Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

In the studio. 

The weather has changed it’s mind a great many times in the last few days. First we had the real hot weather last week then wind and rain knocked off most of the rest of the brown pine needles off the pine trees. Now sitting and looking out along the pond the big pines look a lot greener. They still look like real old pines, but at least a little greener. 

Of course after the pine needles fell off they landed in the pond and on the driveway. Those that landed in the pond ended up on the beach. 

With some help that was visiting our neighbors, we managed to get the majority of them cleaned up. Those that landed on the driveway were blown off again.

With the torrential rains we endured I think we lost about a foot of our beach. I find it difficult to imagine the rain coming down any harder. At least there was no wind, my little garden beds are not big fans of the wind. The sky between showers was pretty, the sky was getting ready to give us another thunder shower. 

Windy and threatening rain is why I’m in the studio. It will give me an excuse to stay inside and work on quilt #16 for 2024. That means that I finished #15. Carol has finished quilting #14 for 2024 and it is ready to trim. Here’s a glimpse. 

2024-14

With #15 I used an idea I tried on #14 of using a row of four patches with a strip of fabric on either side of them. I did this on #14 but decided to carry the idea a little further and see what I could get. I decided to use a frame of four patches in the center, then used a framed four patch inner border. I followed this with a pieced border of the colored squares like in the body of the quilt. I then used another framed four patch border followed by a plain border to end it all and get the size where I wanted it. This one measures 65” x 72”. 

2024-15

A glance out the window just now tells me that the needles have not all been cleaned up yet. 

 

That tells me that Mother Nature has yet again given me something to do. 

The large portion of today was spent repairing damage to the driveway done by those torrential rains I mentioned earlier. I guess I should be thankful, both for something to do and the ability to do most of it and that the damage was not worse. I did not need the pine needles on the beach to clean up for something to do as I still have wood up on the hill to split. I would have gotten some exercise somewhere. Sometimes I miss walking.

Oh well, there are four patches in quilt #16 as well. I think I did do the math on this one. I need 441 four patches. Do you see why I don’t do the math first? No matter how you look at it, that is a lot of four patches. Oh but wait, remember the last four tops all have about as many as that in each one of them.

I did achieve my goal of getting all the 2” strips to fit in one of the two drawers under our cutting table. Therefore those four quilts, which you all have to agree look better than a drawer of strips, have their own special value. For quilts, as we all know, have no real value. Most any of the last couple years quilts I would sell for $600 but how? We have been fortunate to have been able to gift some to friends and family, but face it……. I make too many quilts.

There I said it. I don’t see it changing though, I almost see it getting worse. I look around in the studio and see that if it took four quilt tops to bring a small drawer of strips under control, how many hundred will it take to bring all the drawers of half yard cuts under control. How many hundred tops are in the drawers of all the other cut pieces, all sized and sorted and ready to go. Then go to the storage unit and look at all the bolts of fabric and think about the thousands of quilts I need to make to use it up. 

I have too much fabric. Backs are using up bolts faster than I am in quilts. I have been using little pieces. I need to learn to like bigger pieces. I have tried it. I will try again. #16 may lean me that way, time will tell.

I think our weather should be ok this week so that probably means beach patrol and wood splitting and stacking. That is going to be forced to come to an end before too long as I am running out of stackable space. That means I need more camp fires, which cuts into sewing time. This creates the conundrum of do I have the campfire and burn the wood to create space for more, or stay in the studio and use up fabric and turn it into quilts I will then need to give away to create space to put more. I feel almost like the mouse on the spinning wheel, I just keep going around and around.

I was never aware retirement was going to be so stressful. 

 Enjoy your week and stay safe.