Midweek: too busy? another finish and OMG start

 

 The 25 B blocks for Indigo Way are finished.   

I put the A's and B's on the design wall.  I really like busy designs but my initial impression is that this is TOO busy.  

The pattern calls for 20 half blocks for the setting triangles.  I've made four. 

I've told myself firmly not to rush this -- let the blocks sit for a while.  An entire quilt of just A's and/or just B's would look pretty good.   

Meanwhile,  here is the **fourth** finish for 2024.   I made the flimsy in December with leftovers from Grassy Creek, the 2021 mystery.  It's wheelchair sized.  

My One Monthly Goal for January is to plan (at least) and make (hopefully) a 24" x 24" quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild annual mini swap.  The entry form asks for preferences to guide the swap partner.  I suggested upcycling.  My assigned partner (whom I do not know) said she likes improv.  I'm going to do both with my entry and use necktie silk.  

It's been a long time since I opened the silk bins. These are 98% neckties that have been disassembled, washed, and pressed. After years in the bins they're quite wrinkled.  This is a 25-year accumulation.  I've made one vest, one skirt, one jacket, fifteen little gift bags, one quilt, and many hexagon rosettes.   (The other 2% are silk scarves which I cannot resist at estate sales and thrift shops. These are not colors or patterns that I'd wear.  I have a drawer of silk scarves that I do wear.)  

I have a design concept.  You'll have to wait for the reveal.

Linking up with Midweek Makers  Wednesday Wait Loss

P.S.  Remember the Dress for Success days in the 1980's when women wore floppy silk ties?   They pricey to buy but easy to make, which is what I did. 

Weekly update: tragedy, triumph, estate sale delights, and Indigo Way

 Look at the upper left of the photo.  That dot is a bald eagle.  He's got his eye on a disabled duck in the lake.   Gulls were doing their part to chase the eagle off.  [Taken after the Friday estate sale.]

I was going to post on Wednesday. I was going to post on Friday.  But things happen.

To make a long story short, I've been figuring out how to adapt the household layout to S's limited mobility and particularly to his advancing dementia.  He wrenched his knee last week so going down to the basement family room/sewing studio is out.  That's where our only TV has been until this week when I bought a second one that is now in the living room.  Points to me that I managed to set it up!  (Boy, TVs are much less expensive these days.)   Right now it's on the coffee table. After all the Christmas things are put away I'll do more rearranging and find a better TV stand.   

Our neighbor helped out by taking S's bed off the frame so the mattress/box spring are on the floor -- 6" lower and easier to get into and out of. (If he falls I cannot lift him.)   However, the 24" bathroom door is too narrow for the walker so there's some gymnastics to get to the toilet and tub.  He is adjusting and I'm adjusting.

I got a sore throat overnight Friday.   I took a Covid test at 3:45 a.m. Yep, I've got it.  I dug out a mask, went to urgent care Saturday morning, and got a prescription for Paxlovid.   As I write this Sunday evening I feel much better though I can't be far from a box of Kleenex.   The five-day quarantine goes through Wednesday. 

But I wasn't sick earlier in the week and went to two estate sales.  The first was part IV of Barb M's fabric stash.  ( Part III is here with links to Parts I and II.)  Proceeds from each sale go to a different charity, this time to St. Jude's.  

Average price:  $1.92/yard.  (Note that I'm not saying how many yards!)

The new guys and the old guy.

The second was conducted by Balderdash, a local estate sale company.  I was at the door early and got what I wanted:  four German nutcrackers, tags still on.  

The large ones were $40 each and the small ones were $30 each.  A great buy!

There was some fabric, too, for $1.00 per piece.  

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The new TV set up means that I have to figure out how to bring some sewing things upstairs.   The living room is cluttered enough. I haven't worked it all out yet.   

Meanwhile, I did get some downstairs sewing accomplished.  (Me to S:  "I will be downstairs for an hour."  Twenty minutes later, S hollers, "Nann, where are you?"  Repeat. Repeat.)   

And repeat, repeat until I finished all the units for Part 4 of Indigo Way.  I keep each part in a Snapware box.  

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

P.S. The nutcracker collection has outgrown the mantel.

 

Weekly update: Indigo Way and emptying a bag

 

Ornaments are hung along the trail at Lyons Woods.  Once you see one you see another, and another.   (I will pay this wonder forward. I have a box of ornaments (rummage sale purchase) that I'll hang along another trail.)  

The Lake County Women's Coalition steering committee combined business and socializing with a luncheon meeting Saturday.  Plans for the Women's History Month luncheon in March are well underway.  

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I used Deb Tucker's V-block Trimmer to make the second units for Indigo Way.   More accurate than Tri-Recs though it takes a bit to figure out how to flip the ruler and the fabric for subsequent cuts.  (I have several of Deb's rulers and they're all great.)

I used Bonnie Hunter's Essential Triangle ruler to make the cat's cradle units for part 3 of Indigo Way. 

I keep each part in a Snapware box.  (Snapware was a recommendation from Bonnie many years ago.)

I had a ziploc bag with a bunch of 5-patch units left over from a waffle stamps quilt. (I donated the quilt to a fundraiser this fall.)   I added four strips and placed units at the edge, one in from the edge, and in the middle.   The assortment is so random it's hard to find a focal point....not sure what will happen next.

Blocks are 8" unfinished, 7.5" finished.  2" strips.
 

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Our latest dessert is a pie made from an unconventional  ingredient.   

 The cookbook was published in 1999.  One of the authors was an AAUW/P.E.O. friend when I lived in Fargo. (She was on the faculty at Dickinson State.)  

Here's the recipe.   It tastes good!  (Rather like a green tomato pie.)  

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A Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia work on a blueberry farm in northeastern Maine every summer.  In 1962 four-year-old Ruthie wanders away from the fields one afternoon and is never seen again.  Forever after the entire family mourns. .  Another tragedy strikes when Charlie, the oldest, is pummeled to death in a senseless brawl.   Ben and Mae deal with the loss of their siblings by hard work.  Joe survives a car wreck and then proceeds to mess up his marriage.  He flees to western Canada, recovers, and returns to Nova Scotia when he is diagnosed with inoperable cancer.  

Meanwhile Norma grows up in a small Maine city with an overprotective mother, an emotionally detached father, and a loving aunt.   As a young child she has wild and disturbing dreams and an imaginary friend named Ruthie.  She often feels she is a misfit and early on figures out that she is adopted, but she can't ask any questions let alone get answers.   She tries marriage but can't achieve trust or intimacy (though her husband is a thoroughly decent man). She has a successful teaching career but always, always returns to take care of her mother. 

Norma's story alternates with Joe's:  lives lived in parallel less than two hundred miles but a world apart.  We know what's going to happen -- but debut novelist Amanda Peters spins out the tale and keeps us turning the pages.

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

Weekly update: Indigo Way begins, under the needle + reading

 

Sunday brought a dusting of snow.  It looks pretty and I am glad it won't last long.

Photo taken at the state park.  I stopped on the way home from church but I didn't take a walk!

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I've made many of the Quiltville mysteries.  I was greatly disappointed in two of them Grand Illusion and Rhododendron Trail) and skipped their immediate successors, Allietare and Chilhowie.  Those turned out to be designs I liked. 

Now it's time for Indigo Way.  I've decided to give it a go.  

I have a hoard of South African indigos but I'm still hoarding them.   These HSTs are made with dark, indigo-ish blues from my stash. 

Arabic Hourglass is under the needle.  I did rip out and re-orient the mis-turned blocks. 

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This Civil War story is told from a new perspective.  In 1862 Constance leaves her husband on their southeastern Indiana farm and enlists in the Union Army disguised as a man called Ash Thompson.  Ash tells the first-person experience of skirmishes (mostly), full-blown battles (some), missing her husband (frequent letters home (amazing that the postal service worked efficiently)).  Ash kept the disguise through capture, imprisonment, and confinement in an insane asylum.  Ash carries all the horror and trauma back home.  

Laird Hunt writes concisely and precisely: just enough and no more.  Perfect.

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