Midweek: out like a lion, stash report, OMG + reading

 March ended like a lion. On Monday Stevens woke up vomiting. Paramedics took him to the ER where, after many tests, they found a bowel obstruction.  No surgery required but he is still in the hospital. I visited yesterday. He perked up when he saw me.  Not sure when he will be discharged and to where.  More discussion with hospital social worker and a care consultant today.  (The hospital is in the same complex as the clinic where his doctor's office is, so his own physician has been to see him.)  Meanwhile V was so helpful. While I was sitting with S in the ER she cleaned up thoroughly.  And I had a lovely surprise phone call last evening from Jean, S's first wife (she's in assisted living in New Hampshire).  

I've been so alert to S for so long that it's odd to be in the house by myself.  

I didn't have to rush back from Tuesday's Zion Woman's Club meeting.  We planted pinwheels to recognize Child Abuse Prevention Month.  

On to quilting!  

I used orphan blocks to make five more placemats. 

Stash report:   March fabric in:   ZERO!     March fabric out:  86 yards

YTD fabric in:  164-3/4, $58.00.  YTD fabric out:  274 yards.  Yay!

April goals:  (1) make Sky Diamonds, the Running Doe topalong this month.  I'm going to use realistic florals and green.

(2) Finish the doll quilt for the Humble Quilts swap. (It's a flimsy.  I have to choose the backing and figure out how to quilt it.) 

(3) Make a batch of teal/turquoise blocks (RSC color) for a wheelchair-sized quilt.

# # # # # #   Recent reading: 

The Page Turner 2025 FB group has "a book on someone else's shelf" as a prompt.  I did not travel far for my selection.    This is one of my husband's favorite books.  It's been in his bookcase ever since I met him . . . and only now have I read it in its entirety.  Poet and memoirist Donald Hall writes evocatively and lovingly about the summers he spent on his grandparents' farm in New Hampshire.  Each chapter can stand alone; collectively they show the progression as Hall grows up and his grandparents grow older.  The 1979 edition includes a coda that tells what happened next -- Hall and his wife Jane Kenyon moved to the farm in 1975 after his grandmother passed away (at 96) and lived there the rest of their lives.  (Kenyon died in 1995 and Hall died in 2018.)   

[The farmhouse is now a historic property with a nonprofit board restoring and maintaining it.]

~~~~~~
  An intriguing story based on the life of the champion thoroughbred Lexington.  I enjoyed the multiple points of view -- Lexington's trainer in the 1850's, an art dealer in the 1950's, and the contemporary art historian and the Smithsonian scientist.   I listened to the audio version. The multi-voiced narration was easy to follow. 

Diann (Little Penguin Quilts) recommended this a while back.  Thanks, Diann!

 ~~~~~~

I've been an Anne Tyler fan for decades.  Her characters are spot-on -- people we know all too well, situations we are all too familiar with.  

Just before her daughter's wedding Gail Baines finds out that she has lost her long-time job as assistant to the headmistress of a private school.  She barely has time to adjust to that shock when  her ex-husband Max shows up at her door.  He explains that he can't stay at their daughter's house because he is fostering a cat and the fiance is allergic to cats.  What can Gail do but ask him in?  Both of them have always been socially awkward whereas the fiance's family is very polished and more affluent.    Gail and Max negotiate the social terrain, their daughter's pre-wedding nerves (or, remarkable lack of them), and in so doing Gail remembers how they met and why they split up.  And in the end . . . she has a cat and, maybe, a renewed relationship.

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Linking up with  Wednesday Wait Loss    OMG @ Stories from the Sewing Room  

Weekly update: an exhibit, OMG, RSC, reading

 Thank you all for your supportive comments regarding my husband.  The care home assessment was Friday.  His condition is beyond what assisted living/memory care can accommodate.  For now we are increasing in-home care (two caregivers have been recruited to help with the 6 p.m.-bedtime shift (V comes in the morning)).  We have a video visit with his doctor on Tuesday.  

I was able to take time Saturday morning to see this exhibit at the Dunn Museum (part of the forest preserve district).

The oldest quilt was made in Pennsylvania in 1850 (large picture on left).  It came to Lake County after WWII when the maker's great-grandson moved to Waukegan.  

These are county fair ribbons from 1899 to 1904.

The dress on the left was a wedding dress from 1883.  The turquoise dress on the upper right is Thai silk, donated by a friend of mine who served in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 2000-2002.

I had time for a short forest preserve walk before going home.  It was nice to stretch my legs.

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I completed two of my OMG projects and most of the third.   Upper right:  SAHRR flimsy complete.  Lower right:  Transport top-along flimsy complete.  Left:  Mosaic Sparkler blocks are assembled but need borders.

The RSC yellow Ohio Stars are quilted and bound. 

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"A trilogy" is one of the prompts for The Page Turner 2025 FB group.   I chose Conrad Richter's Awakening Land.

I have known about these books for decades but only now have I read them. (I'd have loved them when I was in high school.) As I read I thought about my ancestors who were contemporaneous with Richter's characters. I appreciate more what their lives were like.

The Trees begins in the late 1780's when the U.S. government encouraged settlement in the Northwest Territory (Ohio to Wisconsin). Worth Luckett takes his family from Pennsylvania to the dense woods of eastern Ohio. Oldest daughter Sayward, who is the fulcrum of all three novels, raises her siblings after their mother's death, manages the household, and creates the farm. She marries another settler, lawyer Portius Wheeler.

The Fields takes place in the 19th century (Portius attends the Ohio statehood ceremony in 1803). He becomes a judge; she manages the Luckett land; they have many children. The settlement becomes thriving town called Americus.

The Town spans the 1830's to the Civil War. The Wheelers are the prominent family in town. One son becomes governor; another graduates from Annapolis; the youngest becomes a firebrand abolitionist journalist. One daughter marries the town doctor; another daughter marries an English lord; another becomes an academic.

As Richter writes in the acknowledgement, he wanted to tell the story of "those whose names never figured in the history book but whose influence on their own times and country was incalculable." He continues, "If this novel has had any other pruose than to tell some of their story, it has been to try to impart to the reader the felling of having lived for a while in those earlier days....and the broader stuff of reality that was the lot of the great majority of men and whomen who...lived through comparable events and emotions, for life is endlessly resourceful and inexhaustible. It is only the author who is limited and mortal."

Linking up with  Design Wall Monday,  Oh Scrap!,  Sew and Tell OMG at Stories from the Sewing Room

Weekly update: changes ahead + quilting progress

The crocuses under the dryer vent are the first to bloom   

 On Wednesday Stevens' condition took a sharp decline.  He wasn't able to get out of his armchair to use the walker to go back to his bathroom and bedroom.  Our friend Curt came (at 9:45 p.m.) to help me move him.  Thursday began all right--I went to Rotary, came home to get him up, and promptly had to call our part-time caregiver for help.  She came right over.  We began a new routine.  V now comes every morning and every evening.  He's sitting in the transport chair (wheelchair with small back wheels).  There are other adjustments which are TMI, but I am very knowledgeable about adult diapers....   I am so appreciative of her!  Even so, I've had to call the paramedics three times to come to lift him up.  

I'd begun paperwork for to enroll him for a two-week respite care stay at a nearby assisted living facility* for when I'm traveling at the end of April.  I called the representative and asked if I could cancel respite care and sign him up as a resident.  So we have a lease (as of 3/31) and I've even seen the unit (440 sq foot 'open studio').  This week brings more paperwork and, importantly, an admissions evaluation.  April will turn out very differently than planned.  

* I've been working with a care consultant about assisted living options. I don't know what questions to ask (any salesperson puts on a good spin).  This facility is one that she recommended.  I toured it and another facility.  The cost for assisted living varies with the level of care but it is less expensive than 24-hour in-home care. (Plus we don't have room in our house for a live-in attendant.) 

Whew!

 As you know, sewing is a great stress-reliever.

I made 10 daisy mug rugs for my P.E.O. chapter's ongoing project. I have several pieced backgrounds for the next batch.

The March guild BOM is at the lower center with the previous seven blocks.

The yellow Ohio Stars (March RSC) are a flimsy.

And . . . . 

After a lot of ripping and pressing and measuring I solved the problem of the bowed borders for the SAHRR (here).

I inserted a small piece of turquoise (upper right 'log cabin' border).  I inserted a multi-fabric piece in the center of each outer border.  It all measures up to 60" square. 

I thought about adding a narrow (1-1/2"?) outer border to stabilize the edge but I couldn't find any batik that I had enough of in the right color (which I think should be green).

Because it's still a flimsy my SAHRR won't be in the grand finale parade, but I am MOST relieved to have gotten it this far!  

Linking up with Oh Scrap!  Design Wall Monday SAHRR Parade

Weekly update: catching up on this and that

Catching up with a longtime friend:   Leslye and I have known one another since junior high.   We reconnected a few years ago and have had the best intentions to get together -- we live about 25 miles apart.  Last week she emailed and wrote, "Let's do it!" and we did.   We had lunch at a restaurant here in Zion.  Such a delightful time and yes, we will do it again.  Soon.  

Catching up with walking.  Since the caregiver was with Stevens I took advantage of the time and the lovely day to take a quick walk at Spring Bluff Forest Preserve just east of home.  (The Taos shoes you see in the photo were perfectly comfortable for 1-1/2 miles on a fine-gravel path.)    

Photo:  pussy willows at Spring Bluff.

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Catching up    with the guild mystery.  24 dark blocks and 12 light blocks.  The designer warned that the next clue will be more complex.

Catching up on RSC yellow.  I'm up to 11 yellow and white/black Ohio Stars.  9 to go.

Catching up on placemats.  

These three are made with the leftover triangles of Transport, the topalong pattern for March. 

These twelve are made with the pinwheels that I made from the left over HSTs from Amelia, the topalong pattern for January.

(I made two placemats with leftovers from Lantern, the February topalaong pattern, right after I finished the top.) 

This week I will catch up (and finish!) two non-quilting presentations that I'm giving on March 27.   

This is the kitchen counter cutting station with green strips cut for a new project and a pile of scraps destined for the scrapbox (which is in the downstairs studio).

Linking up with Oh Scrap!  Scrap Happy Saturday Sew and Tell  Monday Musings Design Wall Monday

Midweek: mystery belatedly begun, placemats + reading

 

Almost-full moon at 5:30 this morning.  Didn't we just have a full moon? The days and nights fly by.

I thought I'd signed up for the guild's 2025 mystery quilt-along in January but it turned out that I hadn't.  I rectified the omission by paying the $10 fee at the meeting last week.  Five weeks' clues dropped into my email box. 

The pattern requires 3-1/2 yards of background (tone-on-tone recommended) and either a jelly roll or 40 2-1/2" strips.  I had a 4-yard piece in lavender (estate sale purchase $5) for the background.  I don't have any jelly rolls so I cut strips from my stash.  The colorway probably looks familiar from my recent Transport and Mosaic Sparkler flimsies--I hadn't gotten around to putting all of those away.

The first of the first 12 blocks is at the lower left.

Look what arrived on Monday.   QuiltDiva Julie sent four placemats for my project.  

Thank you!   

I'm making more placemats, too.  These are the cutaways from Transport and Amelia (the January top-along).  

# # # # # 

In 1936 Charlotte Cross was in Egypt on an archaeological dig. She discovered a trove linked to the only female pharoah, Hathorkare (=Hapshetsut).   Her expedition cut short by personal tragedy, she returned home to New York and her work as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

She never abandoned her research on the queen.  In 1978 while assisting with mounting the King Tut exhibit she discovers that one of the pieces  is the necklace she found in Hathorkare's tomb all those years before.  She is determined to discover who has had it for four decades.   

Enter Annie Jenkins, a nineteen-year-old who inadvertently becomes Charlotte's assistant.  Together the two women unravel long-held secrets.

Davis has hit on a good formula:  take an iconic Manhattan building and use it as the setting for two interconnected stories, one long ago and another sort-of-nowadays.   Though there wasn't as much about the Met as an institution or structure, the tale is a good one.

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss  -- and thanks for the shout out, Jennifer. 

Weekly update: signs of spring, quilting accomplishments + reading

 

I set all the clocks ahead just after dinner Saturday. I've finally figured out how to do the clocks in both cars correctly the first try.  

Two beautiful days this weekend got us out for a walk at the state park and a nearby forest preserve.  

The dogwood is really red.   

 # # # # # 

 This is my version of Transport, the Running Doe top-along pattern for March.  

A closeup of the gray-with-dots background.

I made eight 9-patch blocks in yellow for the March Rainbow Scrap Challenge.   I have a pattern that will use eight 9ps in each color.

I made four yellow Ohio Star blocks and have pieces cut for more. 

  

Our library is having an art contest this spring with divisions for K-12 students and adults.  Any medium is acceptable.  Entries are due March 19.  Here's mine!   24" square. 

It's the necktie project I alluded to on Friday.  I made a similar version with blue ties for the MQG mini swap last year.  Because of that I  had a fair number of the strips already pieced.  

I used the serpentine stitch to quilt in the center of each round. The backing is regular quilting cotton.   

The winners will be announced April 23.  

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In early 2022 I read and reviewed Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans.   I learned that Evans had written a prequel, Old Baggage,  and a sequel, V for Victory.   I checked them both out and liked them just as much as Crooked Heart.  I recommend reading them in publication order (Crooked, Old, Vee) to fully appreciate the character development. 

 

Old Baggage tells the backstory of the indomitable Mattie, a passionate suffragist who is determined to make the world (1920's London) a better place for girls.  She creates a club called the Amazons to help girls become confident and self-reliant.  She is so convinced that she is right that her heartfelt efforts cloud her judgment.  She makes an ethical error that destroys the Amazons' reputation but, being Mattie, she comes out of that episode triumphant.

~~~~~~~

In the fall of 1944 everyone in London is heartily tired of the war, confident that the Allies will win but not knowing exactly when.   Noel and Vee, the heroes of Crooked Heart, live in his great-aunt Mattie's house.  They've taken in boarders to help pay the bills.   Noel is now a teenager. His eclectic education, begun by Mattie, continues under the tutelage of the boarders (a doctor and a journalist among them).    Meanwhile Vee continues her well-intended schemes.  Characters from the past come into the picture. 

Family secrets alluded to in Crooked Heart and developed in Old Baggage are revealed in V for Victory.  And, in the end, there is victory for Noel (oh, and for the world as well).  Wonderful!!

 Linking up with Scrap Happy Saturday Oh Scrap! Sew and Tell  Design Wall Monday

Friday check in: not the ideal way to bust stash + something new

 

It rained Tuesday night. When I went downstairs Wednesday morning to do laundry I found puddles on the basement floor.  The culprit was a detached downspout extender.  Did I forget to check it after the landscapers did the fall cleanup, or did it fall off sometime afterward?  In any event it took two wet-vac tubs full to get all the water.   The 1-1/2" and 2" strip bins under the cutting table got wet.  The bins themselves are made out of nylon or polyester and they dried fine.  I contemplated putting the strips in pillowcases and putting them in the dryer but then I'd have to iron them -- so I just pitched them, straight into the trash.   But I weighed them first--12 lbs so 48 yards in the "fabric out" column for the month.   That was the only loss and things are dried out now.  (And the downspout extender is reattached!)  

 Moda fabric designer Deb Strain was the guest speaker at the guild meeting on Wednesday.  It was really interesting to meet her and learn about the way she creates.  She began as an art teacher.  She created a line of greeting cards featuring whimsical dolls and rented a booth at Quilt Market to sell the cards.  Moda executives discovered her and -- 28 years later -- she's still designing for them.  

She was so lively it was hard to get a good photo -- there she is with one of her non-fabric lines.   The sketch in the lower right shows a panel in progress.  Its full-color version is at the upper left.   

Here is the entire panel in cloth. 

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I was able to steal a few moments to sew downstairs -- here's the new project underway.  It involves neckties.....

Linking up at Finished or Not Friday

 

Midweek: my day at the hop!

 

I'm delighted to be among the participants in this week's Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop sponsored by Bea (BeaQuilter).

I have MANY quilt books.   In the 1990's when I began quilting seriously I was purposely very frugal and checked out quilting books from the library.  If I paid full price for a book (quilting or otherwise) I thought about it long and hard.  But, as a librarian, I could also buy books at the library discount (40%) and I did!   

Now the bookselling market is all over the place. I've shopped publishers' warehouse sales, library book sales, Alibris, and other used book sites.  I've gotten a lot of books from the guild giveaway table and at estate sales.   The common factor is "never pay list price." 

My favorite publisher is (was) That Patchwork Place / Martingale.  I got a dozen or so books from their warehouse sale way back in 1994 and I still have them. The one I've used the most is Judy Hopkins' Around the Block, the first of her three block compilations.  Those that I've perused the most are the Judy Hopkins/Nancy Martin collaborations. 

(These are all TPP and Martingale. Since I took this photo (1/2023 when Martingale announced it was closing) I've deacquisitioned a few.)

BUT the purpose of this blog hop is not to reminisce but to choose ONE book and make something from one of the designs/patterns.

I settled on Shortcuts to the Top by Donna Lynn Thomas, published in 1994.   

I don't have a photo of the first quilt I made from it--double four-patch.  I used her instructions to make a Birds in the Air quilt for my father in 2000.  (Somewhere I have a picture of Dad with the quilt but I can't find it right now.)     

Twenty-five years ago!

 I chose Mosaic Sparkler as my hop entry.

I've been quilting so long that I usually suss out a pattern by eyeballing it -- then I read the instructions to see if there's something I should pay attention to. 

 I could have chosen any colorway but I like this one and I have a lot of fabric in both colors.     In this case the instructions call for 3/8 yd. each of 12 teals, 8 FQs of violet, and 12 FQ of light prints.     I cut from yardage and the FQ-and-chunks bins.        

 The big technique in all That Patchwork Place books at that time was the "bias square" method of making triangles.  I tried it then and disliked it.  Fussy and wasteful.  My preferred method is to cut large and trim down and I've got that down pat.

 

But I thought for old time's sake I'd give the bias squares a try.

Nope. Still not for me. 

Back to cutting large and trimming down!    

Once all the HSTs were made and the quarter blocks assembled the 24 blocks went together easily.  

Linking up with  Wednesday Wait Lossand  BeaQuilter

Thanks for visiting during the blog hop!