Friday check in: another finish and rummage sale score

 I mentioned that Barb-the-quilter had time to do a second quilt for me.   I applied the binding Wednesday evening.

I made the flimsy way back in 2020 when I had the notion that I could reduce the Civil War stash.  (All posts for that project are labeled CWRSRP.  It is a longterm goal. <g>)

  Baptist Fan for the center and border, with circles in the inner border.

The back is nearly vintage.  It was an 8-yard piece that I got at an estate sale about 15 years ago.  I have 3-1/2 yards left.

North Prairie UMC ("the other Methodist church" (we go to Memorial UMC)) is having its spring rummage sale this weekend.  I went yesterday.  

Look what I got!    All of these are 36" wide.    The citrus tropical floral is delicious.

 

These are 45" wide.  

Do you recognize the logo on the 1997 remnant tag? That's So-Fro Fabrics. 

Total 15-3/4 yards for $12.25.  That's .77 per yard.

I am a sucker for bandanas and I scooped up seven at the rummage sale. 

 

The new acquisitions are ready to join the stash.

I have used bandanas for precisely TWO projects in 2016 and 2022.  Time to quit hoarding and start designing.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

Midweek: swap box and all but the label

 I signed up for an "anything goes" swap box.  Get a box of quilty stuff, keep some, add to the box, send it off.  Participants have a week to fulfill their commitment.  When the box arrived here on Monday I treated it like a hot potato.  I took a few things, added a lot more, and shipped it to Oregon yesterday.  24 yards of fabric have left the house (along with a few patterns and some miscellaneous notions.) 

Right:  when I opened the box. 

Tim with proof of mailing.

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AAUW had a hybrid meeting last evening.  The speaker was on Zoom and some members participated by Zoom.  About a dozen of us were there in person.

I was among the in-person group. I'm much more confident driving at night after cataract surgery.  

Erika talked about some of the historic garments in the ISM collection as well as current clothing (=fast fashion and the huge amount of global waste).  Synthetic fibers in clothing contribute a huge amount to the microplastics in the ocean.

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International Sisters is finished except for the label.  Barb (MB Services) is a superb long-arm quilter.   The block design is by Preeti (free, here ).   Blocks were made by the ALA Biblioquilters.  I used fabric from the estate sale for the setting triangles, border, and the large batik pieces on the back.  The quilt will be in the silent auction at the ALA Annual Conference in San Diego at the end of June.    

Linking up with Midweek Makers  Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: flowers, stars, reading

 My mother loved gardens and flowers, whether hers or someone else's.  (1995 photo.)  

(I still have shelves of family albums in the front closet but now there is one fewer. I tore out pages with 'keeper' photos from this 1994-95 scrapbook and actually tossed the rest. Good for me!) 

I remember her telling me about a field trip to Volo Bog once upon a time.   We took advantage of the beautiful day yesterday for another visit.   It's 27 miles from where we live (30 miles from where she lived, but another direction).  

  

From the website  "Formed in an ancient glacial kettle hole lake, Volo Bog features a floating mat of sphagnum moss, cattails and sedges surrounding the open pool of water in the center of the bog. Further from the open water, the mat thickens enough to even support floating trees!"   

Top: prairie smoke, black choke cherry, Jacob's ladder.  Center: sensitive fern, wild geranium, viburnum.  Bottom: golden Alexander, pitcher plant, wild arum (calla).

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Did you see the Northern Lights this weekend?  My neighbor Renee and I went down to the lakefront at 9:30 Saturday night. Lots of people but no aurora.  I woke up at 3 a.m. Sunday and tried again. No aurora.  I'll just have to enjoy everyone else's photos.  

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I was more successful with stars in my studio.  The flimsy is finished.  7 yards used. 

I'm not wild about the huge slab border. (Wrinkles are because it's large enough to be unwieldy to iron.)   I followed the pattern instructions.  My goal was to use the fabric that I won in the guild raffle.  

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I checked this book out on a friend's recommendation and finished it in a day and half.  It was very good 

Tan Yunxian was a woman physician in Ming Dynasty China (late 15th/early 16th centuries).  She is known to history because she kept notes about the women she treated. That book was preserved and has been the subject of academic research and publication in recent years.  Lisa See uses that research as the basis for imagining the cultural and social milieu in which Yunxian lived and worked.    Her father was an elite bureaucrat (providing status and wealth).  Her paternal grandmother was a physician, a very unusual role, and she passed her knowledge to Yunxian.  There are glimpses into the Imperial court and the tradesmen class (Yunxian's best friend was a midwife).    

Some descriptions are difficult to take.   Footbinding played a significant role.  Women were socially inferior to men but there was a strict hierarchy to the household:  the mother-in-law was supreme, and she may or may not have liked her daughters-in-law.  Taking a concubine was a regular procedure in even the most loving marriages.   It's hard to imagine the seclusion in which these women lived, not allowed to leave the family compound.  

To add to the fascinating and informative history there's a bit of dramatic mystery -- and Yunxian is the victor.

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

Friday check in: something completely different

 

On a clear day you can see Chicago, 40 miles away.  (Wednesday afternoon, Illinois Beach State Park.) 

Lupines have started to bloom. 

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It rained off and on yesterday.   When we got home from the Rotary breakfast meeting we stayed inside.  

I've been feeling mildly guilty about the extent of my winnings at the guild Raffle Mania last week.   That includes the big bag of metallic print yardage, shown in both photos.

To assuage that guilt I am determined to sew at least some of it.

I don't especially like metallic prints so I've never purposely sought them out.  

I looked through books and torn-from-magazine patterns. Here is the inspiration.  Pattern is Rugby Stars by Gerri Robinson. 

Blocks are 16-1/2" unfinished.  I am working on two more turquoise and three pink.  Then three blue.  I have a way to use the light blue in sashing.  

I'm using non-metallic white-on-white for the background.

Quite a departure from the recent batik projects!

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

Midweek: passing the gavel + a flimsy and a pieced back

 The Zion Woman's Club year-end luncheon was between the downpours that rolled in and rolled out at least three times yesterday.   The officer installation was performed by our friend Chris (Waukegan Women's Club).  Judy passed the gavel to me.  This will be my second time as president.  

I made the wall hanging -- hollyhocks are our club flower.  Judy and her husband are moving out of state and giving up the garden she's been nurturing for many years.  

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In the studio:

The brown batik triangles are all assembled.  6" finished blocks, 60 x 72.

 

I've got a May 13 appointment with Barb-the-quilter for the International Sisters quilt.   The ALA Biblioquilters made the blocks and I set them back in February.  

I spent last evening piecing the back.  I swear that sometimes it takes longer to do that than it does to put the blocks together for the flimsy.

Nothing on the calendar today.  Maybe I can chip away at many of the non-quilting tasks I'm behind on . . . or maybe not.  

Linking up with Midweek Makers Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: an OMG decision + reading

 A quick walk around Sand Pond on Saturday afternoon.

The egret was quite close--guarding a nest, perhaps?  Upper: sand cherry  (a bush). Lower: crabapple (obviously a tree); mullein.

We enjoyed A Flor de Piel who performed for the final Lake County Community Concert of the season.   The young singer (center) is only a senior in high school -- what a voice!  Their parents (left and right) are music educators in Chicago.

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At the guild meeting last week I signed up for the upcoming round robin.  It will begin next month so I have to figure out my starter block (an orphan or something new?).   And that pushed me to decide on my May One Monthly Goal:  finish one of the two flimsies from the previous round robins.  

Before:  the 2019 flimsy. 

After.   I needed to stabilize the edges of the beautiful herringbone border.  I didn't want a square quilt.  I surprised myself that the 3" (finished) border triangles fit!   Note that I swapped the red corner squares for a multicolor batik print.

Now, to quilt it.

While I had the V Block ruler out -- and being very much aware of how much fabric I got at Raffle Mania (see Friday's post!) -- I began a new project.  The Raffle Mania winnings included a 3-1/2 yard piece of brown tone-on-tone batik.   Blocks are 6-1/2" unfinished. I plan to make 120 for a 10 x 12 setting = 60 x 72.

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Richard Thompson Ford presents an engagingly-written history of how fashion and style in Western European culture have evolved over the centuries.  

What we think of as hard-and-fast rules are not immutable.  Everyone wore loose-fitting robes in medieval times.  Men wore lace and high heels.  The Great Masculine Renunciation changed everything in the late 18th century--ever since "the norm" has been the jacket-and-trousers suit while women's clothing has become more decorative. Those norms have been challenged in the 20th and 21st century with 'ethnic' clothing (and hair) and religious statements (e.g. the hijab and 'modest' attire).  

"All clothing is artifice, contrived to convey meaning and produce an effect....Our deepest, most authentic selves are not born; they are fashioned." (p. 354) 

"The way we cover, embellish, and present our bodies influences how we come to understand our place in the world." (p. 358)

The library reserve list for all formats is hundreds long so I bought the hardcover.   I finished it in a day and half.  It's as good as everyone says!  

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

Friday check in: some out, more in

 

Setting up

Our guild hosts Raffle Mania every year.  We bring quilt-related items we no longer need to own.  We get free tickets based on our attendance for the year and can buy additional tickets.   For me:  I brought 100 yards of fabric (batiks, green, red, Christmas, and brown/tan in 2-gal. ziploc bags and the rest of the 30's repros).  I got 12 free tickets and spent $20 for 35 more.  

 I dropped tickets in the bags for the fabric that really appealed to me.  I had tickets left so I dropped them into random bags.  That unscientific technique worked.

Look what I won!  

That's a custom-designed kit at the bottom. Two bags of batiks (different from those I contributed).  A bag of metallic/pastel yardage (kit left over??).  Two stacks of interesting vintage VIP panels (cut-sew-stuff bears, Mr/Mrs Santa, an apron, etc.)  A bag stuffed with black and white prints.   Two 2-yard pieces of 36" vintage paisley prints.

Thai silk. 

By weight, 140 yards.  So on the first of the month I used 100 and gained 40!

..........Still haven't decided on OMG.  I'll post on Monday.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

Midweek: good-bye, Quiltmania + charity challenge but not OMG

Rabbit, rabbit!   Welcome, May.

Illinois Beach State Park yesterday:  strawberry, red-winged blackbird, the restored beach, lupine, starry false lily of the valley, puccoon.  

The erosion control project is nearly finished. They've moved the temporary construction h.q. building off the parking lot. (Details here)

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The quilt publishing world is no different from the general publishing world.  Magazines have been hard-hit with fewer advertising dollars. Production costs have gone up.  Still, it's sad when a magazine goes out of business -- most recently, Quiltmania.  

I started reading Quiltmania in recent years when I got a few back issues at a sale.  I promptly splurged and bought a subscription.  I tried the sister magazines Simply Moderne (great) and Simply Vintage (not my thing).  I splurged again on about 30 back issues when they had a sale.  I liked the photos, the mix of traditional/sort of Bohemian/eclectic designs.  And publisher Carol's quirky editorials were fun to read. I retain enough of my college-minor French to figure out the phrasing.  

In recent issues Carol has written about distribution problems.  That contributed to the abrupt closure of the business at the end of April.   You can download the final issue for free:   here .   Meg Cox shared the link of Alex Anderson's interview with Carol Veillon here .

Coincidentally I've been going through my Quiltmania issues and tearing out inspiring photos and articles along with patterns that I might conceivably make. 

 I have two Quiltmania books. My friend Steffi bought them in Holland and carried them back in her suitcase to give to me.  (They're heavy. And expensive. And I am grateful.) 

P.S.  Meg Cox's online newsletter Quilt Journalist Tells All  is by subscription.  here  And now that I won't be paying $150/yr for QMania and Simply Moderne I can easily afford it. 

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Wheelchair quilts are one of our guild's ongoing charity programs.  This spring and summer there's a challenge:  use a specific pattern and use ONLY fabric donated to the guild.  Last month they had a dozen bins full of fabric from which to chose.  Here's my first effort.   

The "pattern: is 12 square-in-square blocks, 10" finished, with a 3" border. 

It was hard for me to use ONLY the fabric I'd pulled from the guild bins, but I did.  (I have other Kaffe prints that would have worked so well.....) 

I didn't count this fabric as "in" so I'm not counting it as "out."  

The challenge goes through the summer and I anticipate making several more.

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I haven't figured out my OMG yet.  Come back on Friday!

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss  Midweek Makers    Thanks for the WWL shout out, Jennifer!  

End of the month: OMG and stash report

 

I rarely post on Tuesdays,  but it's the last day for the April OMG link up.

My OMG was to make a hollyhock wall hanging for the outgoing president of the Zion Woman's Club. Hollyhocks are the club flower.  I bought the pattern from Ladybug's Cabin Creations.  It was fiddly to make but the instructions were very clear.   All batiks from my stash.

I'll present it at the ZWC luncheon next week.

Stash report for April:  

Fabric in 76 yards, $110, average $1.44/yard.

Fabric out: 58-1/4 yards.

YTD in: 580-1/2 yards, $955, average $1.64/yard.    Gotta love those estate sale bargains.

YTD out: 300.  (Remember that "out" includes fabric given away.)

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I achieved non-quilty goals this month, too.  We cut the cable!  Now that we have a Roku TV downstairs and an LG TV with a Roku stick upstairs it was time to say goodbye to ATT U-verse.  (It turns out that we were "legacy" customers. ATT hasn't added to U-verse for 3 or 4 years.  When the ATT guy was here he hooked up a new router.

I have to do something about the tangle of cords.

When we got the living room TV the only place to put it was on the coffee table. That blocked the sofa.  It was an awkward arrangement.  I thought about replacing the sofa with a loveseat but I didn't want plain gray or plain tan, and  custom upholstery for new furniture seems to be a rare thing.  

Last weekend I stopped at thrift shop and found the solution:  a beautiful wing chair in excellent condition with upholstery that goes with our decor.  It's from Plunkett, a high-end long-time North Shore store.  A comparable brand new chair would be $3000.  I paid $45.  

The coffee table is in a corner.  The TV is on a pine table I got in Fargo. It's been a sewing table and the Christmas tree stand.  As for the sofa:  it is in the garage until trash day Friday.  (Rain is in the forecast and I don't want a soaking wet, still-usable sofa on the curb.)   [The sofa was purchased at Jordan Marsh in Manchester, NH, when S and C got married in 1971.  It moved from NH to KS to ME to ND to IL.  I've had it reupholstered three times, most recently in 2007. It served us well.]

Linking up with OMG April Link Up  

Weekly update: two luncheons and WITB leads to a finished quilt

 
"Destination Heartland History"  was the topic at the Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon on Thursday. Cynthia Clampitt enjoys discovering lesser-known sites and attractions as she travels.  She began the program explaining that the historical midwest covers a lot of territory -- Ohio to North Dakota, Michigan to Kansas.  She reminded us that Laura Ingalls Wilder (=pioneer) and Frank Lloyd Wright (=modern) were born in Wisconsin, four months and 150 miles apart.  Pioneer museums, the oldest still-operating restaurant/bar in a town/county, windmills and lighthouses -- so many interesting places.   

We've been to a number of them.  Now we have a guidebook for a road trip or two to see more.

(Cynthia highlighted the attractions in Sara's town.)

(80+ years ago an exclusive Waukegan women's club excluded Clara Cummings so she started a club of her own. They used to host book reviewers. Now they (we) host historical interpreters and lecturers, four luncheons a year.   AAUW, GFWC, and P.E.O. friends are among the regular attendees.)

The P.E.O. Lake County Round Table celebrated Founders Day on Saturday.  100 sisters from 13 chapters attended.  Through my participation in the LCRT and at the state level I've gotten to know so many of these women!   "The Hats We Wore" highlighted each of the seven international programs by the years they were established. The models wore hats that were fashionable in those years.  

The projects:  Educational Loan Fund, Program for Continuing Education, Cottey College, International Peace Scholarship, P.E.O. Scholars, STAR scholarship, and a proposal for a trade school scholarship.

My chapter had registration.  Ask a busy person and it will be done right:  Linda B. had it all under control.

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WITB = What's In the Box?  This weekend I uncovered/unearthed the beginnings of a maze quilt. It was a prototype for the MQG mini-swap quilt I made in 2023.   I had three rounds pieced.   I fussy-cut many, many more motifs (mostly flowers, some circles) and kept going until I'd used up all of that particular black print.    The squares and strips are 3.5" and finish at 3".  The quilt is 51 x 54.  5 yards including backing and binding.

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

P. S.   Here's the first maze quilt I made in early 2023.  Blocks are 5" finished. 

Here's the MQG swap from February, 2023.  (For which this weekend's quilt was a sample.)   This is 24 x 26 and the blocks are 2" finished.  The strips are cut 3/4".