Dan's Ramblings

Dan here, Thursday, Thanksgiving Evening. I hope you spent the day wherever it was that worked best for you. Many spent the day with family and friends, many had to work and I’m sure many stayed home alone. Wherever you were, I hope you felt blessed and found something to be thankful about.

Carol and I went to our oldest daughter’s home and enjoyed dinner and way too much pie with her family and her Mother-in-law. A wonderful day was enjoyed by all. They only live an hour or so away so not too much time was spent on the road. Traffic was light so not too bad. I could have used a nap after all that I ate, but I got us home.

This morning I was actually out of bed early enough to see a sunrise, or at least the tail end of one. 

Remember, I sew until around 1:00 AM so am, not apt to get up before 8:30. Sunrises are long gone by then. 

 I got up to cook the small boiling onions and the squash I had prepared last night. I also made a batch and a half of apple crisp or as Mother called it, Deep Dish Apple Pie. We did not really have enough room in the fridge to have cooked everything the night before. And anyway, this way the crisp was still warm when we arrived at my daughter’s house.

I made the repairs to #20, I removed the wrong blocks and replaced them with the correct ones so that the four with the tiny squares in the centers are now placed in the corners. I only screwed up two times as I placed the blocks wrong twice so they needed to be removed and reset again. Yep, I did that then did it again.

It’s done and binding cut. 

I actually spent a couple of nights with no project to work on, if you can believe that. I do not normally have more than one quilt top under production at any one time. So when I finish one I move on to the project the voices in my head are beginning to talk about. That is not the case this time.

I have to take a break from my scrap series. I am going to make a quilt for my granddaughter’s best friend. We probably could have found one in our piles of quilts, but in all honesty that thought never crossed my mind. Carol suggested a Hunter Star quilt in blues and grey, the colors that we think she wants. That required a trip to the climate controlled storage unit for some fabric from our stash down there. 

I did not have a chance to get there so that left me with Monday and Tuesday with only a few bindings to cut. I cut them then spent my time cleaning up some of my workspace and cleaning up some of a big basket of fabric. 

By cleaning the fabric, I mean pressing it and cutting it into one of the sizes I save, or press it and if over a half yard fold it and put in the appropriate drawer. Either way I can then pull from them for my future scrap quits or other projects. I don’t mind so much filling the prepared scrap bins now that I am using them. I have used a great many making the first 20 tops and I’m sure that will continue. I have also added some new “sizes” to my save list. I now save a couple of the sizes needed for the flying geese large square. I see a top coming with a lot of 2”x4” flying geese in it. Also tops in the near future will start from the 3-1/2” squares and the 5”charm square bins. They look like the 2-1/2” bin did back when I started my scrap series.

This is the 2 1/2” bin now.

3 1/2” bins 

5" charm square bins. 

As you can see there are a lot of squares there and I am sure I will dream up something to utilize a bunch of it. Unless something happens, quite probably this winter I will see a reduction in these bins. I have no idea of the direction I will take in my future tops. Whether I use them as is or cut them into smaller sized pieces. I just want to see the bins go on a diet.

I made it to the storage unit so the Hunter Star quilt has been started. It has been quite a while since I made a Hunter Star so I had a couple minutes to spend with the directions to refresh my memory. The easy part was remembering the cutting and sewing process. The more difficult side of the project is that of course I am not following a pattern (you probably figured that would be the case) other than the general instructions that come with the Rapid Fire Hunter Star tool. I knew a general size top I wanted so picked a border size to remove from that number and decided on an 8x11 block layout of 7” blocks. Meaning I needed 88 blocks. The problem arose when trying to figure how much fabric I needed for the different pieces. The cutting chart that came with the tool (of which ours is quite old) has a great many errors. Hopefully in later printings the errors were corrected. Trial and error showed me what I needed to do and off I went. Good progress was made the first evening. 
Now I am off to see what I can get done this night.

So enjoy your weekend, we are supposed to get some snow, it would not hurt my feelings terribly if we do not. But as I have said before, I do not get a chance to vote on what we have for weather. I will take what we get. If it is rain it will run off, if it is snow I will relocate it. Nuff said.

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.