Midweek: quilt history, estate sale, and OMG summary

Monday afternoon I presented "Every Quilt Tells a Story" to a women's group at my hometown church in Northbrook.  Though I haven't belonged to that church in 50 years it was nice to see several women in the audience who knew my family and remembered my parents.  When the chair introduced me she asked, "Who's known Nann the longest?"  That was Judy, who moved to the house at the end of our block in 1963. (Judy remembers that my mother was the first neighbor to welcome them.)                                             My program includes a concise history of quiltmaking (that's hard to do!), some of the vintage quilts in my collections, and quilts of mine that I want to show off <g>.   I invite audience members to bring quilts they own (inherited, received as gifts, or made themselves). (Lower photo.)  

Cicadas abounded in Northbrook this year.  They are winding down now but I did see a few!  (Yes, these are dead. I didn't have time to go to the park to try to get pictures of them flying around or swarming on tree trunks, though I saw a few as I drove.) 

Yesterday:  month #10 of Barb M's estate sale.  Lots of UFOs (sets of blocks with patterns) and kits.  I bypassed those.   38 yards, $65 = $1.71per yard.   Each month the proceeds benefit a different charity (over $15,000 so far).  This time it's 

Keeping Families Covered which provides sanitary products and diapers for babies, special needs individuals, and seniors in Lake, McHenry, and southern Kenosha counties.    Sale coordinator Paula said there's enough for more sales, but they are taking July off.

# # # # # #   I'm reposting the photos of my June One Monthly Goal.  I'm pleased with the way both the tote bags turned out.         

This will be my last post until next week.  I leave for the ALA Annual Conference early tomorrow morning.  We have hired a caregiver to look after S.  He came yesterday afternoon to meet us and get oriented.  He'll be here before the limo picks me up.   I left the two of them to go on some errands (and the estate sale!).  They got along fine.   I am optimistic.  

Linking up with OMG   Wednesday Wait Loss  Midweek Makers  

 

Weekly update: a quick finish and playing with scraps

 

If you're on Facebook you can't hide from your birthday.  155 greetings and counting!  I appreciate them all.  I am now squared and cubed. 

Black raspberries were ripe at Lake Carina Forest Preserve on Friday afternoon.  Lake Carina was a gravel pit that was quarried to build the tollway (I-94) in the late 1950's.  That road and a high-voltage transmission line are the eastern boundary.  

The lake and the stream that flows into it.

The Home Forum feature  in this week's Christian Science monitor  further identified the raspberries as black caps.   I picked a handful and wrapped them in a big leaf from a grape vine so I could get them to the car without losing any.  Stevens pronounced them tasty.

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 In the studio:

I made a second quilt for the guild charity challenge.  (First quilt is  here ) Entries must use this specific pattern -- square-in-square (10" finished) with 3" border using ONLY fabric donated to the guild. 

The challenge  continues to the September meeting.  I have more of the donated fabric but I'll need to be creative about using it.

There are many more projects I can work on.  I chose to start a set of string blocks.  The foundation is a never-used bed sheet that I got at an estate sale (still in the package -- Sears, Roebuck Harmony House brand).

   Linking up with Design Wall Monday  Oh Scrap!  Sew and Tell

 

Friday check in: sunrise, quilt book indulgence, and a surprise finish

The solstice was at 3:50 p.m. yesterday. I was at the lakefront this morning to see the sun rise at 5:16.  


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Used book sales, destashes, and publishers' warehouse clearance have been the source for most of the many, many quilt books I've acquired.   Just as with fabric--if I can't not buy them, then I need to get bargains.  

This year I am really and truly paring down all that creative potential.  I've gone through a stack, sorting them into "totally unlikely to make anything from this" and "review again just in case."   Why is it that I can tear patterns out of magazines that cost full price but not out of books I got for free?  

But just as one shelf gets some breathing room another shelf gets tighter.  True, these were all gently-used bargains from Alibris sellers.

(List price for Red &  White was $60.00. I paid $25.00.)

Catching up on Kaffe  books -- 2011, 2023, 2023.  

What fun to come across Kaffe and Brandon's autographs in Timeless Themes.

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Here's the surprise finish.   It's the second tote bag made from the 2018 round robin.  The back has the same band of flowers and QST borders.   (I wrote about the first tote last Monday.)  

I used units for the pocket. 

This is what's left from the round robin flimsy. I've added these to the batiks department of my spare parts storage. 

Happy Friday and happy summer to you all!    Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

P.S.  As I headed home from the lakefront these coneflowers caught my eye.

Weekly update: red stars and OMG + reading

 

We've had a string of sunny days. (We could use some rain, for sure.)  We went to Rollins Savanna on Friday and Lyons Woods on Sunday. 

Nodding thistle, thistle bud, raspberries, beardtongue, wild white indigo, purple angelica, coneflower.

It was sunny Saturday, too.  I helped staff the Rotary booth at the annual Juneteenth celebration, held this year at Illinois Beach State Park.  Our Rotary club president was the chair of the entire event -- a huge job, and she carried it off so well!  (Didn't get a photo of her....she was too busy elsewhere on the grounds.)  Stevens stayed at home which was better for him and for me.

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In the studio:  

There were enough cutaway triangles from the scrappy lozenges to make 38 blocks.  It was easy to make more HSTs for four more blocks.  
As I was attaching the striped border I had a brief thought of how Bonnie Hunter would have come up with a bright and busy pieced border . . . but I put that thought away and I'm sticking with the stripes.

Flimsy + flimsy disassembled

My stated One Monthly Goal for June was to make a new tote bag to take to the ALA conference at the end of the month.   I decided to make it out of parts from the flimsy that resulted from the guild's 2018 round robin. 

  

Here it is!   

The other side looks the same with the second band of flowers. 

I used the four tulip blocks for the pockets. 

I cut corrugated plastic campaign signs for tote bag bottoms.  (An x-acto knife works best.)  I make a fabric envelope to cover the plastic.  

One campaign sign is enough for six or seven bags. 

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Carolyn Wells is the most famous and prolific author we've never (or hardly) heard of.  She was born in 1862 and grew up in Rahway, New Jersey. Her family had means and social standing.  Though she was an avid reader and evidently did well in school she did not choose to go to college, nor did she marry.  At age 30 she accepted a job at the Rahway Public Library. During her twelve years as the town librarian she began writing.  

And did she ever write!    She wrote poetry--doggerel, satire, parody, and serious. She compiled anthologies.  She edited literary magazines.  Her skill and fame brought her into the orbit of Mark Twain, Gelett Burgess, Rudyard Kipling, and other early 20th-century literati.  

She wrote books for little kids and for early readers. She wrote YA series fiction (starting in 1899).  She wrote an operetta.  But mostly she wrote mysteries-- more than 180 of them, starting in 1905 all the way to her death in 1942.   At one point she delivered a full-length mystery every three months.   Many of the mysteries were adapted for silent movies.  

Later in life she married (he died a few years later). She turned her talents (and considerable financial assets) to book collecting, with a concentration on Wa lt Whitman.  All the while she was producing mystery novels. 

Rebecca Rago Barry came upon Wells almost by accident and was intrigued.  Why isn't Wells as well-known today as Agatha Christie or other Golden Age mystery writers?  (No, it wasn't sexism.)  Barry's research is thorough.  You'll need to read her interesting and often witty account. 

Linking up with Oh Scrap!  Sew and Tell  Design Wall Monday    

Friday check in: almost a flimsy

 

We enjoyed three visits to different parts of Illinois Beach State Park this week.  There are four entrances along the six-mile shore.    It got very hot yesterday so no walk after the "seniors and caregivers" luncheon at church.  (Stevens was willing to attend and I was the caregiver.)  Hot again today -- the next door neighbor mowed their lawn at 8:30 a.m. to beat the heat.  

One of many bumblebees enjoying foxglove, aka beardtongue.

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I made 100 two-step blocks for Cynthia's current block drive .  I mailed them yesterday, along with fabric, some thread, and a flimsy.   (100 blocks = 6-1/4 yards.)

I have the red star blocks sashed (and cornerstoned).   I like the multicolored stripe for the border but I'm figuring out an insert for the top and bottom to make it rectangular.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday . . .  and now, on to the very long to-do list!  

 

P.S.  Daisies at Van Patten Woods, Tuesday afternoon.

Weekly update: workshop, component parts, and bargains

Dorothy asked if I had any queen-sized or thereabouts quilts available.  I had two that might do, and when the AAUW book group met at her retirement complex on Wednesday I took them.  She liked them both and bought  this one .  "It sleeps well," she reported.

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I gave myself a birthday-month treat on Saturday.  A guild in the next county had openings for a workshop with Jane Sassaman.  (Thank you, Ann, for your encouragement!) My calendar was open and V was available to take care of Stevens. 

Jane used her Moths and Moons pattern to teach us her applique technique.   She is an experienced and patient teacher.

The supply list called for 10 FQ of coordinating prints.

Here's my class project in process.

These are by other class participants.

It was nice to see Sue Daurio again.  I found out later that another participant is the sister of an AAUW friend. 

Jane brought some of her other quilts to show us.  

She had FQ bundles of her Free Spirit fabrics and, yes, I bought some.  (My birthday treat, remember?  As though I need an excuse....)

I got home shortly after 4 p.m.  All went well for Stevens and V.  

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each round features the neutral batik

My June OMG is to make a tote bag to take to the ALA conference at the end of the month. 

I finished the 2019 guild round robin (here) for the May OMG.  The 2018 guild round robin was still in the box.  The proportions bothered me: the wide band of red, the wide margins of the blue, and then the teeny checkerboard squares (those are all pieced!) at the two ends.

Well, it wasn't going anywhere the way it was so I unstitched it into its component parts. 

Some of these will become this month's tote bag.  You'll need to come back to see which ones. 

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In April I went to  an estate sale in our neighborhood .  The basement had boxes and boxes and boxes of fabric -- 99.9% of which was polyester double knit.  I got some cool stuff but NO double knit.  This weekend they had another sale.  These photos are of the basement.  The upstairs was less crowded than it had been, but there was still a lot.   ("My grandma started a lot more than she finished," admitted the grandson on basement duty.)

It was "fill a box for $10" and I did.  

I got more Scholastic/Tab books for my friend Betsy.  (I was tempted to keep the three Katie John books but I didn't.)  

I got an 8-yard bolt of Christmas border print. 

And all these trims, most still in the cellophane wrappings. 

Most are Wright's, Boiltex, or Trimtex. Some are J. C. Penney. Some are Talon.  

These companies are new to me.   Price, Shimmin, and Kalal was a wholesale notions company.  Most likely this rick rack was made by another company and repackaged for PSK.  

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Linking up with Sew and Tell Oh Scrap! Design Wall Monday

P.S.  Remember iron-on hem tape?  The fusible strips didn't hold very well!  

Midweek: it's a flimsy and the bonus + reading

 The refrigerator is fixed!   The repairman came yesterday afternoon.  He plugged it in and it started cooling again.  That's similar to Karen N's comment on my post last Friday (=turn off three days, vacuum below and behind).  I was told to turn it off for 24 hours, which I did, but it didn't come back on.  By the time the repairman came it had been off three days.   Neighbor Mike came over to observe and now we both know!

Our AAUW summer luncheon was at noon yesterday.  We have a silent auction to benefit our local scholarship.  I contributed two dozen books to the always-popular book table and a quilt (a benefit of having donation-quilts-on-hand).  I bought two paperbacks ($1 each).  Fortitude!

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In the studio:  

The scrappy lozenges are assembled.  The border is a Marimekko stripe that I got in a destash several year ago.  68 x 80, 5-1/4 yards.

I trimmed and pressed all of the cutaway HSTs.  

I had a small stack of 3-1/2" fussy cut squares left over after making this quilt .

Here's what the combination looks like. 

6-1/2" unfinished. If I use all 288 cutaways that's 36 blocks. 

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This was so refreshing!   Sure, a lot was predictable (the poor relation is taken under the wing of an impetuous and intrepid gentlewoman; the gentlewoman's brother is a disabled veteran; misunderstandings occur; love wins the day in the end) but all the characters are so well-written and engaging!  A perfect novel for summertime.

Linking up with Midweek Makers Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: a new start and OMG for June

 

Foxgloves at Illinois Beach State Park yesterday. 

Neighbor Mike worked on our refrigerator on Saturday. His diagnosis is that the relay that tells the condenser to cool needs to be replaced.  He has a call in to the repairman.  Meanwhile we are still 'camping' with two Igloo coolers holding produce and other food.  (I don't want to tromp into Mike and Jen's garage multiple times a day to use their backup fridge where I have more food stored.)

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I got reacquainted with the bin of bright prints when I made the butterfly quilt (see last week's update).   I saved a photo of    Scrappy Lozenge by Emily Bailey

(c) Emily Bailey

-- perfect for those prints.  But her quilt uses a white background, IMO not the best for a donation quilt.  It's not the specific color for the background but rather the consistency of that color that provides a resting point for a super-scrappy mix.  I chose red.  

Emily's blocks use 3-1/2" x 6-1/2" rectangles and 3-1/2" squares. 

My blocks use 3" x 5-1/2" rectangles and 3" squares. Why?  Because I cut the squares the wrong size.  LOL!   

I thought the horizontal orientation was more interesting.  (All those slivers of white are the design wall peeking through.) 

As of this writing I have 8 of the rows sewn together.  

AND I have most of the cutaway HSTs trimmed and pressed.....with an idea of how to use them.

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OMG for June:  a new tote bag to take to the ALA conference at the end of the month.  I have an idea for that, too.

Busy week ahead . . . thanks for tuning in today.

Linking up with Oh Scrap! Sew and Tell Design Wall Monday OMG June

Thanks for the Sew and Tell shout out, Melva!

More wildflowers:   wild flag (iris), cinquefoil, Allegheny blackberry, golden Alexander, bladder campion, water lilies.