Weekly update: books, a finish, and an alternative

"Our guild inherited a quilter's estate," Nancy S. told me. "I have boxes of her books in my garage and I need to get them out." I said I'd take them off her hands.

When I unpacked the boxes I counted 275 books plus a couple of patterns. The newest  are from the early 2000's. Most are from the 1990's. Some of the how-to books predate the rotary cutter. (I like to look up the authors of those to see if they are still quilting. Some are.) There are exhibit catalogs and state quilt history books.  I'm slowly going through them (many I own, or I once owned).  I've already sold several.  [If you're interested:  $30, postpaid, for a medium-sized flat rate box containing 20-25 books -- potluck (no requests for the time being).]

The Whatchagot Box arrived.  The swap is easy: send quilty stuff you no longer love ("what you've got") to one person and receive new-to-you stuff from another.  I sent a box to Sharon earlier in the month. Corinne sent me this wonderful assortment of fabric (about 25 yds). I'm counting what I received as an even exchange for what I sent.

The daisy wallhanging is finished except for the binding. That job is  going to my fellow P.E.O. quilter since this wallhanging is for a chapter sister who is moving away.

BUT

I may not give this to that sister.  The reason?
 It is large:  29 x 39.  What if the recipient has no space to display it?  If it were half that size, or even 2/3 that size . . .















SO:
I've turned my thoughts to making a lap quilt.  I made one daisy block in purple, the January Rainbow Scrap Challenge color, and then got on to other projects.  Last evening I cut petals out of fusible web and made three more blocks by the time the Brontes on Masterpiece ended.

Monday linkups:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Oh, Scrap!
Design Wall Monday

P.S. I finished physical therapy last Thursday. My right foot is back to its pre-surgery size and I've regained flexibility.  I will have the left foot done later in 2017.

Weekly update: snow, a quilt show, a finish, and something new

I presented "Every Quilt Tells a Story" to the Riverside AAUW branch on Monday evening. I was glad that Erika accompanied me because we had a snowy drive back home.

Here's the view from the shelter of my garage at 10 p.m.

6:30 a.m. Tuesday

By Tuesday morning the storm had blown over.   Chicago had no measurable snow in January and February -- then 14" in this one March storm!

The Southport Quilters, the Kenosha guild, have an annual quilt exhibit at the Kenosha Public Museum. I went on Saturday and enjoyed seeing the 50 or so quilts on display.  I knew several people there so I spent as much time chatting as admiring.

 The 4-patches in this sparkling quilt are tiny. I think they began with 1-1/4" squares so the units are 1-1/2" finished.

I have this Elizabeth Hartman pattern and plan to make it. . . . some day. I like the "winter to autumn" colorway of this version.








In my studio this week:


I finished the table runner for the GFWC-IL convention.  Nice to have something done two months in advance.


















My new project is a wallhanging for a P.E.O. chapter sister who is  moving out of state in a couple of months.  The pattern is from "Hearts Aplenty," a book by Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith.  It's tricky because the only clues to the placement of the applique pieces are this color photo and a *smaller* black-and-white photo. Neither is very helpful.   I'm improvising!

As shown, the piece is 42 x 54.   I'm going to make a smaller border.

Daisies are the P.E.O. flower.

Monday link ups:
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
Main Crush Monday
Oh Scrap!

P.S. I indulged at  Quilt Play  -- a yard on clearance and batik remnants. 5 yards, $37.

Orphan adoption 2017: please pick these!

It's time for the 2017 quilty Orphan Adoption ! Thank you, Cynthia, for sponsoring this blog hop.

UPDATE:  there were 33 responses to this post at noon, CDT, 3/21 (per the stated rules). I asked my husband to pick a number between 1 and 33.  He said, "15."  That's Marianne.  I've notified her and as soon as I get her address I'll mail the blocks to her.  THANK YOU to all who left a comment. 


I offer you a spring bouquet of 25 6.5" (unfin.) posy blocks.  The pattern is from Block Lotto and was selected as a Block Swappers' exchange.  I've used my swap proceeds in a couple of projects but now I'm in a clearing-out mood.

To qualify to win, follow these instructions:
A.  Leave a blog comment stating your favorite spring flower.  (Roses are not a spring flower. Nor are peonies or chrysanthemums.)
B.  Be sure there is a way for me to get your email address. (I cannot reply to "no-reply" commenters.)
C.  Enter by Tuesday, March 21, at 12:00 noon Central time.
C.  Follow instructions.   No spring flower, no email, posted after 12 noon CDT on 3/21 =  no entry. 
I will send to U.S. addresses only.

 P.S. Skunk cabbage, so-called because there's a lot of stinky sulphur in the plant, is one of the earliest flowers to emerge from the leaf-litter in our woods.

Weekly update: Purim, fundraisers, and snow!

It was our turn to host the church fellowship luncheon yesterday.  It was also Purim, the Jewish holiday commemorating Queen Esther and the rescue of the Jews from being massacred back in the 4th century BCE.

Hamantaschen are a traditional Purim treat. The triangular filled cookies commemorate the defeat (execution) of the wily antisemitic Haman. (The word translates either as Haman's pockets or Haman's ears.)  My friend Celia provided the recipe and recommended using canned filling (poppyseed and apricot).  I didn't have a 3" cookie cutter so I emptied a can of green beans and used the rim.

Though not all of them held their shape, they taste delicious!

Reading the Book of Esther is a Purim tradition. A scroll (the original format) is a megillah -- so "the whole megillah" refers to reading, or reciting, the entire story.


# # # #

The Zion Conservatory of Music / Zion Woman's Club fundraiser on Saturday was a nice event.  Conservatory students (ages 7 through 18) played during the luncheon.  I donated the two tote bags  I showed last week (my March OMG) along with pre-publication books from ALA Midwinter [see the final photo in the post] and Scrappy Detour .  Fortunately for my pocketbook I was outbid on other silent auction items. (I didn't really need them.)  That savings was counterbalanced by the raffle tickets I bought for the 50/50 and gift baskets at Saturday morning's Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast.  (I didn't win.)

# # # #
I made only 11 Ohio Star blocks for the QOV project this week.  I'm determined to use only stash for the 365 blocks. The red and blue prints are easy.  I'm digging deeper to find white or very light cream (WOW and COC are okay).

Here's my new project.  The table runner will be the Zion Woman's Club door prize donation for the GFWC-Illinois state convention.  The pattern is from one of Kim Schaefer's books.  Scrappy batiks are such fun to work with!  (The outer border hasn't been sewn, hence the "tail" at the lower right corner.)


I presented Every Quilt Tells a Story to the Gurnee Woman's Club last Monday evening. This evening I'm giving the program to the AAUW Riverside Branch, about 60 miles away.  After the least-snowy January and February in years, look at what's happening today! I hope by the afternoon the traffic will have beaten down most of the snow.


Monday link ups:
Design Wall Monday
Monday Making
Oh Scrap!

A tote bag for me

  Several years ago I repurposed a library-vendor tote-bag to use for quilt guild stuff. The vendor's logo was on both sides of the bag. I made two pieced panels using screen-printed motifs from Block Party Studios to cover the logos.

The tote bag served me well but the plastic/nylon fabric wore out and the handles were about to fall off.  The pieced panels were fine. Time to make a new tote!

The 6" selvedge blocks I began last week were just right. I made 40 of them (emptying one-and-a-half gallon ziploc bags).  The tote uses 23 of them (front, back, sides,and bottom).  I reused the panels and still had some of the same red print in my stash to make the handles.

This is the fifth tote bag I've made this year. Am I on a roll?

Weekly update: totes, stars, and selvedges

These totes are my declared March OMG.  Here is the link up to the finished projects page. 

I made two tote bags for the ZWC/Zion Conservatory of Music fundraiser March 11. They're smaller than I'd like -- more like purses than book totes.

The red-and-black tote is small because I wanted to use up the piece of car head liner that I had on hand. That was the size it was. I then went to Joann's, armed with a 50% off-one-cut coupon and bought two more yards of head liner. [I think the head liner works as well as the more expensive In R Form. The difference is that head liner is fabric on one side, foam on the other. In R Form has fabric on both sides with foam in the middle.]

Orphan block used as an inner pocket 

 I tried a new pattern for the floral tote. (I remember buying the floral fabric at a quilt shop in Kenner, LA, when the ALA Biblioquilters took a fabric-shopping field trip. That was about 2003. I was never comfortable with it -- the gray is too pewtery to go with much else and I didn't get enough to use for a border or a back -- but every time I got it out thinking I'd cut it up I'd think that with some creativity I could use it for something.  Fourteen years in my stash was long enough.)

I have enough of both focus fabrics to make larger totes if I get ambitious.

Meanwhile, I cut up more whites/cream, red, and blue and made 32 more Ohio Stars. Squaring up the hourglass units is tedious.  That done, block assembly is a snap.







Rather than start on MORE Ohio Stars I pulled out a sack of trimmed selvedges. I want to make a quilt-themed totebag.  These are 6" unfinished, which means they'll finish at 5-1/2" but as long as all the blocks for the tote are the same size they'll be okay.

Monday linkups:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Oh, Scrap!
Design Wall Monday

March is Women's History Month

Mother Jones, portrayed by Betsey Means (WomanLore) visited the Lake County Women's Coalition on Saturday for the annual brunch to celebrate Women's History Month.   She told us about the textile workers' march that she led in 1903 from Philadelphia to New York (right up to Theodore Roosevelt's door at Oyster Bay).  The march brought attention to the exploitation of child workers.  (You can read more about it here .)












The 2017 WHM theme is "trailblazing women in business and labor."  The sixteen LCWC member organizations honored local women who exemplify the theme.   AAUW honored Mary Alyce, who was a pioneer in food service safety for the county.  Zion Woman's Club honored Cheri, who was the first woman snowplow driver for IDOT (at age 23) and who is now the Zion Township Supervisor.

About 150 people attended the event. AAUW had the largest delegation.












 I contributed the two bags I made last month (here) to the bucket raffle and a quilt (here) to the silent auction. Proceeds go to scholarships at the College of Lake County.

And I won the third portion of the split-the-pot! (Half to LCWC and three winners of the remainder.)

OMG for March and the stash report

Fabric in, February: 18-5/8, $19.20
Fabric out, February: 51
YTD in: 20-5/8, $19.20
YTD out:  80-1/8

(I won two FQ giveaways, so no cost, and I got good bargains at estate sales. I sold 36-3/4 yds. on Facebook "classifieds" groups.)

My OMG for March is to make a tote bag.  Yes, my February OMG was two tote bags, and I achieved that.  There's another community fundraiser coming up and I've volunteered to make a tote bag for that. (I put 4-5 advance reader copies (forthcoming books) inside.) The event is March 11 so I need to get going!
   . I've chosen the fabric.  An orphan block will be great for an interior pocket.

Other goals for the month:
*  finish the quilt restoration (nearly done!)
*  catch up on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge
*  continue with the QOV Ohio Stars (36 out of 365 so far)

 I'm linking up with other OMG participants at Elm Street Quilts