With Strings Attached: DWM: March forward!

March began with the annual Women's History Month brunch sponsored by the Lake County Women's Coalition held on Saturday morning. AAUW-Waukegan is one of the member organizations, each of whom nominates a "woman of distinction" for her civic and professional accomplishments and her contributions to the organzation.

The guest speaker was Barbara Joan Zeitz, an AAUW member, who writes a column called CountHerHistory. Each month she writes about a different woman -- some of them are familiar but most of them are not. You can read the columns on the AAUW-Illinois website here . ("A Thesaurus of Women from Cherry Blossoms to Cell Phones" is the first compilation of columns. Barbara's working on second book. You can order the book via the links on the AAUW-IL site.)

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It didn't seem to me that I accomplished very much in terms of quilting in February. Fabric out: 29-7/8. Fabric in: 30-7/8. Net gain: 1 yard. 20 yards of the consumption was (were?) used for pillowcases for our guild's charity project. If I'd just stayed out of the Salvation Army store and avoided that bargain fabric....

I've finished quilting the center of Lulu's Baskets! Halfway through I didn't like how the quilting was going. I had a design epiphany (during the LCWC brunch) and I persevered. The borders should be easier and I ought to have the quilt finished at the end of the week.

While I was stuck on Lulu's quilting I repurposed a tote bag. I'll fill it with advance reader copies (forthcoming books) and donate it to a fundraiser for the Zion Conservatory of Music . The black/white/red flying geese came out of two shoeboxes. I started those units back in 2008 when the Magpies gathered in Las Cruces. You can see me making them in this post .

When I pulled out the black/white/red storage box I thought that I really ought to make something out of the rest of the contents. I surveyed the rest of my studio and thought, "but not now!" I put the shoeboxes back and continued with the scraps on hand: a box full of 1.5 x 7.5 strips. I sewed them in 6's, trimmed the blocks to 6.5", cut them diagonally, and I've begun repiecing them. (Note that some of the strips are made up of 1.5" squares.) Another quilt is born!