Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Good morning, Today is Monday, a day that used to signal the beginning of the new work week. That ship has sailed, or as I would say, that toilet has flushed.

Now that I am retired everyday is Monday, or Thursday, or Sunday. They are all the same, except for Tuesday ~ that is the day that the backup generator runs for 15 minutes and does whatever magic it does while it runs. We have grown to center our lives around Tuesdays.

Last week was special. I was in the bathroom when generator start up was to occur. Now to be honest, I was not really aware that it was startup time. Until it didn’t. That’s right, I heard a split second sound of the generator firing up… then it stopped. A couple seconds later I heard it again try to start, almost no crank, just a brief try and quit. I called to Carol “that’s two” ~ I heard 4-5 total tries to start then nothing.

I went out and looked at the generator and lifted the cover and thought about the same thing I do when I pop the hood of a vehicle. Yup, that’s a motor thingy. I then took a picture of the fault display.

I proceeded to override the code and try to start the motor thingy up. It did the same thing as before and shut off on code. Next I proceeded to call the number on the invoice that we just received as this was only the third Tuesday we had experienced since the first annual overhaul of the generator.

Long story short, generator tech tells me that he can’t get it to do it again and everything works as it should. If we have further issues to call. Two days later I get a $350 invoice for the tech’s services. Tomorrow is Tuesday, the question is, will the generator remind me that it is?

On the topic of Rona 11, my part is complete. I made another top. I have no idea what we are going to do with all the tops. I argue that they are more interesting to store than just bins of little pieces. Trust me I have lots of those also.

As I mentioned last time, I started 11 from a graph paper sketch. 

The lighter fabric now being used to wrap around the 4 patch units I was trying to get rid of worked much better.

Nope on this one ~ too dark

Much better

The banding frame around the outside of the block gave me a sharp contrast to the grey I chose for the sashing strips. I chose to pop the corners with Studio 180’s Corner Pop 2 instead of using the V-Block tool I usually use. This eliminated several seams I would needed if I had used my V-Block tool.

I threw the 4-patch on point to add more interest to the sashing strips. I then used this graph paper sketch to figure out a border. 

I returned to the small 4-patch on point to obtain the border pattern. The challenge was to keep all the small 4-patch throughout the quilt going in the same orientation. Overall I was very pleased with this top. Hope you enjoy it as well.

Rona 12 turned out to be a baby quilt top I threw together from some orphan blocks from another scrap bin. 

Rona 13 will be another orphan block quilt. I found a bunch of cut fabric from quite a while ago along with some completed blocks. The brain is playing with something. May take another day’s walk or two before something shows up on paper.

Meanwhile I have started marking out the painting project mentioned here.

Never a dull moment here as we wait for Tuesdays to roll around.

Until next time, enjoy. Remember, where ever you go, there you are, if I’m supposed to meet you there and you get there first, draw a blue line where we planned to meet. If I get there first, I’ll rub it out.