Weekly update: Good Fortune and holiday flings about, out, and mostly in

Here's as much of Good Fortune Clue #3 as I was able to complete this weekend.  In the directions Bonnie cautioned to sew and press accurately in order to make the 2" bonus HSTs.  Using that method means that the units have very narrow seam allowances but it also means you don't have to make a separate set of HSTs.







Flinging about -- it was a week of holiday parties.   Monday: P.E.O. potluck and seasonal sock exchange.  Tuesday:  Zion Woman's Club holiday meeting (with a white elephant exchange).   Wednesday: Quilt Guild holiday dinner. We had an ornament exchange, a fat quarter exchange, and a White Elephant exchange.

Somehow I have become the "passing game" chairman.  At each of the events I read "Twas the Night RIGHT Before Christmas." There were rights and lefts aplenty in the poem to mix up the gift-passing.

Cardinals in the Pines 

The AAUW holiday luncheon was Saturday. No passing game, but a very productive silent auction, selling no-longer-loved stuff to one another ($517).  We had the drawing for the raffle quilt that I contribute each year ($335).  (Those along with proceeds from other fundraisers netted $2622 for AAUW Funds.)  Contributions to our local scholarship fund, for which I made the mug rugs ,were $1045 which exceeded what I offered to match. That means that our scholarships are fully funded!




Saturday evening Stevens and I enjoyed the Lake County Symphony Orchestra concert.  Master dulcimer player Charles Brown composed a piece specificially for the orchestra. Our seats were perfect to see Brown's hands as he played. Wow!









Sunday afternoon the Zion Woman's Club hosted a holiday tea at Shiloh House which was beautifully decorated for Christmas.  The tea was a benefit for Zion-Benton Children's Services. That agency provides dental care for children from low-income families.

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I flung more than at social events and white elephants! 

I sent four quilts to Robert Kaufman Co. in Los Angeles. They are collecting quilts to give to the victims of the California fires. 
If you read the post right before this you saw the vintage hankies that were flung to me on Thursday.

The biggest fling was totally unexpected.  On Saturday afternoon I'd just gotten home from the AAUW luncheon. I got a message that fabric had been donated to the guild and could be picked up at the township center before 4 p.m. (It was the guild's UFO workshop day.)  Why not?  I arrived at 3:45. Shar explained that she'd been contacted by the family of a woman who'd been a prolific quilter until she had a stroke that confined her to a nursing home. Some guild members had taken some things but there was a lot left.  I said I didn't want to be greedy, but I'd make it all disappear. Shar was relieved. She did not want to take it home.

Left:  30+ books, mostly early 2000's, some that I've had, some new-to-me. (And one that I'd recently purchased after tracking it down on Amazon!)

 Right:  patterns, a few notions, and kits.

THE FABRIC! ! ! !  The stack on the right is all homespuns.  The bags on the top are filled with fat quarters.  There were four ecru FQs that I can put to use right away in Good Fortune.  Mostly browns and golds, very rich tones.  I weighed it.  68 pounds.  That's 272 yards!  Good Fortune, indeed.

All I want to do now is fold, refold, and file -- but first  I have to make the bookshelf quilt. The recipient's retirement party is December 19.

Monday link ups:
  Quiltville Mystery Monday
Monday Making
 Oh Scrap
Moving It Forward
Design Wall Monday

What's in the box? Hankies!

The box has a nifty picture, too.

Dorothy gave me a box of hankies  at the AAUW board meeting last evening. She explained that they came from the estate of a friend who had recently passed away.  She and her husband got the friend's cat (who has settled in nicely).   Dorothy said I could help myself to any that I liked.

It's a good thing I didn't open the box until I got home. Had I opened it during the meeting the agenda would have stopped then and there. (Not a good thing, because I was presiding.)

Oh, what treasures!

Many of the hankies had never been used -- as in never laundered, always refolded along the same creases. They had the manufacturer's labels in the corners. Two had the original price stickers.

Marshall Field Centennial, 1952, showing a map of downtown Chicago.
(My mother was the secretary to the MF&Co. v.p. of suburban stores. She left to have me.) 

Tammis Keefe with sticker (it's in the upper left corner.) I love her designs!

 Carson Pirie Scott price tag ($ .39)   A lucky four-leaf clover for me!

 MF&Co. price tag: $. 50.

Love these colors!

 I knew this was Bermuda before I unfolded it.  I recognized the picture of St. Peter's. (We went to Bermuda in February, 2008.)

I'll conclude the show with a mid-century Christmas greeting by Carl Tait.

Weekly update: stash report, OMG, and Good Fortune

Fabric in, November:  118 yards, $215 (average $1.82)
Fabric out, November:  33-5/8
Fabric in, YTD:  580-3/8, $1191 (average $2.05)
Fabric out,YTD:  513-5/8
Net increase:  66-3/4
As I've said, if I can't keep myself from acquiring fabric at least I can get bargains! This month I scored big at an estate sale and another quilter's destash.

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It was easy to determine my One Monthly Goal for December:  a bookshelf quilt for a library staff member who's retiring. Her party is December 19.

So far I've pulled the novelty scraps boxes off the shelf.

Novelty stash

Since 2003 I've made forty-plus bookshelf quilts using a pattern by Christine Thresh (winnowing.com). I know there are many other bookshelf designs but by using the same pattern I've created a series.  Locally the bookshelves are for coworkers getting their MLS degrees, coworkers who are retiring, and for trustees completing their board terms. I've made them for my two longtime ALA conference roommates when they retired and for the ALA Executive Board members during the three years I was on EB.  In 2005 the ALA Biblioquilters created a group quilt using this pattern. It hung in the foyer of the ALA Washington Office for many years.

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Here's Clue 2 for Good Fortune, the Quiltville mystery.

I made 90 sixteen-patch blocks. At this writing I have half the rows assembled. I could tweak the block arrangement forever so I'm not going to! The blocks are 6-1/2" so the top will be 54 x 60.



Linking up with
Quiltville Mystery Monday
Elm Street Quilts OMG
Oh Scrap!
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
Moving It Forward 

A finish!

Some flimsies stay in the box for a long, long time.  This was not one of those!  (See my posts for the previous two weeks.) 

The pieced back used up some prints that had been in the stash for years and kept four blocks from orphanhood.  Back and binding: 4 yards.

Linking up with  Needle and Thread Thursday

Weekly update: gratitude, mug rugs, and Good Fortune

I'm composing this post Sunday night as a blizzard howls.  My sympathy goes to all the travelers whose flights were canceled or postponed, and to everyone who faced driving back home or back to college this afternoon -- but I'm glad we don't have to go anywhere until a dentist appointment at noon tomorrow.

Pepto-Bismol pink!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house here in town.  I contributed Susan Stamberg's mother-in-law's cranberry relish.  (Here is this year's presentation of the recipe.)   Our hostess and the other guests liked it.   I bought a turkey for us and roasted it on Thursday so our house smelled wonderful and we will have lots of turkey to enjoy.

 Our favorite produce stand closed for the season this weekend. We bought more apples and some of the last from their gardens: beets and turnips.


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I made 20 mug rugs. These will be thank you gifts for those who donate to our AAUW local scholarship fund.  The $500 scholarships are for girls graduating from area high schools who plan to major in STEM fields.

They're all Christmas-themed because they'll be given at the December 8 holiday luncheon. 20 should be sufficient, but I'd be happy if I had to make more!

There are four trees, four stars, and two of each of the others. IMPORTANT NOTE:  I did not use binding! Instead I sewed them pillow-style (right sides together, sew around the edge, turn them right side out). Much, much quicker than applying binding.

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Here is Clue 1 of Good Fortune, the Quiltville mystery.  I made half the number of units because I'm going to shoot for half the blocks. I don't want to knock myself out this season.









I watched a recorded episode of Love of Quilting just in time to learn a good technique to cut strip sets accurately.  Here is a quick tutorial.


Four strip sets.

Stagger them as you stack them. That way the seams nest and the stack is the same height.

Square off the end. Cut the appropriate width.


Try it! It works.



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Our guild is making pillowcases as a holiday charity project.  I took six kits (already cut to size). Sewing them was a snap. I'll turn them in at the December holiday party.





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I made eight black/white 16-patches before I went improv to make the scrappy blocks I showed last week.  I made a few more and I'm contemplating what they'll become.   (2" strips so blocks are 6-1/2" unf.)

That scrappy b/w is now under the needle. The pieced backing took longer to audition than the block arrangement did!


Monday link ups:
Quiltville Mystery Monday
 Oh Scrap!
Monday Making
 Design Wall Monday
 Moving It Forward

Weekly update: a new flimsy

 Sacajawea came to our AAUW meeting on Tuesday evening.  Dolley Madison visited the library on Saturday afternoon.  Both presentations were very interesting.  (My first encounter with both women was reading their biographies in the Childhood of Famous Americans series.)

Left: Martina Mathisen. Right: Debra Anne Miller . Check their websites for other historical portrayals.

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Last week I posted a photo of 30 blocks and said that I would make 42 for a 6 x 7 setting.   I made 33 and contemplating setting them. I realized that the busy blocks would blend too much unless they were sashed, but sashing a 6 x 7 setting would make a pretty big quilt. So I chose 30 of the 33 blocks and  contemplated sashing. Plain strips would be dull.  I remembered a design from long ago and found the book (copyright 2000). This cover quilt has 12" blocks  and 3" x 12" sashes (3" cornerstones). My blocks are 10" so I drafted my own curvy pattern.  I adapted the scrappy cornerstones from the cover quilt.   
         The flimsy is 70 x 80 and used 7 yards (by weight).










Here's how I made the pattern.
 Overlap two strips slightly.






Cut a gentle curve through both layers. The bits on the right are the cutaway.

Make a cardboard template the same as the sample pieces.










Sample pieces sewn together.   I trimmed the units to 10.5 x 3".








Here are the blocks for the Temecula Secret Santa






A local quilter posted that she had to destash to help pay the household bills. I paid $2.50/yard for all of this. (Kona Bay and other designer prints, and enough white-on-white to last me for a long, long time.)

Though it's an "off" week (only one meeting!) and we will have Thanksgiving dinner with friends here in town, there's lots to do. Hope your holiday preparations are coming along well.

Monday link ups:
Design Wall Monday
Oh Scrap
Monday Making
Moving It Forward