de Oro today! I was pretty "chuffed" as the British say :)

Saturday, May 16

After an exceptionally rainy summer, autumn has been much drier. Which is typical here, and it's not unusual to go months without rain. It hasn't been months, but it has been weeks so Ivan's using the sprinkler to keep our fledgling lawn alive.

Not the greatest photo, but you can kind of see the water spraying out from the sprinkler.

Sunday, May 17

After spreading all the blue and gray fabrics on the bed this evening, I started deciding which fabric I wanted to use where and then laid them out in order. There will be three rows of triangles and parallelograms that form the bottom section of the quilt.

Blank areas will be where white pieces go. Really happy that I have enough left of the white-on-white tiny footprint fabric for this quilt!

Monday, May 18

During siesta Ivan took a pickax and shovel back behind the casita to dig out trees that had started growing right up against the house. We never go back there because the back of the casita sits right on the property line and our fence starts at the edge of the casita. Anyway, when Ivan went to start sealing and painting that back wall the other day, he discovered the trees. What a hot, sweaty job! And in the process he found something that confirmed our suspicions that we have a leak in the wall :(  So he started digging into the wall in different areas, trying to find the leak. We were really hoping he could find and fix it from the outside.

Sadly he wasn't able to...

Tuesday, May 19

...so this morning he tore into the wall inside the house. We were pretty sure it was in the wall between the kitchen and bath and, hoping to avoid breaking up tile in the bath, he started on the kitchen side.

Thankfully he found the leak and fixed it. Or at least we hope so! We're letting things set up and dry out a bit right now. Ivan is helping on a project over at the church this afternoon so when he returns we'll turn the water back on.

Since there has been no water to wash dishes, clean or do laundry, I happily started working on the baby quilt.

This is the top row of the bottom section. After tracing, stay-stitching all the lines on the bias and cutting out each piece with an exact 1/4" seam allowance, I laid them on the ironing board and took this photo for reference. I really don't want to accidentally sew the wrong pieces together and then have to use the seam ripper. See the little blue piece off by itself? I had hoped to use that fabric for one of the triangles but that is some seriously frustrating stuff to work with! While stay-stitching it stretched out of shape. Ugh! So I chose another fabric to use in its place. Now I'm ready to start hand sewing the pieces together, being careful to match points.