Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Up in the studio. Not much new happening around here. One day is nice the next is cold and windy. At least the ice is completely gone now. I think I will hold off on going swimming though. 

The sunsets are getting pretty again with the reflections. This was from last night.

There is no beach in front of the house, water right up to the retaining wall.  Don’t have to worry too much about raking the beach yet. I do put the waders on from time to time to pull branches etc. out of the pond. I haven’t seen the float part again that Carol mentioned last time. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. I did pull a 25’ or so tree out of the pond, it had hung up on the other end of the beach. It’s up by the splitter now waiting to be added to the wood pile. 

Carol and I went to the storage facility today to visit our stash. We needed to go fabric shopping for quilt backs. I took about 10 bolts down and swapped them for different ones. Now the same fabrics won’t show up as much in my quilts. 

When we came back from the storage facility, two of our up the pond neighbors were cutting up and removing a big piece of tree that was hanging over Old County Road. Lord knows the town would never get around to it. They put it on the ground and I went out and cleaned up most of the mess and brought home two loads of wood. Or two jags of wood as Carol’s father would have said. I’ll go back and probably get a couple more around the same location. I am going to need to figure out where the next couple wood piles are going to go, as there is a lot of downed wood laying around.

I just wish I had more energy. I used to get up early to go at it all day and half the evening. I sleep in now until usually after 8 and seldom get outside to do anything until after my brunch. So I don’t get going until after 11, by 2:30 I am becoming aware I am overdoing it, by 3:30 I’m napping. Some difference, but I guess I’m still doing something. 

It needs to warm up and stay there, I need some campfires to burn some up of all the damn wood or I’ll have to go back to quilting during the days when I run out of places to put it.

I collect branches and sticks in big plastic barrels. Much like a 55 gallon drum. So far I have collected, trimmed and burnt about 25 of the barrels. I loose count easily, probably why I end up with so many orphan blocks when I’m quilting.

Speaking of quilting, I haven’t gotten too far on #9 for 2024 yet. Well technically I have, except most has been going on in my head. I have been going through bins again trying to bring more order to my chaos of scraps. I had decided that #9 was going to be centered around 1-1/2” finished units and maybe 1” finished units as well. The units would be 4-patches, half squares, V-blocks, Corner Beams and I think I saw some Square in Square in there as well. 

I have made up and trimmed a few thousand of them. Now I just need to come up with a way to tie them all together. I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I listen to my book while I make up units, V-blocks and Corner Beams, to get rid of the piles of side triangles I found in those bags and bins. I refer you back to my earlier comment, I tend to loose count so I often don’t bother. I have been throwing them in bags and bins saying time will tell if I ever use them. Well, time has told. I still have a rather large pile of side triangles to get attached to something and trimmed. Hopefully, this evening will see them all gone. I will use all those with friends because I need right and left side pieces. The unfriendly will be eliminated or thrown. Terrible thought, but I think I can do it. 

My current chaos of those pieces. 

My bin of 1-1/2” units all trimmed and ready.

My bin of 1” units ready to go as well. 

Maybe next time I will have some blocks assembled. That is assuming the voices in my head stop arguing and arrive at a plan of action. We’re thinking 12” finished blocks made up of these units. All the blocks will probably be different to some degree. Remember it is a scrap quilt so several of the ideas can be tried. Time will tell.

Enjoy your week, the weather will be typical here in Maine, I’m sure. Typical means, wait a minute it will be something different. Until next time stay safe.