Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Sunday evening. I trust you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving Day celebrating it however you deemed it appropriate. Carol and I went to Vanessa’s house in Readfield to be joined by Erin, her friend, Keith and Parker. Evan had to work.  Candy, Vanessa’s mother-in-law, joined the table as well. A pleasant gathering of family on the annual, let’s get together and eat holiday.

I think the leaves on the beach have been conquered. Not totally though, as long as the pond remains water and not ice, debris will continue to arrive on the beach for you know who to retrieve. 

Found an interesting new arrival as I raked up leaves, I kept finding sticks and even large segments of the alders including small trees. 

Much like the rooster that waited up all night to see where the sun went, it dawned on me that beavers have been busy pruning the pond’s vegetation around this end of the pond. 

I also found where they come down the banking into the pond. The path they have made shows they come right out their back door, run up the hill out of Winter Brook, across our walking path and bebop down the bank into the pond. I see no real sign they are dragging stuff home. A great number of the branches and sticks I retrieve have been stripped of their bark. Maybe after the pond freezes the pruning will end. I hope so, they don’t follow esthetic pruning practices. I guess now I’ll go shorten up their stumps. At least the trees they have chopped down have been less than 2” in diameter.

I had an interesting change of pace on Saturday. During a party here at the pond in late August I had given Carol’s cousin Gene, who had flown his helicopter into Oxford airport to attend, a pair of new aviation headsets from my fixed wing flying days. I said I’ll trade, you come give me a ride sometime and we’ll call it even. I thought, time will tell. Well here is an example of where we get to find out that yes, time did tell and I got my ride. 

I met him at the Oxford airport and we flew out over Bethel, Waterford and along area where I had no real idea where we were, other than the map display on the iPad in my lap. We flew real low over some bogs and forest looking for deer and moose. Nothing. I had never been up in a chopper before and found it to be a lot of fun, I’ll probably stick to quilting though. 

Speaking about quilting, since I rambled last I have completed both quilts #39 and #40 for 2023. 

#39 was centered around some orphan 9” finished blocks. I felt the blocks needed something to tie them together and calm them down. I first chose 12" finished as the block size I wanted to use, then added neutral borders to the orphan blocks to get then to this size. 

After the light frame, I felt the sashing could be a little on the darker side. I chose a medium with dark print batik for the sashing. I then chose to use my Corner Pop III @ 4-1/2" for the red replacement star and on the blue side I used my Corner Pop II @ 3". This gave me two different heights of star points that both met in the middle, they also did not come to the edge of the block. This meant that the Square-in Square-corner stones which would meet in the middle as well but the points of the two would not. I hope you enjoy. Was a fun quick top. 60" x 75".

2023-39

For #40 I again turned to my orphan blocks. People ask where I get so many orphan blocks. If truth be told, these orphans were made intentionally. They were created with too much time on my hands and no direction to aim for, so I just made lots of different 4-1/2” finished nine patch units. Figuring some day I’d use them, I guess this is another example where time told, because I used them all and had to make some more to arrive at this quilt.  

2023-40

I assembled the nine patch blocks in groups of four and separated them with a 1” black sashing. This brought me to a 10” block. I decided I had liked the look on #39 of the neutral frame so decided to do it again. 

This meant I again had 12” blocks. Next #40 became different than #39. I used my Corner Pop III and popped at 7-1/2", I don’t know if I ever popped that far up the side before. It sure meant I spent a lot longer pushing them through the sewing machine than I usually do with my normal little pieces. With that for a pop it meant the base would be all star point. 

I decided to alternate the stars with the red and the green and incorporated the two into the corner stones. I was very pleased with the outcome of this top. Sometimes not so much, this one I like. I hope you do as well. It seems bright and happy.

The weather seems to want to get colder which means less time spent out doors. I may have to start walking everyday again to get some exercise. Stay safe and enjoy these last few days before Mother Nature freezes us over.

Until next time.