Midweek: wrapping up May with OMG and the stash report

 

Mid-Monday morning we set up our chairs on Sheridan Road to watch the Winthrop Harbor Memorial Day parade.    Hometown parades are best! 

There's a spot at Illinois Beach where lupine blooms every year.  

Cue Miss Rumphius!  (I have gone back and harvested some of the seeds but they haven't germinated in my garden.) 

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OMG for May:  (1) something orange -- in two quilt backs and one quilt top 

and (2) the wall hanging for the ALA silent auction 

I shipped the wall hanging and five of my quilts to the ALA conference exhibits manager.   That made a slight reduction in stack of quilts-waiting-for-the-right-occasion.  (Though I added two to that stack with Chunky Bars and GeoChic.) 

I sold this quilt !  The buyer is tickled.  "I am so happy to have a Nann original," she wrote.

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Stash report for May: 

Fabric IN:  85 yards, $62 = .73 per yard.  Thrift-store sheets, church rummage sale, and guild giveaway.

Fabric OUT:  71-1/4   Scraps and yardage sent to R.R. and C.B.  I toss slivers into a bag and when it's full I weigh it--24 yards of those trimmings this month!

Fabric IN January-May:  331-1/2, $840, avg. $2.53 per yard.

Fabric OUT January-May:  349-1/2.   Net reduction:  18.  

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P.S.  At the parade.  Finally some warm weather!

Weekly update: Wildflowers, rhubarb, and Chunky Bar squeaker

 It's way too dry but the abundant sunshine is wonderful!  Saturday afternoon we went to Pine Dunes.  Until I began purposeful hiking I didn't know this existed.  The wildflowers are glorious.   A pair of cranes walked right in front of me, bugling all the while. I suspect their nest was nearby.

Pond-lily, shooting star, mayapple flower.   Wild flag iris, blue wild indigo, Virginia waterleaf.  longbract or false wild indigo, purple vetch, blue-eyed grass.

Sunday afternoon's walk was along the lakefront.  Puccoons grow in sandy soil.  Upper right:  narrowleaf puccoon.  Lower right: hoary puccoon.   Upper left: a cluster of hoary puccoon.  Also called stoneseed, species of gromwell.  

Lower left:  bastard umbellate toadflax.

These names sound like Shakespearean curses!

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When the landscapers tilled our vegetable garden they dug up the rhubarb.   (The boss apologized and I will deduct the cost of the four crowns I bought as replacements.)   Meanwhile our friend Mary Lou said we could harvest as much as we wanted.   I'd been emptying the freezer in anticipation of this year's crop -- but I still have one bag left from last summer.

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In the studio:  an unexpected and satisfying start and finish.   Remember the striped sashing that I ripped out of GeoChic? 

 

Another magazine pattern provided a way to use some of them.   

The pattern uses 5-1/2" and3-1/2" strips cut 21" and the quilt is 84 x 84. 

I adapted it using 3-1/2 and 2-1/2 x 8-1/2 strips.   It took me a bit to realize there are four blocks.  

The squeaker:  I had this much of the black/gray left.

Here's the finish!  51 x 64. 

The back uses a multi- dot print that I've had trouble incorporating into blocks (too black, too fussy, too something) and a jolly orange to finish up this month's RSC.  

Oh, and I still have a heap of gray striped pieces......

Linking up with Oh Scrap!  Design Wall Monday  

P.S.  First poppy in our garden, just in time for Memorial Day.   

Friday check in: bow ties

Historian Leslie Goddard presented an engaging program about Route 66 for the final Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon of the year.   She showed photos and told stories about how the highway changed small towns from Illinois to California (gas stations, restaurants, tourist courts).   It became the popular overland route because most of it was fairly flat (south of the higher Rockies). However, it was a two-lane road that went right through the centers of towns, and in the 1950s and 1960s it was superseded by the Interstate Highway System.  Rather than get stuck in backwater obscurity many of the towns capitalized on nostalgia and now thousands of tourists from the U.S. and around the world travel along "the mother road." 

I sat next to two women whom I knew but not well (one from AAUW and one from P.E.O.).  Great conversation. 

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In the studio:   the bow ties are finished! I made several groups of 3" to add a little variety.   Next step is to distribute the colors.   

If I use all the blocks it will be 60 x 72 before borders.

Linking up with  Finished or Not Friday  Peacock Party  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

P.S.  Holiday weekend plans: take S for pedicure, present  Rotary 8th grade graduation awards at Our Lady of Humility School,  go to Mary Lou's house to cut rhubarb, then process said rhubarb for the freezer; buy and plant tomatoes -- and work on a new project.  (Come back on Monday to see it.)

Midweek: wildflowers + the third law + bowties

The eye of the bog

Yesterday we revisited Volo Bog.   It's at the western edge of the county, 28 miles from where we live.   

Pitcher plant, starflower, orchard grass, prairie groundsel, Canadian anemone, sensitive fern, water arum, vetch, cinnamon fern.  

From the website:  Volo Bog was originally a deep 50-acre lake, with steep banks and poor drainage. The lake began filling with vegetation approximately 6,000 years ago. A floating mat, consisting primarily of sphagnum moss formed around the outside edges among the cattails and sedges. As these plants died and decomposed, the peat mat thickened, forming a support material for rooted plants. 

Volo Bog is significant in that it exhibits all stages of bog succession. A floating mat of sphagnum moss, cattails and sedges surrounds an open pool of water in the center of the bog.

I try to walk for a longer time than it takes to drive.   

 

 

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 Newton's Third Law:  for every action there is an equal opposite reaction.   

That certainly applies to stash management!  On the way home from a doctor's appointment (S is doing much better) we stopped at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop.  Three queen-sized sheets and a tablecloth (April Cornell print) for $20.00.  

An entire set of sheets in that orange (brighter in person than in the photo) would not be very restful.  This was just a fitted bottom sheet.

To counteract that acquisition I made another 50 blocks for Cynthia's June block drive and sent them off, along with the previous batch and several backing-length pieces.

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Last evening I made a couple of dozen more bowties.  The plan is to make 120.  I hope this will be the AAUW holiday quilt. 

Linking up with Midweek Makers Wednesday Wait Loss 

Weekly update: Bound to be orange + pinwheel rescue

I’m composing this post on my iPad and cannot cut-and-paste to edit.  Please bear with me!

I spilled a mug of coffee on my computer yesterday morning.  I got a Geek Squad appointment at Best Buy at 12:20 where I was told that with a 7-year-old laptop it was toast.  They only had a floor model of the new version but another store had one, so we drove another 15 miles to pick it up, then dropped it off at the first Best Buy.  “Estimate five days for the data transfer and set up,” the Geek Squad woman said.  Ugh!    But to my relief I got a call at 7:30 p.m. (while I was at the Razzle Dazzles bunco fundraising dinner) saying that the computer is ready.   I’ll get it this afternoon.

Afternoon update:   Geek Squad transferred everything to the new computer and I'm back in business!  (And I was able to connect the printer myself.)  

The Razzle Dazzles are our local baton twirling corps.  They’re going to the world championship competition in Liverpool this summer.  The Zion Woman’s Club members helped with serving the dinner.   We stayed to play, too, and got some pointers for our own bunco party in the fall.   Of the 100 or so people (a ladies’ night out so all women and the RDs themselves) I was the high scorer!  I got to pick a prize — an Amazon gift card.  

I donated a quilt to the raffle. 

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In the studio:  GeoChic is finished — bound in orange for this month’s RSC.   

I sewed left over triangles from the hourglass units into HSTs and used most of them on the back.

The jumbo dot fabric is a thrift shop sheet. 

  I took a cue from Cathy L about practicing a different FMQ design — this is a leaf.

A month ago I made pinwheels and square-in-squares out of CW reproduction fabrics.  The pattern alternated units.  I didn’t like the way they mushed together so I tried some alternate settings.  I still wasn’t happy so I set them aside. 

 Having too many works-in-progress bothers me and I decided to give these PW/SIS another look.  Here’s what happened!   68 x 84, 6-1/8 yards used.  

And I have units left over.  

 Linking up with Design Wall Monday

Midweek: pneumonia front + the corollary, and the flimsy

Yesterday we experienced a weather phenomenon called a pneumonia front.  From AccuWeather:   A pneumonia front is a localism originating from the midwestern U.S. that describes when cold air over Lake Michigan rushes inland, causing templates to drop dramatically. The rapid decline in temperature can also be accompanied by clouds and rain showers.

When I was on the trail it was 80 degrees -- a lovely spring afternoon.   We got home and in minutes the temperature dropped to 60! 

Clockwise:  wild strawberries, blue-eyed grass, starry false lily of the valley, wild geranium (aka cranesbill), apple blossom.

A butterfly (at the vegetable/flower shop).  A snail along the trail, first I've ever seen.

# # # # # # #   On to the quilting front:

You know the saying, "Measure twice, cut once."   My corollary is, "Design twice, sew once."  

I did not follow that advice with this project.  I thought there'd been enough of the gray stripe I chose for sashing.  I cut all that I had (3-1/2" x 8-1/2").  I sewed sashes and blocks to make rows.  I sewed the horizontal sashes (stripe plus red) -- until I ran out, 8 sashes short.   I had another gray in the same tone, but not a stripe, and it looked....out of place.  I determined three options:   (1)  make the quilt smaller (5 x 6 blocks rather than 6 x 7), (2) use the out-of-place gray, (3) rip and re-sash.   

I chose (3) with a gray-on-white print (actually one of the bed sheets I got at the thrift shop last week) 

Blocks are 8" finished.   Flimsy is 60 x 80.    6 yards by weight.

Pattern:  Geo Chic by Homestead Hearth in McCall's Quick Quilts, D/J 2014. 

Linking up with  Midweek Makers  Wednesday Wait Loss

  Thanks for the shout-out on today's WWL!

Weekly update: orange + new start

I included RSC orange in a batch of blocks I'm contributing to an upcoming block drive.  There are 50 (all colors) in this photo.  I plan to make a few more.  

There are a few oranges here, too.  I'm planning to make 42 blocks (8-1/2" unfinished).  There's more to the design.   I hope to have a flimsy to show mid-week.

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A Mother's Day remembrance.  

My mother loved reading British mysteries. (So did my dad.). In 1987 they were in Scotland during the Edinburgh Book Festival. Lady Antonia Fraser was a featured author. Mother said, “Oh, Lady Antonia, if you come to the U.S. it would be wonderful if you could visit our favorite mystery bookstore.” And somehow Mother and the bookstore owner made it happen in 1988. [Before the Internet!]

Linking up with Oh Scrap!

RSC So Scrappy

Design Wall Monday

Melva Loves Scraps

Books of the Week: material culture x three

 This year my reading has slowed down.  I've checked out stacks of books, some of which I read and many that I don't.  I have many unread books in the book case.  I'm going to keep trying to keep BOTW weekly.

This season I've enjoyed three books about material culture.

The Wikipedia definition:   Material culture is most commonly used in archaeological and anthropological studies, to define material or artifacts as they are understood in relation to specific cultural and historic contexts, communities, and belief systems. Material culture can be described as any object that humans use to survive, define social relationships, represent facets of identity, or benefit peoples' state of mind, social, or economic standing.

Warning: textile/fiber metaphors are inevitable! I love textile history so it was a given that I would be totally enthralled (ensnared) by Clare Hunter's wonderful account. She weaves all the strands of eras into a shimmering panorama -- pre-Egyptian, the Bayeux Tapestry, Mary Stuart (she's written an entire book on the Queen of Scots' embroidery), and plain and fancy needlework in the ensuing centuries.

Hunter understands the psychological value of embroidery. She writes, "We think of embroidery as a confined art...Hands, eyes, and a lap are all that are required. But that constricted environment can be expansive, a creative portal to other worlds, a way of staying connected, sewing not only as mental and physical comfort, but also a channel for knowledge, imagination, and passion." (48)

The chapter titles describe every aspect: Unknown (the anonymous Bayeux stitchers), Power, Frailty, Captivity, Identity, Connection, Protect, Journey, Protest, Loss, Community, Place, Value, Art, Work, Voice. I marked so many passages of interesting stories that illustrate all of Hunter's points!

"Sewing is a visual language. It has a voice. It has been used by people to communicate something of themselves--their history, beliefs, prayers, and protests. For some, it is the only means to tell of what maters to them: those who are imprisoned or censored, those who do not know how or are not allowed to write of their lives...Sewing is a graphic way to add information and meanings. But it is not a monologue....It connects the maker to the viewer across time, cultures, generations, and geographies....to provide a contiuum of traditions, values, and perceptions." (176)

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(Lara Maiklem was interviewed for this segment on the PBS NewsHour.   I promptly checked out her book and "friended" her Facebook page.)

 Maiklem's book is both memoir and about the material culture she has been collecting and recording in the years that she has been mudlarking.

Mudlarking is akin to beachcombing but along riverbanks instead of beaches and very specifically along the River Thames. Many years ago it was a way to make a living. Nowadays it is practiced casually by some but very seriously by others. Maiklem is in the latter category.

The book is a journey along the tidal Thames from Teddington to Southend-on-Sea. Maiklem writes about the things she (and others) find at low tide--pottery, clay pipes, coins, buttons, bottles, bones. She places the objects in historical context: tiles from Roman heating systems, silver aglets (the tips of laces), large and small beads, Mesolithic flints, coinage.

The river has changed over the centuries. The banks have been shored up, bridges and docks have come and gone. Sewage was dumped in it for generations (good for artifacts, not good for fish or for public health). It is much cleaner now but climate change brings increased flood risk and other landscape-altering events.

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Lisa Woollett combines memoir, cultural history, and a call to action. She grew up east of London near the Thames with family stories about her great-grandfather and grandfather who made a living from London's trash back, She credits that inheritance with her enjoyment of mudlarking along the river and beachcombing along the shore in Cornwall where she now lives.

Her narrative takes us along for the discoveries as the Thames winds through London. She describes the artifacts she finds and tells their places in history -- clay pipes, buttons, pottery, and more. She also describes how the ubiquity of disposable products has changed the landscape (trash overflowing landfills into the water) and the economy (recycling is viable for fewer things and in fewer places than we think). The last chapter is devoted to the problem of plastic pollution.

I read Lara Maiklem's Mudlark prior to Rag and Bone. Both were published in 2019 though Woollett's came later (she cites Maiklem in the bibliography). Comparisons are inevitable. I enjoyed them both. Maiklem dwells more on the historical context of the objects she finds. Woollett talks more about her family's livelihood and how our consumerism is affecting the planet. I found that both books are interesting and thought-provoking.

P.S. Interesting fact: p. 150. The Phoebus Cartel was an agreement by light-bulb makers in the 1920s to deliberately make bulbs more fragile so they would break more easily and thus force consumers to buy more.

Friday check in: thrift shop deals + a finish

 

After an appointment yesterday morning I stopped at two thrift shops and indulged.   The stripe was a roll of quilt-weight home dec,  54" wide.  18 yards for $10!  A smaller home dec on the left, two twin flat sheets, and homespun (curtains).    Total cost:  $23. 

Washing and ironing all of it took some time. Then I finished the wall hanging.  Quilted, bound, labeled.     

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