Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, currently sitting out by the fire. Nice day, not too warm and not too breezy.

Kind of a dull sunset.

Sometimes, peaceful and relatively calm is not a bad thing. Overall not too bad weather wise. Forecast does not impress me much though. Everything I have planted is just saying, “why bother”. 

The weather is not very conducive to growing. Time will tell, money has been spent, flowers and all plants have just about been planted. 

I say just about because last summer towards the end of the growing season I figured out that the tomato plant that had seeded out in front of the planter was the real little ones that Carol and the grand-niece Annie liked. I kept it alive covering it when it was cold and when I finally obtained fruit, I smooched it onto a paper plate and allowed it to dry. Saved the seeds and planted them this spring. These are the results. 

 

I gave the rest of the seedlings to Annie’s mother, Kelsi. I will build another planter to put them in in the next couple days. That should just about get rid of the scrap lumber I have kicking around.

The only thing is where I want to put the soon to be new tomato planter is right where several day lilies currently reside. 

I am opting to give them to the neighbor and go plant them on her property and will tend them from there. This will remove them from where they are now and allow me to see what these tomatoes will do. Nothing a little Yankee finagling can’t accomplish.

The quilting project I was working on has been completed. It developed into nothing that the original ideas were headed for. You know the old saying, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.” Well that sure happened this time. My original calculations were to use 24 of the larger blocks and 50 of the smaller blocks and 52 of the middle blocks or something like that. I questioned myself and convinced myself I need 28 large blocks, only to find out that in this case Timmy was right. Timmy is one of the voices in my head. His ideas are usually the bad ones. You know “why not throw a few 16-patch into those 2” finished blocks. So I now have 4 “extra” 7-1/2” finished blocks and to tell you the truth I have not even counted how many of the 5” blocks I have left over. I have not developed the desire to count them yet. The small 3” finished blocks, however, I needed several more to finish the layout.

This quilt almost broke my brain. I’m serious, it almost snapped. I always design my quilts from the inside out. A series of blocks then borders, etc. This one I designed from the outside going in. I built the frame with the larger blocks, then figured out how to fill it in with the blocks of the sizes. It was the sashing strips that were the interesting part. Different widths to get the math to work, got it eventually, had to turn off the tunes, but made it work. Fun concept for a change. Don’t know if I will go that route again real quick. I think this worked though. 

2023-25

Now to figure out where to get rid of the other blocks that were created during this process. I’m into scraps now so I’m sure this will not be an issue. The thing is though, about the scraps, they never seem to stop reproducing. I am also wondering how small some of them need to be cut before they are no longer ugly. Also it seems that it is the ugly ones that are breeding. I mentioned that I may need to sneak some out to the trash when no one is looking. Carol’s comment was “I’ll look the other way, go for it.”

Well next for me is the quilt Carol mentioned last she talked to you is the special one. I spent most of today designing it and will start on construction tonight. I’ve go a deadline, so until next time ~ stay safe, stay dry and enjoy.