dishwasher blues

Well, the good news is now I know WHY you don't use dish soap in a dishwasher. No, it wasn't me, it was my roommate. A few weeks ago I noticed the mat by the sink was wet, like someone had dropped a pot of water on it. I assumed my roommate had had a mishap with some water, no big deal. She mentioned to me a few days later that when she had run the dishwasher, some water had leaked out. I had noticed soap "stains" at the base of the dishwasher and realized that's where they came from. I thought, hm, is the dishwasher broken? I told her we'd just keep an eye on it next time the dishwasher ran. A last second thought caused me to ask her what soap she used ... ta da, that's the problem! She used regular dish soap. Apparently, she's not used to dishwashers. I showed her where the dishwasher soap was and let her know to use it and only it from now on.

Fast forward to today. My kitchen needed mopping and sweeping and I thought to wipe off the soap stains from the bottom front of the dishwasher. Of course, that leads me to loading the dishwasher with a couple of plates in the sink and that's when I noticed it ... standing water! Yeah, from the dish soap incident - neither of us eats at home that much. I unloaded the dishwasher, mopped out all the water, and wiped down the insides. I then googled. Apparently, using dish soap can cause this issue. So I decided to run a test run. Within a few minutes there was lots of bubbles in the bottom of the dishwasher, from the remaining dish soap in the pump. I know, an icky thought! From what I googled, I saw that adding white vinegar would help. So I've got an empty dishwasher running with a cup or so of vinegar, waiting for bubbles, water, or nothing. I'm aiming for the nothing. To be safe, I'm babysitting from the kitchen table, lol.

If all goes well, we'll say that was the issue. Then I'll be heading to walmart for a few things I need around here.

I had hoped to finish piecing the wallhanging I'm making from Saturday's workshop, but at this point that's not happening tonight. I took my 16 blocks, laid them out 4 x 4, and added a 1" purple sashing/inner border (totally inspired by Bonnie!). I need to finish sewing the top purple border and then add the bottom purple border - the bobbin ran out of thread and I ran out of time to deal with it this morning. I have a brown that I'm using for the outer border. I think it frames it nicely. I'll probably do a 3" border, maybe 4". It will be around 27" - 30" square. I need to check how much I have of the brown, because I want to use it for my binding as well. Since this is "My Bonnie Quilt", I think I'm going to hand quilt it using Baptist fans, like she does a lot. It will go up on a wall in my sewing room when finished.

So far so good - guess that means I have to mop the floor completely on my own, lol.

~QB29