There are getting to be more and larger dark spots on the pond surface. Hopefully it will continuing to get darker and then disappear completely. We haven’t really felt comfortable walking on it much this year anyway, I will be glad to see it go. When the pond is water it is a lot easier to tell if it’s windy or raining.
Carol was busy loading and began the quilting on #19 today as well.
I finished #20 for 2023 Wednesday night.
I am very pleased with how it came out, eventually. (I’ll get to the explanation of that later, this is my ramblings after all)
On #20 I decided to make a larger block. I had been using four 5 inch 4-patch units to get 10” finished blocks. This time I decided to still use four 5 inch 4-patch units but to put a sashing strip with a cornerstone in the center so I could have a V-block star in the center of the block. This increased my block from 10 inch to 12 inch. I opted to pop just one side of the sashing strips between the blocks. I popped at 4-1/2” with my Corner Pop III. This gave me the lopsided star for further interest. I hope you enjoy.
You may have wondered how I end up with so many orphan blocks. Yes, a lot of them are demo blocks from back when we did shows or demoed at the store. Carol has said many times before, I seldom count units as I make them, this leads to “extras” as well. Often I used to make several units as I started a quilt, only to realize I wasn’t crazy about the color combinations. I would throw them aside and start over with different fabrics. More orphans. Don’t really have that problem with the scrappy quilts I have been making for the last several years. A few get created but I just hide them in another quilt. On some I will remove certain 4-patch units as they may blend too closely with what I plan on using as my accent fabrics.
On #20, for instance, I pulled the dark blues and blacks so they would not blend in with the dark blue of the sashing strips. Slightly selective scrappy I call it. Back to my methods of how I create orphan blocks, in a nut shell, I screw up.
On all the rest of the 2023 series, I think, all of them used a 2-1/2” sashing strip. Due to size restraints for this quilt, I went with 2” instead. I like the look of smaller V-block star anyway. Therein lay the problem. I proceeded to make the twelve square-in-square units that I needed. Those of you that are on your toes know exactly where this is going, you got it, I proceeded to create twelve 2-1/2” square in square units NOT the twelve 2” units I needed. Right there 12 orphans were born. ( told you I’d get there)
Both Carol and I have mentioned before that a fair amount of our time is spent looking out the window. Looking at either the birds or just at the constant changes that living on the pond affords us. The other day I was looking out at the two Mourning Doves that were poking around at what I scatter for them as well as what their bird friends knock onto the ground for them. As I am watching I see that what turned out to be the male, is puffing up his chest and they both begin to gently peck at each others necks and back. Then suddenly one mounts the other (in retrospect this is how we determined the sex of the birds) and in a flash it’s over. He was looking for a smoke long before I could have found my phone for a picture. Carol said she wouldn’t have used the picture had I obtained one. She said it would be too embarrassing for the doves to have their deed plastered for all to see on Facebook.
The forecast is for snow/sleet/rain or in other words a normal spring storm is coming. Hopefully snowblowing won’t be needed, but will be done if required. Stay safe and enjoy your weekend. I’ll try, hopefully I don’t hurt myself thinking up an idea for #21 for 2023.
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