Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday. Inside tonight because of the intense wind. There is no fire tonight as a result. I did refill the wood box today so it is all ready to go. The wind has caused a lot of pollen to fall and the edge of the pond is very yellowy. 

The wind also has caused the pine needles to fall with a vengeance. Today I blew them off the driveway again. If they are left they can divert water during a downpour and cause washouts. I would rather avoid that if possible. 

Plus it is very satisfying process seeing them blow away, leaving the ground bare.

There have been a lot of swallowtails flying around here the last few days. Here is one I caught gathering nectar from our late blooming lilac. They sure are potent smelling. 

The lilacs not the butterflies. The hummingbirds have been around sampling my flowers. I don’t put out feeders for them as I know I would not tend them correctly. I will attempt to give them the real thing instead. They seem ok with that.

The tadpoles have shown up on the edge of the pond and present in abundance. 

I captured this Lupine in Rangeley as we walked up the driveway to Parker’s Graduation party. 

The grandkids graduation quilts, as you saw from Carol’s post, have been gifted. Now they can be shown here, we did not want to post them where they could see them.

Parker gave us color choices. The choices, I believe, came from his love of Brazilian Jiu jitsu. I choose the V-block for it’s sharp order. The other block I came up with was an interpretation of his mastery of the Rubik’s cube. I carried the 9-patch center square into the V-block to tie it all together. I think he was pleased with the outcome. 

Kailey’s quilt came more from her love of birds than from any suggestions from her. Her mother mentioned a few colors and I went from them and used what went well with a bird panel I found online. I figured out what size I could uniformly get from the many different birds shown doing different activities around the nest. I framed each of the birds, then added sashing and corner stones. She seem very pleased when she received it and kept pointing out the different birds. 

#17 for 2025 is complete. As I mentioned last time, this one is using up 3” finished four patch units. I came up with three different 12” finished blocks made from those four patches with a little extra thrown in. 

I then went to a sashing strip made up of four patches with V-blocks on the ends as needed to get my star pattern. I used the V-block tool but keeping the pattern of the alternating light/ dark of the four patches was a challenge. Were I to follow this idea again I would just make strips of four patches and pop the ends with my Corner Pop II at 3. It would have looked the same and been less confusing to piece them. The V-block centers were cut from untrimmed four patches or 3-1/2” finished ones. 

2025-17

I’m headed back to the rule of 72 again for #18. The process uses a lot of scrap and is a simple fun project.

The weekend weather looks like at least partly rainy….. again. Sunday maybe not too bad but chilly. Summer is bound to get here in earnest eventually. My “gardens” are looking like they are beginning to grow and look like they are comfortable where they are.

Stay safe and enjoy your weekend. Happy Father’s Day.