Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. Another week gone by. Has been rainy and extremely foggy today. Visibility today was measured in the hundreds of feet. When I went to Mechanic Falls for a switch for a project I’ll tell you about in a minute, I found it hard to believe the number of ignorant people driving without their lights on, at least three out of every ten cars I met. I’m glad I didn’t have far to go.

On Tuesday after supper Carol asked me to come downstairs and read her blog post. While downstairs I asked what was the water all over the floor. Further investigation found the culprit to be the dishwasher. We dried up the mess and waited until Wednesday to look deeper. After digging in and finding a couple leaky areas and since there were already several aspects of the old one that did not function correctly anymore, we decided on a new one. 

A Whirlpool was located at Lowes and off I went. I came home with a new dishwasher and then just needed to swap it out with the old one. 

The same grouchy old man who came a while back and replaced the water heater arrived to install the new dishwasher. He seemed to know what he was doing but just complained the whole time about not being able to get his head back far enough to see anything. He finally got it completed and it appears to work fine. 

While I was at Lowes I remembered that we wanted to install a light over Lena the Longarm. The addition of more light never hurts. I brought home an eight foot LED light. With a little cussing and complaining (same dude who fixed the dishwasher) I managed to get it hung and wired with the new switch. 

Carol made a little skirt that we hung along the front to cut down on glare from the bright light. All in all it looks and works quite well. I use the long arm as a piecing area and the light will be a game changer. 

Quilt #8 for 2025 was completed the other night. #8 was designed around two different blocks. The blocks are 10” finished and tied together with a 2-1/2” sashing. I accented the sashing with the teal blue stars to help offset the bright orange. The pieced border with their center accents helped finish off the top. 

2025-8

#9 for 2025 went together quickly as well. I really liked the simplicity of the blocks. The blocks were made from 2” and 4” units. I was not real pleased about the uniformity of the sizes of what should have been 8” blocks. So I decided to frame them and make them 10”  blocks instead. 

2025-9

This helped to isolate the blocks and allow the sashing to shine. I really like this framing method of block size correction. It works well and helps calm down the blocks. I’ve used this method before and I’m sure I’ll use it again. I can always make the quilt unique with different sashing options. #9 started around the Split Rects or half rectangles that I made from the scrap from the sashing stars in #8. They gave me an interesting 4” block to work with. 

When those units were used up, I easily found other units to make more 4” blocks. The green of my sashing was real close to not being enough. The math said I needed 19 width of fabric cuts to get the sashing and border. On the 19th cut the last 12” or so was only 2- 1/4” instead of the 2-1/2” I wanted. I made it work by making the top and bottom border of the green only 2 1/4”. Bet you can’t tell. I wonder what I will grab and try to use up next.

Enjoy your weekend, let’s hope spring continues to show herself to us. The warmer weather is not too hard to put up with. I could be through with winter, I know we are not through yet, but one can hope. Stay safe until next time.