Weekly update: vintage treasures, a finish, the stash report, and plans for April

Because I spent Friday at the quilt show I couldn't go to the first day of a Waukegan estate sale.  A Featherweight was advertised and I'd have been tempted.    When I got there on Saturday morning the FW was long gone ($200, he said).   It was 50% off day. This flimsy was $2.50 and the 1932 booklet was .50. I also got 6 yards of fabric for $3.00.

There is a hole in the center of the center block.

I may re-set the blocks, but they are pretty worn and it may not be worth the time. I'm content to own it!












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I finished quilting the scrappy strip quilt.  I didn't like the proportions with sashing on the top and bottom so I removed those rows.    It's 54 x 69.

The pieced back has a "zipper" insert that I learned from Mary Ellen Hopkins.


Left photo: with top/bottom sashing.


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Stash report, March:
Fabric in:  60-1/4, $339, average $5.60/yard
Fabric out: 62-5/8
Year to date:
Fabric in: 95-1/4, $374, average $3.92/yard
Fabric out: 139-3/4 
 Net:  44-1/2 out.

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My April goals:
*  ALA Biblioquilters churn dash quilt
*  2 tote bags for AAUW Gender Equity Fund
*  2 tote bags for Rotary Golf Outing

Linking up with
 Oh Scrap!
 Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal
 Design Wall Monday
 Moving It Forward

P.S.  I took advantage of warehouse clearance sales from Martingale and AQS.  The list price of these 43 books is $971. I paid $226 (and free shipping).

Quilt Show Report

Nann and Cathy

Irene and I went to the Quilt Festival at Rosemont on Friday.  We always start with the quilt exhibits and then go shopping. 


We'd just begun the first aisle when someone said, "You're Nann!"  I said I was and she introduced herself.  It was Cathy, whose blog is Sane Crazy Crumby Quilting .  She and her friend left Iowa at 6 a.m. to get to the show.

  The quilts on display were lovely as always, though there weren't any that knocked my socks off. There was only one exhibit that prohibited photography. (There have been more no-photo exhibits at previous shows and I have complained.) 

This was an interesting group exhibit.  There were fifteen? eighteen? quilts made from a pattern of this sampler quilt.

The original is on the right.  (The date is in the center, second row from the bottom.)

The new versions had a variety of colorways. One woman made four!

The vendor mall was about half the size of previous years.  The closeout companies were absent.   A couple of bargains lowered the average price for my total 22 yards to about $10/yd.   I stuck to my shopping list -- white-with black, more DaGama indigos -- and indulged a wee bit with some Australian prints.

 This is the last year that Quilts Inc. will have a Chicago show. They haven't announced a location for spring, 2020.   Indianapolis? St. Louis? Kansas City?  I'd go to any of those!

OMG -- Good Fortune at last

The reworked corner + a peek at the backing

My One Monthly Goal for March was to rework the outer border on Good Fortune, the Quiltville 2018 mystery quilt.   The first three borders fit fine but each outer border was 3" short.  My first attempt to fix them -- inserting a chunk of blue on each end of each border -- was clunky.  I took the borders off, pressed them well and measured them carefully.  I still needed inserts and chose orange.  All went together.

I took the quilt to Barb, the LAQ (long-arm quilter).  When I picked it up yesterday she showed me where I'd gone wrong.  "But I measured!" I said.  She said I should have measured the assembled blocks first, then measured after attaching each border.  The error began between borders #1 and #2.  All the seams made them grow.  Nonetheless, Barb was miraculously able to tame the wavy outer border and it looks just fine.

I attached the binding last evening and will affix the label today.  This is the 2019 AAUW spring raffle quilt. I hope the proceeds will bring Good Fortune for AAUW's efforts for equity for women and girls.

See what other quiltmakers have accomplished this month at the OMG linkup at Elm Street Quilts.

Weekly update: orchids, two finishes, and more scrappy blocks

The week began with a visit to the orchid show at Chicago Botanic Garden .  It's become so popular that it now opens in mid-February and ends at the end of March. We know better than to try to visit on weekends -- far too crowded!  The library offers half-price admission passes and I made sure to get one. 

It is impossible to take a bad photo of an orchid.
















We checked out a wheelchair at the guest services desk. It made navigation much easier. The exhibit hall and greenhouse are a considerable distance from the visitor center.










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In the studio:  I finished quilting Red Rails 5.  I did straight lines through the centers of the units.  The backing is a floral sheet from Salvation Army.

I made this table runner as the Zion Woman's Club's door prize contribution for the 2019 GFWC-IL convention.  The design, by Jodie Davis, was published in a Fons & Porter leaflet circa 2013.  It's all batik, 14 x 34.







Once I get batiks out it's hard to put them away.  These scrappy blocks are 9.5".   After I took the photo I made four more.

But this week I need to get to work on the third of the ALA Biblioquilters quilts.  All the contributed blocks have arrived. I have a few more to make before I can assemble them.


Linking up with
 Oh, Scrap!
Monday Making (Table Mats)
 Design Wall Monday
 Moving It Forward





P.S. The equinoctal moon on Thursday morning.

Adoption time -- and equal pay!

3/27 update:  Thanks to all who read my post and took time to learn about the gender pay gap.  The winners are
Shasta -- apple blocks
Sherry -- bordered rails
Tami -- Seminole bands

Cynthia has opened the annual Quilty Orphan Adoption.  I'm pleased to join the group.  [See all the orphan offerings HERE ]


This year I'm offering *three*  giveaways.  These blocks have lingered in the spare parts/orphan boxes for far too long.  It's time for another quiltmaker to give them a good home. (Sewing them into a quilt would be a bonus.)




#1     23 apples from a 2009 Block Swappers exchange.  They are 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" unfinished.












#2    18  bordered rails left over from this project (2016).  The blocks are 8-1/2" unfinished.

#3    Seminole bands.  They are 8-1/2" wide and come in three pieces:  100", 32", and 25".   I think I'd intended to border bed sheets and coordinating pillowcases, but I can't remember. They would work well in a strippy quilt or as quilt borders.  With 100" you could trim a skirt in the style of the original Seminole clothing.




But wait! There's more!  Along with each set of blocks I will send a package of quilty gifts -- maybe a book, maybe a pattern, maybe some fabric.


In order to win one of these three sets I'm asking you to take a few minutes to become informed about the gender pay gap.

Read the background and research here.

See how your state (and congressional district) stack up here .

To enter the giveaway -- for the blocks + gift package -- leave a comment that includes
(a)  One thing you learned about the gender pay gap [in addition to the information in the graphic in this post]
(b)  How your state compares in the gender pay gap
(c)  Which set of blocks (apples, rails, Seminole bands) you want to win.

If you are a no-reply blogger include your email address. [If you are a "reply" blogger then your reply will have your email.]   ** I will mail to U.S. addresses only.**
If you do not include responses to (a), (b), and (c), and if you do not provide an email address, then you cannot qualify to win.  

I will draw the winners on Wednesday morning, March 27, 2019.

Good luck!

Weekly update: treats, totes, and a scrappy flimsy

On Saturday the P.E.O.s in Lake County celebrated Founders' Day.  Because I am on the round table board and because I've given programs for other chapters I knew many of the women there -- but it was a pleasant surprise to see a woman who is a former member of my quilt guild. She's been a P.E.O. for a year and a half.  She now belongs to the other guild--and a member of my chapter is in that guild but the two don't know they share P.E.O. as well as quilting.

The program was "Notable Women in Lake County History," presented by historian Diana Dretzke. Among them: a 19th century temperance advocate, an innovative dairy farmer, the first Illinois woman to vote in a state election -- and many others.

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We were hosts for coffee hour/luncheon after church this morning. In honor of St. Patrick's Day I made a loaf of soda bread and set out the components for make-your-own-Reuben sandwiches (with the little square slices of rye bread that we used to call "cocktail" rye -- these packages called it "entertainment size").  For dessert I made Hamantaschen because Purim is this coming Wednesday.
I used poppyseed, apricot, and lemon curd filling -- more of the latter two because I thought (correctly) that the kids would think the poppyseeds were gross.

As I rolled, cut out, and filled the cookie dough Stevens read the Book of Esther aloud to refresh my memory of the story.    Hamantaschen  means "Haman's pockets" and the filling is said to be the money he gave to the king. (The Wikipedia explanation is here.)  In Biblical times clothing didn't have pockets the way we know them -- rather, pockets were pouches that hung from a belt or waist cord. Hence, the three-cornered Hamantaschen isn't an odd design.

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My friend Cindy commissioned a tote bag as a baby shower gift.  She plans to add picture books.  I looked up teddy bear clip art to find the design.  It was easy to trace onto fusible web.

The second tote bag will be donated to a GFWC-IL event.  I'll add books from the seemingly undiminished stack of advance reader copies that I got at the ALA conference in January.













This is the fifth red rails quilt I've made.*  There was a ziploc bag in the orphan blocks box with 42 four-unit blocks and 24 single units. I have 1.5" x 3.5" strips already cut and it didn't take long to make more units and blocks. There won't be a border and I'll trim the edges after I've quilted it.   (3-1/2 yds.)

* I have gone back to find photos of the other four and labeled each post "red rails" if you want to see them.




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

It's a finish! (and this week's bargain)

All but the label:  Jeweled Windows is quilted and bound! The blocks are 7 x 12 finished.   They were made by my fellow ALA Biblioquilters. This will be in the silent auction at the ALA Annual Conference in June.



The bright backing fabric was an estate-sale purchase.















I stopped at Salvation Army on Monday.  I could not resist these bargains -- 32 yards, $28 (including the all-cotton queen-sized sheet on the bottom right).

The African-style prints are regular cotton. I think they were used for a Black History Month display or program because the top (brighter) pieces were edged in store-bought bias tape and one piece had a store-bought fringe attached.  The bottom pieces (8-plus yards in all) were scrunched, not neatly folded, the way you'd scrunch when cleaning up. (Quilters know that misfolded fabric means wrinkled fabric.)   Do you remember Minnesota Fabrics? This surely was a flatfold -- but 4 yds. 6 in. instead of the 3 yds on the tag.

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday

Weekly update: meetings galore and vintage treasures

The first week of the month is always meeting-filled -- P.E.O., Zion Woman's Club, Friends of the Library, quilt guild -- plus Rotary (every week).
Thursday noon I had an  AAUW Gender Equity Fund committee meeting at the restaurant at Nordstrom's at Woodfield Mall.  It had been a long time since I'd been to a department store.
 On Thursday evening I went to a candidate forum for contested Zion commissioner and mayoral races (election April 2).
Friday was the P.E.O.bimonthly round table meeting.
 Saturday began with the annual Kiwanis pancake breakfast. We went early (7:15) because I had to get to the AAUW general meeting by 9:00 to set up the AV for the speaker.  She was excellent  the first openly transgender public school teacher in the U.S., who finished the 1997-98 school year as Mr. and returned in the fall as Ms.  (She told us how she told her then-wife, her kids, her parents, the school administration, and her colleagues. Different reactions, in the end supportive.) One of her three children is also transgender. (Among the things we learned was that "transgender" is an adjective and not a verb.)   It was also Rotary's annual spaghetti dinner delivery -- lunchtime, that is -- to elderly and homebound. My husband was able to take some of them but I got home to help him finish.
Saturday night was the  time change that everyone moans about. 
Sunday afternoon was the next in the Lake County Community Concert Assn. series -- Vox Fortura .  They were terrific!!

 Valli Schiller gave a humorous talk at the quilt guild meeting:  "A Guide to the Quilter's Natural Habitat." She showed photos of quilters' studios -- quite a variety! -- and brought a selection of her bright scrappy quilts.
















I had limited time to sew, obviously. I corrected the corners on Good Fortune, pieced the back,  and took it to Barb, the LAQ, on Friday after P.E.O. round table.  [Doing all this is my OMG for March.  Glad to have it done!]

I assembled the Jeweled Windows blocks and pieced the back. It's now under the needle.




On my way home from the AAUW meeting I stopped at an estate sale.  Half-price day!   I paid $9.00 for all of these treasures.


All-cotton rick rack. Note the top packages are 6 yds. for fifteen cents. The bottom package has a different label design and is 5 yds for fifteen cents.  (And the cardboard for the brown rickrack is longer.)






This unused linen towel is signed: Lois Long.
I didn't know this designer.  As a result of reading this post I do now!

Similar towels are on Etsy for $20 +.  I think I'll keep this.  


The real treasure was in a battered box that originally contained a man's shirt (from Sears).

All the pieces for a Double Wedding Ring, cut and sorted.

The white arcs and melons are foxed (=stained) but the segments are okay.

Now that I've shown you the photo I will remove the sharp pins (the cashier stabbed herself as she checked out my purchases) and put the segments in ziploc bags.

Be careful of old pins! They may be corroded.

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

Weekly update: WHM19, RSC, BOM, Lotto, and a new scrappy flimsy

The Lake County Women's Coalition celebrated Women's History Month on Saturday. Honorees were "visionary women of Lake County."  AAUW honored Ethel Untermyer, who began the Lake County Forest Preserve District.  Zion Woman's Club honored Olive Lind who began Zion-Benton Children's Services.   Jessica Michna portrayed Golda Meir.

I donated Bow Ties to the silent auction and two tote bags with books to the raffle. Ethel's daughter was the high bidder for the quilt.  I bought $40 in raffle tickets and won three gift cards (total $100) and a ceramic bird bath.

LCWC has a scholarship fund at the College of Lake County for women who are "returning to learning." This year two women received scholarships.


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Back home: 

GREEN is the RSC color this month. Here are 31 green-and-gray/taupe pinwheels.  (I'm simplifying my RSC in 2019 and making 6.5" pinwheels, one for each day, in the monthly color.)













Here is this month's wonky house for the guild BOM.


I volunteered to design this month's Block Lotto. I chose Wings of Spring. It's 6-1/2" unf.  Here are my nine entries.




A few months ago I began sewing odd scraps into blocks. I got out the scrap box again and kept going. until I made 30 9.5" blocks.  I put them on the design wall. A lovely purple print (Painters Canvas by Michael Miller, one of my bargains last fall) seemed just right. 













As I considered the straight setting I thought it would need cornerstones and I didn't want to fiddle with making 42 of them.  Here's what happened instead.  The flimsy is 54 x 81 and used 5-1/4 yds. (by weight). 


Linking up with So Scrappy
Oh Scrap!
Design Wall Monday
Monday Making
Moving It Forward