Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Monday evening, in the studio. The way the weather has been lately I don’t think it will be long before it will be “Dan here, by the fire”. The snow, the little that we had, is disappearing fast. We are beginning to get an idea where the water’s edge is, although I’m sure that the water will rise with the coming Spring rains. All I can think of is a song from long ago with the line, “how high’s the water Papa? Six feet high and rising.” Hopefully it won’t be that bad, the lack of snow this winter has eased my mind considerably. Carol and I walked up on the ridge and there was no snow with little to be seen anywhere.

It is interesting to watch the ice and the pond as it transitions from winter to spring. With the rain over the weekend, Sunday morning the entire pond had water standing on it. A hole had developed 15’ or so from shore in front of us. When I first saw it I went out and probed with a stick and the hole went completely into the pond. 

Ta-Da!

Carol here ~

Lena Longarm and I have finished up the quilting on all 45 of Dan's 2023 quilts. Yay! We quilted #44 and #45 this week.

#44 is very spring-y looking so I found a digitized pattern called BUTTERFLY BLOSSOMS that was perfect for this quilt.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

 

Monday evening. Things have been rather uneventful around here. 

The garbage disposal was leaking the other day so I had to try and locate my plumber’s hat and pull the disposal out and reinstall it. Seems to be ok now. It was an inconvenience, but not the royal pain in the butt like it would have been for most people. Carol just had to listen to the old geezer plumber that showed up complain about not being able to see what he was doing. 

The process reminded me of something my grandfather, the plumber, once told me, “if you have to see what you’re doing under the sink, you’ll never fix much”.  He is more right now than ever before. If I can get my head in position to see something, I’m either too close or can’t get my head cocked into the right position that my double vision allows me to see anything.

What Was I Thinking?

Carol here ~

Sunday I loaded Dan's quilt #42 on Lena and decided to stitch the pattern PEARLS AND PAISLEY on it.  What was I thinking?

It's a very dense quilting pattern, lots of stitching, took almost two hours for Lena to make one pass across the quilt.  Plus there was not enough thread in the bobbin for the whole pass so I had to load a new bobbin mid pass and match the pattern so Lena could continue stitching.  

I don't usually do that.  If I know there is not enough thread in the bobbin for another pass I will load a full one.  

By the end of the quilt I was getting better at it, not quite so much cussing!

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

I think it’s Monday evening, close to midnight. It was a clear cold day today. Breezy at times, but not a really bad day. 

Daughter, Vanessa and her two kids stopped around for a visit today. The kids ran around some on the pond and seemed to have a good time. Granddaughter Kailey had fun standing on the pond watching the crows and ravens flying around. We even got to see some crows harassing a good sized hawk. Kailey has two birds that she keeps in cages in her room. No thanks, but she enjoys them and has learned a lot about them. She is also the one of the grandkids that seems to have gotten most of the drawing talent. Most probably from the Freeman side of the family. Here is an example of her work from an exhibit last past year. 

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. It was a clear cold day. Not really a type of day I enjoy being outside in anymore. Carol and I did manage to get in a walk, at least the wind wasn’t blowing as hard as it was yesterday. Yesterday it was wild, the wind shook the house all day. Today was no way near as bad. The crisp cold gave us a nice sunset on Tuesday evening. 

Feathers!

Carol here ~ 

I love the look of stitched feathers on a quilt, they are so elegant looking.  Before I got my robotics for my longarm in 2019 all my quilting was free motion.  Feathers of all shapes and sizes were my favorite things to stitch and I was pretty good at them if I do say so. 

I was looking back through some photos of quilts that I quilted with feathers so thought I'd give you a show.

Here is one of my favorite quilt jobs that I did for our friend Michelle. Love how the feathers pop and fill the space.