Victory of the Week

This week tried really, really hard to prevent me from finishing the purple whirlygig quilt, but I finally prevailed:

and it's now up in the shop.  On to other things, none of which, speaking of them, have moved forward at all.  This week was evil.  I think it was the supermoon. 

I've been dreaming of summer, when the house might actually be warm, and a time that will call for a light little quilt (well, okay, a light freaking gigantic quilt) on the bed, rather than the down comforter.  This is entirely an abstraction; two mornings this week we've awoken to thin but fresh layers of snow, and yesterday morning it was twelve degrees on my porch. 

So yes, I've been thinking about that quilt, and maybe basting it will finally happen this weekend.  The back is still in 26 pieces, and the two really big pieces of backing haven't exactly been ironed yet. 

That was a whole thing.  I've never been on well water before now, but after several months of my iron acting very weird and inconveniently spitting out this dirt-ish, gunky stuff, it dawned on me that hey, that is actually dirt.  Dirt that had been separated from the water that carried it when that water turned to steam inside my iron, then seeped out and got intensely heated over and over again, forming an angry cake of burned dirt on my iron. 

This did not dawn on me until a couple of months after trying several internet iron-cleaning suggestions involving salt and baking soda and elbow grease that barely touched the problem but did leave a helpful coating of steamed baking soda that caked out of the iron's little steam holes every now and then. 

Also, there's been a piece of plastic (or something) rattling around the inside of my iron ever since it fell off my table about 5 years ago.  Just so you have the full iron picture here. 

So anyway, I get wise and figure out that pouring dirt water into my iron is a Bad Idea and that perhaps buying some kind of Official Iron Cleaner is a Good Idea.  I got this Dritz stuff that you use while the iron is hot and it totally worked and also smells good in a way that makes you suspect that it's just mowing down your brain cells left and right, like gasoline or curing vinyl.  I also committed to just getting gallons of store brand spring water to use in the iron, and the iron has been happy and non-dirt-spitty ever since. 

Hope I just solved all of your well water + misbehaving iron problems.  Or maybe you're smart and are just wondering how I've managed to finish a presentable quilt at all.