Midweek: round 5 underway + dust off a book decision

 

SAHRR Round 5 so far.  I've made all the quarter-log cabin units (3" finished).  I hope to have all four borders sewn on by Friday. 

I'm participating in Bea's (BeaQuilter) Dust Off a Book blog hop next month.  I'm perusing quilt books, dusty or not, to choose a project to make. 

I do not lack choices. (There are more quilt books than these.)

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

Weekly update: concert, new storage, a flimsy, and reading

  Still no walking, but we did get out Sunday afternoon for the Lake County Symphony Orchestra's winter concert at the College of Lake County.  First act:  Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. Second act:  Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  Ode to Joy in the fourth movement was performed by a combined choir (Northern Illinois University and local chorales).   Wonderful music just fifteen miles from home and $30 per seat.  

It was a full house with open seating, but we had seats in the ADA accessible row.

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In the studio:  Closet Maid wire basket units hold a lot of fabric.  Unfortunately they are no longer made.  I learned in McCall's (or Quiltmaker?) that Ikea has a similar product -- Jonaxel.  I ordered one to try it out. 

 

Closet Maid.  Two baskets are pulled out at the moment. 

 Jonaxel.  I want to buy more units and empty the plastic bins.  

The row of Jonaxels will line up behind the Closet Maid units. 

You've heard, and likely experienced, the assembly challenge of Ikea products.  But Jonaxel was easier to put together than the Closet Maid!

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I got the blue Ohio Stars to the flimsy stage.  This will be a 36" x 45" wheelchair quilt. 

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"Pulitzer Prize winner" is one of The Page Turner 2025* categories.  I chose the fiction winner for 2024. 

 A family torn apart by the Civil War comes together briefly under very unusual circumstances, and a nearly-lost legacy is passed on.             In 1874 ConaLee and her mother Eliza are delivered to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, by the man they know as Papa.  Nearly a decade before he came across them in their remote mountain cabin and moved in unasked.  Now he's prepared to shed them and move on. Eliza is admitted to the asylum because she is outwardly non-verbal.  ConaLee passes for Eliza's maid, not her daughter.                                                              The Asylum is a model institution using humane (at the time) treatments for the mentally ill.  The head security guard is a one-eyed man known as Night Watch.   An orphan boy named Weed is his ward and helper.                                                   Left behind, but not forgotten, is Dearbhla, a healer and herbalist who has known Eliza since childhood.                                                                                                                    How are the three generations of women connected to Night Watch?  The story spins out from multiple points of view.   There's mystery, love, tragedy, and a hopeful ending.

*Nancy Near Philadelphia introduced me to the FB group The Page Turner 2022. It changes its name each year so now it's TPT2025.  There is one book of the year but the others are prompts that participants can interpret as they wish. 

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

Friday check in: it's a flimsy!! and more progress

A librarian's Valentine!  

We didn't get much snow from Wednesday's storm (about 3") but now it's very, very cold. I went to Rotary yesterday morning (S stayed in) and didn't go out the rest of the day.    More snow coming this weekend.  

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Old Town is a flimsy!  

I added a white border to stabilize the edge.  8 yards by weight.  I have an April appointment with Barb-the-quilter.  

I made two placemats out of the leftovers from Lantern, the top-along for February. (See last Friday's post.)  They await binding. 

Twenty Ohio Stars in this month's RSC color, blue, displayed on the design floor (the living room).  

The sliced units for this week's SAHRR were such fun to make that I'm making more. 

These start with 4" squares and 1.5" x 5" strips and are trimmed to 3.5".

 Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

 

Midweek: SAHRR surprise

Looking out the front door at 10 a.m.  The storm has been predicted for three days.  3"? 6"? 8"?  I'm glad we don't have to go anywhere today.  

Old Town awaits the outer border. I am hoping that the little checkerboards didn't stretch out on the edges . . .

BUT!

I did not have any units on hand for this week's Stay at Home Round Robin prompt for "slashed/sliced" blocks.  I had to resort to sewing but that was no hardship. They were easy to make and,  miraculously, they fit perfectly. 

Linking up at Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: SAHRR, Old Town, and reading

How nice to get this FB message first thing on Saturday! 

This is the quilt that she won.  (Working title: "Go Scrappy or Go Home.")   

The weather cooperated Saturday morning for the spaghetti dinner delivery.  All our "customers" (neighbors mostly) were appreciative.  We had two of the dinners ourselves -- tasty!  

Saturday afternoon I went to the last hours of an estate sale.  The advertised German nutcrackers were long gone by the time I got there but I got a nice office chair on wheels for $7.00.   The seat-lifter on the Steelcase chair I've had at my sewing machine for 15+ yrs has quit working.  I moved the Steelcase chair in my home office to the studio. This estate sale chair will go in the home office. [Yes, Steelcase furniture can be repaired but that would be more than $7.00.]

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This week's prompt for the Stay at Home Round Robin is "stars." Conveniently I had a stack of 4-1/2" (unfinished) variable stars in the batik box. 

More progress:  

I assembled the Old Town blocks and added the inner border.  

Here are the checkerboard inner borders. You can see my living-room set up with Stevens in the background (Superbowl playing).

On the design floor:   I bought both sizes of Drunkard's Path templates from Marti Michell's retirement sale.  Her method and instructions make them almost easy.  The tedious but necessary part is pinning.

I cleared the DPs away to show another RSC blue project:  9" Ohio Stars. 

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An interesting look at the dynamic of one family.

"No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister." (p. 258) 

Olivia "Ollie" Shred is a beautiful, talented athlete.  She's also selfish and manipulative -- and, as it turns out, mentally ill.   Younger sister Amy is studious, socially awkward, and caught up in Ollie's orbit even as she is repelled by it.  Their mother is determined to show the world only a perfect family while their father loses himself in his successful business.  

 Ollie has inpatient treatment but runs away, establishing a pattern for the next twenty years. She returns home to be bailed out yet again, and disappears overnight.  Eventually she makes her way to Hollywood where, being Ollie, she charms a studio producer.  Amy puts all of her efforts and energy into academics (biochemistry at Columbia).  When she loses her research grant she switches to publishing where she finds success as an editor though she is less successful in love.  It's not a happy story, but it ends with a glint of hope.  

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

Friday check in: spaghetti prep, top-along, and a really good book

 

Yesterday was spaghetti prep day. Our Rotary Club makes spaghetti dinners (pasta and homemade sauce, green salad and dressing, a roll, and a cookie) to community helpers, shut-ins, and others who would like a home-cooked meal delivered to their doors.  

My job was to buy all the supplies except for the sauce ingredients and the pasta. Chris (upper left center) is in charge of that. He's teaching new member Ted (upper left left).  Harriet and I had salad duty.   Interact Club members helped out.  We used the kitchen at our church (Memorial UMC in Zion). 

Delivery is tomorrow.  Next year there will be quilted placemats to go with each meal!

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I have set up the Singer 301 in the living room because Stevens is having trouble negotiating the stairs to basement (the studio).  I don't want him to fall.   It means I have to decide what I'm going to work on and bring that fabric, ruler, etc. upstairs.  I made all the blocks for Lantern, the February top-along, with the new setup, but I did the layout and block assembly downstairs (design wall and the big sewing table).  

I often have trouble distributing prints to get a good balance and avoid same-fabric-touching. There are 12 fabrics here (plus the background). I labeled them A-L on the pattern and and labeled my blocks A-L.  

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This was recommended at last month's ALA Retired Members Round Table book club.  

Daphne has lived in seclusion in her spacious London apartment furnished in eclectic elegance. Now that she's turning 70 she decides it's time to venture out. She pays a visit to the Senior Citizens Club at the Mandel Community Centre. There aren't many club members (one of them drops dead at Daphne's first meeting). The new social director, Lydia, is tasked with growing the group while dealing with the local council's threatened demolition of the building (as well as the disintegration of her marriage). Daphne welcomes the challenge to put her formidable organizing skill to work. She identifies the talents of the other club members--retired actor Art, former celebrity photographer William, yarn bomber Ruby, born-to-be-wild Anna--and enlists them in not only saving the building but also saving Lydia.

This funny and delightful novel proves that it's never to late to reinvent yourself.

Linking up with  Finished or Not Friday 

Weekly update: OMG February, placemats, and the top-along + reading

 

My One Monthly Goal for February is to get Old Town to the flimsy stage.  One motivation is to reclaim the design wall. :)  

The Quiltville FB group has photos of many versions of the design with different colorways and different sashings or settings or borders.  I'm going to stick to the sashing as patterned but I may do something other than the checkerboard border.  

I made six placemat flimsies from units in the parts department.  The tan/green/red one has been around since 2007 (gulp!). I always thought I'd piece it into a quilt back.  The one below it (pink and green) is left over from the insert strip from a quilt back. 

Lantern is the The Running Doe Quilts top-along pattern for February. Here are the first four blocks (12" x 14") and the rest of the fabric pull.  

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 "Reframing the Portrait" was the topic of the December 28 episode of NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge.  British opera singer Peter Brathwaite was one of the people interviewed. I was so intrigued by his story that I checked out the book. 

During the Covid lockdown the Getty Museum challenged people to recreate famous paintings using things in their homes. Brathwaite took the challenge a step further and recreated portraits of Black people, portraits created as early as 1375 up to the present day (Kehinde Wiley's portrait of Barack Obama).   

His Barbadian grandmother's quilt features in several, such as this one by Christian Weiditz circa 1530-40.

Another quilt is the portrait.  I recognized Bisa Butler right away.  

I very much enjoyed this journey through art history.  

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Linking up with Sew and Tell  (thanks for the shout out, Melva!)  Oh Scrap!  OMG February and Design Wall Monday  

Friday check in: January report

 

"Smile for your fan club!" 

Sunshine and temperatures in the upper 30's and lower 40's were conducive to walking this week.  It was good to stretch my legs!

This is pack ice, covered in sand.

I saw four of the ornaments I hung along one of the paths in mid-December.  This one had a few remnants of its red paint.

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I had a satisfying and productive month in the studio. 

The Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) prompt this week was half-square triangles. I have a box of batik HSTs on hand so this was an easy step.  

The RSC pink Ohio Star quilt is finished.  

Earlier this month:  I quilted the 2024 guild round robin, made the Amelia flimsy for the "topalong" I've joined, and made/quilted Cat's Cradle. 

Blue is the RSC color for February.   I made the 8 nine patch blocks for my year-long RSC project.  

I found 10 blue hourglass blocks in the parts department and used eight of them for a placemat.

This latest placemat joined the others for a photo shoot.  20 so far!   

The Stash Report for January:

Fabric IN:   88-3/4 yards, $51.50, average .58 (fifty-eight cents) per yard.   I wasn't going to acquire any fabric this month but there were irresistible bargains.  The final episode of Barb M's estate sale, a great find at Salvation Army, a set of new cotton sheets at Treasure Hunt (the Amazon returns store) . . .

Fabric OUT:  95-1/2 yards.  That included yardage sent to other quiltmakers for their charity projects.  I also parted with a big stack of Heartstrings blocks and five (!!) flimsies. 

Net REDUCTION:   6-3/4 yards.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday  Stories From the Sewing Room

Weekly update: placemats, pink stars + reading

 The last Monday of January?!  Slow down, 2025! 

The parts department had two 80" lengths of neutral-squares-neutral (6.5" wide) intended for a border that I didn't use.  I added another strip of squares, then sewed the lengths together, and cut into four 20" pieces.   

I'm using the serpentine stitch to quilt these placemats.   The photo shows the borders sewn on but not yet sewn down. 

The pink Ohio Stars are a basted flimsy.  9" blocks = 36" x 45".  

# # # # # #  The ALA Retired Members Round Table Book Club met by Zoom yesterday.   Instead of reading one book and discussing it, we choose a prompt and then read a book that meets that prompt. This time it was "comic relief."  Among the recommendations:    The Bear in the Attic by Patrick McManus;   The Diary of a Wimpy Kid; The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench; If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother, by Julia Sweeney.   Also, Crooked Heart, by Lissa Evans (my review in this 2022 post) -- and I learned that there is a prequel and a sequel.  

  I chose A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, both by Richard Peck.  The first was a Newbery Honor book and the second won the Newbery in 2000.  During the Depression Joey and Mary Alice travel from their home in Chicago to stay with their Grandma Dowdel in a small town in downstate Illinois.  They thought it would be boring but they soon learned that nothing that Grandma did was boring -- airplane flights, bringing the dead back to life, foiling burglars, and more.  A laugh-out-loud chapter book for kids and grownups.  

Not much on the calendar this week -- and sunshine and warm weather!   Linking up with Oh Scrap!  Sew and Tell Design Wall Monday Monday Musings

Friday check in: catching up with a finish, BOM, SAHRR and more

 On the home front:   Thirty birthday cards arrived this week.  THANK YOU! 

The dishwasher repairman came late Monday.  He pried off the lower panel, plugged a gizmo into a gauge or something, and got a readout that said the dishwasher had run 1,586 cycles since installation.  That was interesting.  He then replaced a water intake valve.  Here's the important part. He said he guessed that I used the economy cycle (51 min.).  He was right. It turns out that's wrong and I should use the normal cycle. That pushes more water through the valve and keeps it running.   So, if you're being economical and using the light cycle perhaps you should not.  (He said he runs his dishwasher on the extra-heavy cycle.)

I finished the annual report of the Zion Woman's Club activity for GFWC-Illinois.  I spent more time worrying about it than it took to actually compile the statistics, fill out the form, and write the narrative. (It's due on February 1, The state board says its goal is to get reports from 75% of the clubs in Illinois so apparently not every club does it. But we do!)  

A couple of months ago the church women had a speaker who specializes in senior care and placement. I called her for advice. She came yesterday.  Stevens was cordial to her though characteristically when he decided he was tired of conversing he told her, "Good-bye!" (He does the same when Curt, the parish visitor, comes to visit.)  Debra will provide recommendations but right now she advises using V (our housekeeper who can do day care) more frequently, since V is willing and able and Stevens knows and likes her.  I will!  

# # # # #  In the studio:  

SAHRR round one.  The instructions were to use a block with your initial.  Nine patch was an obvious choice for N. I have a box of 3.5" mixed-batik 9ps on hand.  At first the green batik seemed too blotchy but now I like it.  

I hope the subsequent rounds will allow me to use what I have in the parts department. 

    

Cat's Cradle is quilted and bound. 

I did not have to piece the backing because it was a full 45" wide.  Remember when that was the standard width? 

Here is the sixth block of the guild BOM with its five predecessors.

Seven placemats are ready to layer and quilt. 

Nine pink Ohio Stars are on the design wall. I've cut pieces for 11 more. 

The five (!!) pink flowers of the Apple Blossom amaryllis have faded but look at the new leaves! 

Linking up at Finished or Not Friday  Scrap Happy Saturday