Dan's Ramblings

Dan here,

Yesterday was a beautiful day, I hope it proves to be a trend towards warmer weather. My view out the window of the studio last night. 

Truth be told, the temperatures have not been too bad, the problem has been the wind. Get out of the wind and it feels rather warm. The wind finally let up enough on Sunday to rake up the beach, it won’t last, but at least the waves can’t bury the debris. It wouldn’t take too many years of neglect before the beach would be disappear. It has already happened on one end of the beach.

I continue to walk every day, I passed the 700 mile marker this past week. Writing that made me go check and compare this year to last year. Almost wish I hadn’t. 4/29/2021 841 miles 4/29/2022 713 miles. I guess I was doing better last year.

Seeing lots of May Flowers on our walks now and I should see a few other wildflowers before too long. The fun starts when the Lady Slippers arrive on the scene. In past few years I have found patches numbering in the dozens. Very pretty, I’ll keep you posted.

I am having a difficult time digesting that it is May already. Carol and I joke each week about how fast the weeks go by. The generator runs on Tuesday and the next day is Friday. Oh well, I guess it could be worse. At least I don’t have to go to work somewhere. Been there, done that, I threw the tee shirts away. The ones I wear now no longer have my name on the pocket, most days I still know what it is. Doesn’t really matter though, most days I only see Carol and she seldom uses my name. When I talk to myself I almost never use my name. If I refer to myself by a name I would be much more apt to use the nickname Perk. When I do hear myself referred to as that, I know I’m talking to myself because I don’t know anyone else who ever used that as my nickname. Enough rambling, I was just giving you a glimpse into the scary world of Perk, aren’t you grateful it was only a glimpse? Remember I have to live there.

Thank you all for the nice comments regarding our newest venture of quilt donations to the Dempsey Center. I have been making various versions of the Broken or Tossed Nine patch tops. This is one of the latest two I completed in blue.

Carol has Lena all ready to perform her dance moves across this one. I am working on a green one now. After that, I will be moving back to my scrap and orphan block quilts. Only now they will be designed slightly smaller so they can be used as Dempsey quilts instead of big store in the box/bag quilts.

Something will need to be done with the 20 quilts that are scheduled to be exhibited at Maine Quilts in July someday. I would entertain the idea of exhibiting them elsewhere, but honestly, I probably will not actively solicit another venue. Instead I would consider selling some of them. We have a great many stored around that I’m sure would be loved by someone. That becomes the million dollar question and the topic of several different blogs.

What does one do with completed quilts? 

They represent many, many hours of time and for a big quilt, several hundred dollars in fabric and batting. This makes quilting a very expensive hobby, especially if when needing storage space were one to begin randomly giving away quilts. I have seldom been able to do that. If I gave you a quilt, especially a one of a kind original, rest assured I felt the need to show that you meant something in my life. As an example, the tossed Nine Patch tops I’ve been making take about 20-25 hours from start to bound completion. They require between 5 and 6 yards of fabric plus the batting. I think you begin to get my point, quilting is an expensive hobby. If I did not have an abundance of fabric at my disposal to find a use for, I doubt I would be going out to purchase all the necessary materials to make donation quilts. Too expensive of a hobby. If I were buying my fabric, I honestly doubt I would be still quilting. I certainly have no need for more quilts or the storage space for them.

I have a few ideas on the subject of the expense of quilt making, but they still require some more thought and some time bouncing around in my head.

Remember, not all thoughts are good ones so I need to work through this one a little before sharing it with you. It just might turn out to be one of those worthless thoughts. Ask Carol, a great many of those “dumb” thoughts get out of my mouth without being filtered. This might be a good one. Hopefully, it will all come out right in the end, so if it’s not right yet, it must not be the end.

Enjoy your week.