Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

 

Monday evening. Things have been rather uneventful around here. 

The garbage disposal was leaking the other day so I had to try and locate my plumber’s hat and pull the disposal out and reinstall it. Seems to be ok now. It was an inconvenience, but not the royal pain in the butt like it would have been for most people. Carol just had to listen to the old geezer plumber that showed up complain about not being able to see what he was doing. 

The process reminded me of something my grandfather, the plumber, once told me, “if you have to see what you’re doing under the sink, you’ll never fix much”.  He is more right now than ever before. If I can get my head in position to see something, I’m either too close or can’t get my head cocked into the right position that my double vision allows me to see anything.

What Was I Thinking?

Carol here ~

Sunday I loaded Dan's quilt #42 on Lena and decided to stitch the pattern PEARLS AND PAISLEY on it.  What was I thinking?

It's a very dense quilting pattern, lots of stitching, took almost two hours for Lena to make one pass across the quilt.  Plus there was not enough thread in the bobbin for the whole pass so I had to load a new bobbin mid pass and match the pattern so Lena could continue stitching.  

I don't usually do that.  If I know there is not enough thread in the bobbin for another pass I will load a full one.  

By the end of the quilt I was getting better at it, not quite so much cussing!

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

I think it’s Monday evening, close to midnight. It was a clear cold day today. Breezy at times, but not a really bad day. 

Daughter, Vanessa and her two kids stopped around for a visit today. The kids ran around some on the pond and seemed to have a good time. Granddaughter Kailey had fun standing on the pond watching the crows and ravens flying around. We even got to see some crows harassing a good sized hawk. Kailey has two birds that she keeps in cages in her room. No thanks, but she enjoys them and has learned a lot about them. She is also the one of the grandkids that seems to have gotten most of the drawing talent. Most probably from the Freeman side of the family. Here is an example of her work from an exhibit last past year. 

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. It was a clear cold day. Not really a type of day I enjoy being outside in anymore. Carol and I did manage to get in a walk, at least the wind wasn’t blowing as hard as it was yesterday. Yesterday it was wild, the wind shook the house all day. Today was no way near as bad. The crisp cold gave us a nice sunset on Tuesday evening. 

Feathers!

Carol here ~ 

I love the look of stitched feathers on a quilt, they are so elegant looking.  Before I got my robotics for my longarm in 2019 all my quilting was free motion.  Feathers of all shapes and sizes were my favorite things to stitch and I was pretty good at them if I do say so. 

I was looking back through some photos of quilts that I quilted with feathers so thought I'd give you a show.

Here is one of my favorite quilt jobs that I did for our friend Michelle. Love how the feathers pop and fill the space.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening again. Where does the time go? Not much happening around here. 

We may have to give up on feeding the birds. We enjoy them, but there are too many other animals that want in on the free meal. There are so many deer tracks out front on the pond, it appears that they apparently had quite the party the other night. I haven’t seen them again down here at this end of the pond. I could see the first night where they emptied one feeder and have been chowing down on the neighbors shrubbery. Tracks everywhere.

The deer are no way near the nuisance that the raccoon are. The other night there were three raccoons out there cleaning up everything they could find. They came back later and pulled down one of the suet and munched out a while on it. I was surprised they did not haul it off to finish later. I think the mice and moles cleaned it up the next night. I buy the seed for the birds. Oh well time will tell.

Road Trip

Carol here ~ 

My friend Martha mailed me a couple of table runners and a wallhanging that she wanted me to quilt for her.  I got them done over the weekend.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. The weather has been a bit chilly the last few nights. I haven’t done much outside lately~too cold, too lazy. 

I have been doing more clean up in the quilting loft and making, what I call “building materials”. These are the 4-patches I make in various sizes, half square triangles and currently various versions of 6” finished blocks using them. Then once I have decided on a design for a top I just paw through the pile for the colors and combinations needed and get started.

Two nights ago I decided on the layout for top #4 for 2024. A quick count showed I needed a few more of a the two style of blocks I had chosen to use. Very quickly, I was making whatever else was needed to create the larger block I was planning to use. The next night I was on to the sashing strips etc. Hopefully, by tomorrow night the top will be complete. Then the process will begin again. The whole process happens much quicker when I have the building materials on hand.