Dan's Ramblings

Dan here from in the studio. 

This was a rather nice rainy weekend. The showers were scattered and not violent. That’s a good thing. One of the planters on the wall was blown unto the beach and does not look the greatest but it is the end of the season. I think I can rearrange a couple and eliminate that one and no one will ever know the difference. Most everyone gone now anyway, as the pond becomes quieter by the day, soon there will be just us hand full of year rounders. 

Cleared up quite nicely today, a little chilly, but nice. 

The other night I was privileged to hear several Barred Owls hooting and calling out to each other. Was very interesting to hear. Last night I heard a single owl making repeated calls but none were answered. Have to love nature and all she shares.

Carol was up for a ride in the kayak on Saturday, so around the pond we went. Carol, as usual, was looking for her turtles. 

Beautiful ride, always wonder when the last ride for the season will come. I have no idea where this year has gone, making what I read in a book even sound more true. Only the days are long, the years are short. Remember that and enjoy every day.

I had to do some sewing repairs, not quilting. At least not directly. I had to repair my pin cushion. I know it sounds funny. I have used that pin cushion for a long time. For our first fall Quilt Camp Carol made pincushions with bags attached for everyone. I got one as well. The concept was the pincushion went on the edge of the table and the bag hung over the edge to hold scraps etc. It worked great for years. I eventually decided that it was a pain to always have to have the cushion at the edge of the table, so I cut the bag off. My bad. I at least continued to use the pincushion. Several years ago the fabric on the bottom of the cushion wore through and the crushed walnut shells started leaking out. At that time I sewed a patch onto the bottom and continued to use it. Jump ahead to a couple days ago and I realized that what I thought was cracker crumbs on the sewing table, was in fact the return of the crushed walnut pieces. I again sewed on a patch. You can see some of the old one under the new one. I am not a hand sewer but I made it work. It had no need to be decorative, just functional. Back in business. 

I got the body of the current project complete and have started on the border. I will show you the body because I will be a while piecing the borders. First I have decided to add a sashing border to help finish the body of the quilt. This will mean that at that point my outer edge will be the blue all the way around the quilt. Then before binding I will wrap the entire quilt with a mix of the two green fabrics made into flying geese and square in a square units. Looking much like it does around each block. I think that will finish it up quite nicely. It only adds about 3000 pieces for the borders. I got this, I am already thinking about the amount of scrap pieces I’ll get rid of making the sashing units. If you look close you can see that I also used some half square triangles as part of the 96 block sashing strips. 

Enjoy your week, I’ll do my best. It looks to be a busy week this week. I’ve grown to like un-busy weeks. Oh well, I think I heard somewhere we don’t always get what we want, but we just might get what we need. Lets hope.

So, 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.