Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, beginning to get some very much needed rain.  I guess it’s supposed to be wet the next few days. We desperately need it. The ground has been dry and now there are all the newly fallen leaves. I raked a couple of wheelbarrow loads off the beach this morning before going to town and doing errands. 

Primarily went grocery shopping and to BJ’s. Too many people. 

Has anyone seen the robot roaming the floors making at BJ's weird noises and just roaming around. Most annoying. It was roaming down the aisle I was in and as I reached the end of the aisle I was met by a couple of other shoppers. He saw the robot thing and made an odd face, I leaned his way and asked him if he had on solid shoes. If so, I’ll hold the damn robot down and you can kick the crap out of the damn thing to shut it up. The couple started laughing so hard I thought we were going to need the depends, which was in the next aisle I think. They weren’t needed, There’s a lot of crazy people out there, anything is possible.

I am in high hopes that the leave raking is over. I think the next chance I get I’ll see about replacing the front loader with the snowblower. Maybe if I get the blower all ready to go it won’t snow. Good idea anyway. I think other than the blower about all my fall chores are complete.

I probably forgot something, I seem to do that rather well. I figure my head is so full of useless information that forgetting some allows for room for me to learn more. Believe me, from what I see in my limited wanderings, in today’s society many people still have a lot of room in their heads where some useful information could be stored instead of what they have in there now. 

I read an article a while ago regarding our society and that as we rely on smart devices to do things for us, we get dumber. I believe that. The younger generation relies on the phone for a calculator and google for everything else, so nothing important needs to be known. When the information is needed, smart devices retrieve it for you. Depending on where the information comes from it may even be correct. 

I am guilty of this to a degree. I rely on my calculator for my quilt math. (and other math).  I do use Google but I can make change, many of today’s cashiers can’t. They rely on the register to tell them what to do. If we loose power for too long many of us will look like a bunch of confused zombies. Me included, I guess. 

I don’t do nothing well. On the other hand, I usually manage to find something to do even when nothing needs being done. Bless the art of puttering. The art of doing something that most people would not think of doing, and when finished, usually only looks marginally different than before you started. Impossible to describe the satisfaction knowing that time was not just wasted and something was accomplished.

Is creating a quilt like puttering? I would need to ponder that for a while.

Speaking of creating a quilt, #31 for 2024 top is complete. Size 67”x76”. I often joke and talk about the voices in my head and that a lot of my quilts are designed by them. The two main voices are Timmy and Cindy. Timmy likes small intricate designs with lots of pieces. Cindy always argues that we would use up more fabric if we used larger pieces. Timmy and I always argue that the premise is false, because two quilts the same size don’t use the same amount of fabric. Using small pieces uses more fabric. That is why a quilt with a lot of pieces is so heavy. Also, more pieces equals more trimming and more discarded as scrap. Hence, more fabric gets used with smaller pieces. I think it’s semantics. I like working with little pieces especially when I limit my quilt size like I have. More can be said in the limited space with smaller pieces.

Timmy designed the center. 

It is made up of 1-1/2 x3”  Flying Geese and a pair of 1-1/2” four-patch. I assembled the center as 9” nine-patch blocks. Sixteen blocks making a 36” x 36” finished center, then Cindy was to take over with larger blocks. 

Well, my seam allowance was off and the center ended up being almost 3/8” wider one way than the other. I adjusted with a transition border to allow me to jump up in block size and go from a 3” block to a 4” block. I added oversized borders to the center. 

I then laid my tape measure across the center and adjusted the tape until it was equidistance from the center on both sides allowing for my 40-1/2” unfinished center with borders. I needed to trim two sides at 2-1/4” and the other two sides at 2-3/8”. I used my ruler and the pieced center as my reference and arrived at the transition Cindy needed. The outer section of the quilt uses the same block format except the Flying Geese are now 2”x 4” and the four-patch units are 2".

I was pleased with the outcome and think it may have been too busy had I left off the inner border.

2024-31

As I’m known to say when I finish a new top “this is one of my favorites”. I must say I have a lot of favorites. There are just under 1600 pieces in the Timmy’s center, I have no idea how many Cindy added. Someone commented it looks like it’s dancing so maybe I should call it “Dancing Geese”, I guess for now #31 for 2024 works.

Back to the studio for more clean up and organizing and listening to Timmy and Cindy argue about what we will all create next. Time will tell.

Enjoy your weekend whatever you decide to do. If your plans get rained out, I’m not real sorry, most of us need the rain. Stay safe.