Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, it is quite a bit cooler out there this evening which is ok by me. It is also quite breezy as well. So I am in the studio. 

We went for a ride today up to Rangeley to bring a small freezer to Erin. I had put it in the shed here to gain a little space in the freezer in the house. We could use it to be a little bigger so I bought an inexpensive one twice as big as Erin’s now new one. Did that confuse you at all? It did me. Anyway here is the mandatory picture from the Height of Land. 

Not too much has been going on around here this week. It was so hot and humid I spent much of my time up in the air conditioned studio. That was fine by me. 

I was in hopes of getting trike rides in but, alas, the trike has issues and is waiting on parts. No idea if or when it will be up and running again. Beginning to think maybe it’s time to think about getting rid of it. Oh well, time will tell.

Beginning to get more tomatoes but for some reason my cucumbers have stopped blossoming. Read online to hit with fertilizer, so I did that, you guessed it time will tell. It seems every year it’s something else. It is a good thing I’m not relying on my “garden” to survive. I think we would starve.

There has been a mother duck and her young passing between Mud pond and Green and back. It seems in the morning they go one way and in the evening they’re back. Here is an afternoon pass by. 

 We don’t really like them much, they are messy.

My big Lily has started to provide us with a show. I counted the buds but I don’t remember how many there is. Yesterday morning there was one blossom. This morning there were five more. They are very pretty but it a short display. 

All the “inside the studio to avoid the heat” sewing time, allowed me to complete the top I was working on. This would be #17 for 2024. 

2024-17

This layout was a challenge. I spent more time with Jack the Ripper than normal. Wasn’t too bad after I figured out a method but still was not an easy layout. The way I created this was as follows: I made one quarter of the top.

I then copied it to use in the opposite quarter. 

Next I took a photo of the quarter and in edit mode I flipped it to get the other two corners. I then made a decision to not have the intersection of the four quarters meet with fabrics matching themselves so I instead rotated each block 90 degrees. This kept my “pattern” throughout the quilt, lights always matching up with darks. What it also did was loose some of the “V” shaped pattern because of that rotation. I think if you zoom in on the photo you will see what I mean. This may also help.

This photo is before I rotated each four Patch. While you are zoomed in you may also notice that I ran out of the white/grey that was paired with the black/grey. I scrounged all over and could not find any anywhere I could use. I did find a couple of 1-1/2” strips of the needed white/grey. I sewed them together and trimmed to 2” and used that to get several more of the needed four patches. I still needed four more of that combination of four patch. I found a different grey polka dot and used that. 

So while you are zoomed in look for the alternate blocks and the “make do” blocks. Hey it’s all scraps. If I hadn’t told you I doubt you ever would have noticed. I even used a piece of scrap in the border so there is an extra seam that normally would not have been there. By doing it this way it allowed me to get the binding out of the 1/2 yard cut I had found in a drawer and used as the alternate block fabric.

There were several four patches (probably well over a hundred) left over from this polka dot quilt so I am now well on the way into my creation of #18 for 2024. Remember I needed to “make” 2” strips with two fabrics to get my needed last four patches? I believe I will be using that idea again, just because, not because I will need to. It provides an interesting effect. Still don’t have a layout in mind but the pile of 2-1/2” finished polka dot 4 patches is steadily growing. I was amazed at the different polka dot fabrics I found in my “stash”.

The weekend is upon us and it is supposed to be less humid than it has been all week, that will be nice.  Enjoy your weekend, stay safe. Remember, sunscreen is your friend.