Dan's Ramblings

Dan here, I was too cold for a fire, so am in the studio. Not much going on here. Nice sunset this evening.

I managed a little walk today, enough to bring the year’s total to just over 1660 miles. I need a couple of real good weeks to get a little breathing room in case I get sick or the weather is just too lousy to walk. I am finding it a lot easier to walk now that the weather is cooling off. Probably why I saw many 50 mile weeks last winter. I need a few of them now.

Was picking up some acorns off the lawn and would throw them into the fireplace. As I was headed to dispose of a handful I noticed a deer tick crawling around on my hand. I dispatched it and went to find something else to do.

I spent a couple hours at the car dealers on Wednesday. Air conditioner not working …. again. I drive a 2019 Ford Ranger. I bought it used with about 8000 miles on it in 2019. I turns out it was a Ford lemon law buy back vehicle. 

 Meaning Ford bought back the vehicle because they could not repair it to the satisfaction of the original owner. I have put about 12,000 miles on it and have had no issues until the end of July when the air conditioner stopped blowing cold air. I am amazed at how spoiled we all are, it is so much easier to control the inside car temperature utilizing the vehicle’s ventilation system than to use the windows. 

Anyway, I made an appointment and they found a blown seal and said that I had lost all my freon. They replaced an ‘o’ ring and added new freon and it worked coolingly. (not really a word, but any one who knows me knows that I am prone to make them up when I can’t think of one that works. You knew what I meant did you not?) 

Fast forward five weeks or so, you guessed it, no cold air again. Wednesday was that second appointment. This time they say the compressor is leaking. Of course they had to order a replacement, so I have another appointment for mid October. By the way, were you wondering what the reason was why Ford bought back the vehicle? If you guessed the reason was that the ventilation system would not function correctly, you are a winner. We shall see how this all plays out.

Progress continues on my pieced border for the current project. I really need to come up with a name for the quilt. I have arrived at no plausible ideas yet. Hopefully something will come to me. I am open to suggestions. My process as I sew each evening is to pin and prepare for sewing as many of the different pieces as I can using up my entire pincushion. (remember my pincushion with the patch?)

Then I will sew them all, re-fill the pincushion, press, trim if necessary and proceed to do it all again. 

Kinda reminds me of the directions on the bottle of Head & Shoulders that I used as a kid. Lather, rinse and repeat. Only I cut, pin, sew, press, trim and repeat. So far I have only worked on the V-block stars and the sashing strip units. I may start some flying geese tonight so I don’t end with nothing but flying geese left to do. I haven’t figured out exactly how many flocks of geese I will need. Rough figure is between 300 and 350. It depends on how many square-in-a-square units I use. 

In the block I used four geese then a square-in-a-square then four geese etc. I don’t really know exactly what that final border will look like. I will use up the rest of the darker, original green and randomly mix them in with all the rest which will be made using the second green. I figure I will do it like I normally do, make some of the units, throw them on the floor along side the body of the quilt and see what I like. I will then make decisions from there, followed by making whatever units that decision now requires. Process usually works for me. Hopefully it will this time.

I have figured out something making all these ninety six plus square sashing strip sets, I have cut down and used some fabric that I would never have otherwise used anywhere else. The reason, it was just too blinking ugly. But when I ultimately only see a half inch square of it, I guess I can live with it. That is ultimately the purpose of this scrap quilt series isn’t it? Use up fabric. Wasn’t it Bonnie Hunter that said if the fabric is ugly cut it into small pieces, if its still ugly, cut it into even smaller pieces? I think she was on to something, it seems to work.

So off to sew, enjoy your weekend, I will try as well. 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.