Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Monday evening in the studio. Nice day today, just bloody cold. I spent most of the day inside. I had to go to the grocery store, not my favorite chore. I suppose someone has to do it. They keep moving stuff around to keep us old folks on our toes. I manage most trips to get what was on the list and try to think of a few more ideas that might work as a meal or a snack. Sometimes the idea works, sometimes it gets sampled than thrown, not usually at least. That’d good.

Carol told you last time about my struggles on the beach. After she posted that I took a picture of the tractor headed off the beach with load #41 after the three day Wednesday through Friday attack. 

Only to wake up to this on Saturday morning. 

I cleaned it up and now I think I have it so that wheelbarrows can get the rest of the remaining leaves. I would love to get the snowblower attached at my leisure, not an “oh shit” moment of snow in the forecast. It will be coming. It’s like the cold I mentioned last time, I complain about it when it is coming, but put up with it once it’s here.

The cold weather brings me inside more which means , you guessed it, more sewing time. Not really much else to do.

Quilt #37 for 2023 is complete, the top anyway. I did go with more 5” finished blocks that I joined with an 1-1/2” sashing and a purple corner stone. I decided to make half of the blocks pinwheels and half 4-patch. This allowed the two different blocks to run diagonally in either direction. Thought it was a nice effect. I calmed down the sashing so the pinwheels could stand out, by using the same fabric I had used building the larger blocks. I popped at 6 inch on my Corner Pop III and replaced with the same purple I used as the corner stones. I think it all tied together rather well.

2023-37

Quilt #38 for 2023 is complete as well. On this one I used some orphan blocks. Some were old guild blocks that never reached being a quilt, or sample blocks showing techniques etc. from back in shop days. 

2023-38

Carol is amazed that I keep finding them and keep finding interesting ways to utilize them. So for, so good, but as you know, time will tell. 

On #38 I used the larger blocks as my block size and enlarged as necessary with neutral fabric. 12” finished was the magic number for blocks for this quilt top. Using that number I decided I could use 2-1/2” as the sashing strips with a 2-1/2” border and have a 60” x 75” cuddle quilt that would make someone happy. I decided to keep it simple and only popped stars into the  the middle of the top but used my favorite Square-In-Square units as corner stones. The popped stars were created using my Corner Pop II this time to mimic the V-Block but eliminating the seams. I think the bright blue carried the blocks well. I hope you enjoy.

We had a surprise visitor today. My brother, Greg, stopped in on a brief visit in Maine as he did medical stuff. He was here briefly as he made a mad dash between commitments seeing people before heading back out of state.

I am rather surprised by the lack of birds after the amount of birds the last couple seasons. I put up feeders and suet last Thursday and other than a raccoon pulling it over and taking the suet we had not seen anything until a couple of Chick-a-dees stopped by today. Maybe they will spread the word. You got it, time will tell.

The weather will be what Maine weather is, whatever it wants to be. The weather people say it shouldn’t be too bad until the weekend. I don’t really know how to interpret that. I’m retired, everyday is a weekend. One more thing I’ve grown to live with. It cuts down on anticipation, I always liked being next. It’s not my turn, but I know it’s coming and soon, because… I’m next. Like the weekend it’s coming soon.

May you enjoy the rest of your week, stay safe and may you experience the feeling of next instead of just being ticked off at the person in front of you that is taking to dang long.