Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Not much happening here on the pond. It has snowed most of the day, it has amounted to about an inch and a half. I don’t think that we are supposed to get much anyway. It doesn’t really seem like winter with so little snow. At least it has not been terribly cold either.

It gets hot in the evenings (all the time really) up in our sewing studio. It is common for me to open the window towards the pond and stick my head out to cool off. While doing so I like to see if I can see anything on the pond. The other night I looked out and saw tracks where something had entered the beach going between us and the neighbors. I said to myself, dang I missed it. I knew it was me because I recognized my voice. Went back to sewing and looked out again a little later and saw more tracks all over the pond about 30’ from shore. When I checked the next day I could see where deer had been walking around on the pond and also munching out on some of the neighbor’s trees. I’m not a big fan of the deer, there are way too many of them with fewer people hunting them than in the past. Their numbers just increase the numbers of the coyotes. I hear them hunting fairly often as I sit out by the fire during warm weather.

I played close attention as I worked on the third version of the 64-patch block quilts. I did not want to have too many extras left over this time because I was ready to move on to something else. I completed the 24 needed 64-patch blocks and decided I was looking for a totally different look than the previous two quilts. The idea was still to create some interest in the sashing strips so the blocks fade into the background and become space filling blocks.  This is what I came up with. 

I did away with the sashing strip border used on the first two and I used my Corner Pop III to get the wonky star. This wonky effect works well to keep your eyes moving around. I will say though, that these last three quilts have gotten rid of a large number of 2” squares. I have started now working on the 3-1/2” squares I have two to three small bins of them. 

To begin with I am making random 4-patch blocks and trimming them to 5” finished. It just so happens that I have two large ziplock bags of 5-1/2” squares. 

That happens to be the size of the large square needed when making 2”x4” Flying Geese. I think some of these will be procured to go with the 4-patches currently being made and trimmed. Still ruminating on the project as I accumulate 4-patches. 

I’ve got to be careful, I’m not used to working with such large pieces. The large pieces cover some real estate rather quickly. I’m still trying to keep the quilt size around 55” x 75” so then they can be used as Dempsey Center donation quilts if I’m not able to sell any of them. I see a lot more than three quilts in the 3-1/2” squares bins. Much like the 2-1/2” bin I started with back in 2019, there are quite a few squares in there. The 2-1/2” bin yielded 15 or 16 quilts, most of our exhibit last summer came from that bin.

I wonder what I’ll come up with to keep them different from each other and from the earlier ones. Some may be copied and they are all being primarily from scraps so they will be different even if somewhat alike.

So enjoy your weekend stay safe with whatever Mother Nature has to offer wherever you are, and remember wherever you go, there you are.