Quilt Blocks, EQ8, and Baby Turkeys

When I got to the Broken Dishes block in the Block Genius book, I pulled out the huge stack of HSTs still—yes, still—left over from that blue-and-white quilt I made for the Ritzville sale last year. The finished quilt had 1096 HSTs in it and I think I must have had that many left over, too.

I made as many Broken Dishes blocks as I could with the leftovers, then arranged the blocks into another wallhanging:

BrokenDishesHanging.jpg

I think both wallhangings could benefit from borders to make them look a bit more finished. I’ll put these in a pile and see if we can get them quilted and donated to Mennonite Disaster Service. When MDS works on someone’s home, they give a quilted wallhanging as a gift when the project is done.

It feels good to have made a dent in the orphan blocks bin.

The blocks in the Block Genius book are in alphabetical order. Thus far, I’ve made the following blocks:

  • Big Dipper

  • Broken Dishes

  • Buckeye Beauty

  • Carmen’s Block

  • Caroline’s Choice

  • Cracker Block (ugh—I tried to make that block in the evening when I was tired and I kept mis-cutting the units.

  • Crosses and Losses—I didn’t actually make this block because I had one left over from the C&L Ritzville quilt from several years ago, so I took it out of the orphan block box and added it to the pile of finished blocks.

  • Double Pinwheel

  • Double X Block

  • Flock of Geese

  • Flying Dutchman

I am learning what I like and what I don’t like. Blocks with triangle units are hard for me as they mess with my limited spatial perception abilities (that Double X block was a nightmare). I knew going into this that I much prefer making block units en masse and trimming them to size—as with eight-at-a-time HSTs—rather than cutting tiny units and sewing them together a la Bonnie Hunter. However, I am using scraps and charm squares for these sample blocks and also trying to follow the math in the book, which means abandoning the usual shortcuts and doing some things the old-fashioned way.

Right now, I am stalled at that Flying Dutchman block because I like it very much and would like to design a quilt around it. Flying Dutchman is a variation of Dutchman’s Puzzle. (This American Quilter’s Society article has a good explanation with pictures.) I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have some quilt design software, like Electric Quilt 8. When I checked the EQ website yesterday, I discovered that EQ8 was 25% off through July 5, so I bought it.

I hate going up software learning curves. I especially hate going up software learning curves when the software is obviously PC-based but has been compiled to run on a Mac. That said, I learned the basics of this program in just a few hours and have been playing around with some ideas. We’ll see what happens.

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We have two mama turkeys hanging out on our property. They have four babies between them and I always see them together:

BabyTurkeys.jpg

Lila flushed them out of the tall grass at the edge of the woods the other day, so she and I had to have a discussion about defenseless baby forest animals and how we don’t eat them. The mama turkeys seem to think that our property is a relatively safe place to raise their babies and I want to keep it that way. (The free scratch grains may also have something to do with that.)

The Buff rooster is still limping. He roosts on one of the low bars at night and then hides behind the trash cans during the day. The leg doesn’t appear broken and he does put weight on it, but I am surprised that it doesn’t seem to be improving much. I am trying to be patient. One of the hard lessons of farming is that sometimes, the only thing to do is wait and see. As long as he’s not getting picked on and he is still eating and drinking, I am going to assume that this will heal with time. Some of the chicken websites say that sprains can take several weeks to heal. I am also going to trust that he knows that hiding and resting is what he needs right now.

We’ve had lame chickens in the past, but a lame rooster will not do well if we have more aggressive roosters in the coop.