Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. I was out by the fire but came in to write this. We continue to ride on the roller coaster of the weather. Today it never got above the mid 70’s and it was windy most of the day as well. Carol and I went to the ‘Falls and picked blueberries this morning. The picking was great and we both hated to quit. Had a fruit cobbler of sorts for dessert tonight. Dessert is a seldom thing in this house and it was quite tasty.

My Lillies have begun their annual display of sights and smells. The sights I can share, the smells you are out of luck. 

The air out on the sitting area is rather distinct with the lily’s nectar. I have started to see more bees around of late, and I did see both bees and hummingbirds in the lilies. I see the hummers around a lot. I think some are “new” ones as they are considerably smaller. We notice the same with the sparrows, some seem larger than others. I watched three hanging together on the lawn, then saw the larger one pick up something from the ground and feed it to one of the smaller ones. I still have suet out for them and do still have one tray feeder that I put a little seed in every day or two. Mostly the gold finches and sparrows feeding now. We still have others, but mostly the little guys.

With the number of occurrences seeing the deer, I’m curious when I will begin seeing signs of them being around at night. The flowers are looking better all the time. I suspect it will be either the deer or some other animal that does me in. The Candyland tomatoes are all growing well and there are several blossoms present. The flower beds are doing quite well also. 

I try to keep things watered, Carol had to save one this afternoon. She said it was drooping quite badly.

In the studio I completed #38 for 2026. The issue I had was that the place I wanted to put the fifth star so it would be in the center of the quilt was in the middle of a sashing strip. Another 46” x 55” top using 6” four patches with a 2-1/2” sashing. I think I used the Corner Pop II and popped at 4-1/2. I made the fifth star fit ok, figured I would. 

2026-38

#39 for 2026 followed along with the same idea and size of 46” x 55”. This is the last of this series this size. I think I will be going back to my 60’s x 70’s size. Maybe even design some to fit the bags of batting up in the shed which would be larger. #39 was again made using 6” four patches and a 2-1/2” sashing. 

2026-39

The difference this time was I popped the sashing on each side as needed with a 2-1/2 pop with Corner Pop II on one side and a 4 pop with Corner Pop III on the other side. This gave me a spiked star. These 5 tops will be used as long arm training where I teach at Sew Orchid Design, then probably donated. They will also be used as different examples of using the Corner Pop tools when I teach a Corner Pop class on Saturday of this week. Hopefully inspiration will hit me as to how I’ll teach the class. I don’t really think on my feet quite as well as I used to. I’m sure we’ll do fine.

Carol and I are off to the Maine Quilt Show tomorrow. A chance to see the quilts and a few familiar faces. It should be fun. A chance to see what others are making and what the venders have that’s new.

The roller coaster ride looks to be headed up and getting warmer again for a while. Most anything without the wind is ok by me. Stay safe and have fun.

I’ll leave you with tonights final view out my window.