Weekly update: it's a flimsy + a new start

 
After last week's storms it's easy to see why the French explorers called the river "eau pleine," or "water-full."  Eau pleine became Des Plaines (a river and a city) and O'Plaine (a road).  

I ignored the sign and walked through the puddle on my heels. 

That was Saturday's walk at the Des Plaines River Canoe Launch.  Sunday was closer to home at Sand Pond.  

Clockwise from left:  coneflower + monarda, mullein, pinnate coneflower, nightshade, betony, primrose, swamp milkweekd. Center: American germander.

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Our friend Mary Lou invited me to harvest a second batch of rhubarb.   Our only freezer is the one in the refrigerator.  I managed to fit all the packages in.

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In the studio:  SIS-pin-dot (as in sis-boom-bah) is a flimsy.  

The new start:  it's been a long time since I made log cabin blocks.   Center square is 2.5" (2" fin) and logs are 1.5" (1" fin).  Blocks are 10.5" (10" fin). Keeping the rounds going in a consistent direction is trickier than it looks.  I'm aiming for 48 blocks for a 60 x 80 quilt.  

Ideally I'd use only what's in the 1.5" strip bin, but I don't have enough long strips (esp. lights) so I've had to cut some more. 

My non-quilting to-do list is very long.  I plan to chip away at it this morning.    

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

Friday check in: Mme. Curie, a flimsy + OMG April

 "Meet Madame Curie" was Lynn Rymarz portrayal at yesterday's Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon. The setting was 1920 when Marie Curie came to the U.S.   The Association of Collegiate Alumnae, as AAUW was then called, raised $100,000 to buy one gram of radium for her research.  Since many AAUW members come to Clara Cummings it was very fitting.   Dr. Curie sought medical applications to treat cancer but radium found commercial uses, too.  

The second character in Lynn's program was one of the   Radium Girls who painted watch faces and clock dials at the Radium Dial factory in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920's and 30's.  Most of those young workers succumbed to radiation poisoning decades before workplace safety and compensation. 

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In the studio:   Courthouse Steps is a flimsy! 

72 x 80, 6 yards by weight.  I gambled on having enough of the border fabric -- I had a strip and a half left.

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OMG April summary:  I had three goals.

YES   #1  12 daisy mug rugs

YES  #2   Something purple for RSC -- four placemats and a lap quilt 

NO   #3   Five drawstring bags made from a friend's wedding dress, one for each of her granddaughters.   I grew faint of heart with this and introduced that friend to another friend who was happy to have the commission. (The bags turned out beautifully.)  

Linking up with Peacock Party Finished or Not Friday OMG April Finish

Midweek: courthouse steps

 

Happy National Library Week!   Zion Woman's Club members were at the Zion-Benton Public Library at 9 a.m. Monday to give donuts to the staff in honor of Library Workers' Day.  (LWD was actually Tuesday but the library was closed Tuesday for planned construction.)   ZWC led the effort the create the Zion Memorial Public Library in 1937.  

Last evening I attended a Zoom program with Will Shortz, the puzzle editor of the New York Times and the NPR Sunday puzzle guy.  It was interesting to learn about his life and career.    

He wrote the essay when he was in 8th grade.  At Indiana University he had a self-determined major to become an "enigmatologist," or puzzle-studier.  

The program was hosted by hosted by Illinois Libraries Present, a statewide programming collaboration.

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In the studio: 

I tried other arrangements of the courthouse steps blocks and decided on this.  I'm using the remaining strips, and cutting more, for the border.  It will be a flimsy soon!

Linking up with   Midweek Makers  Wednesday Wait Loss

Thanks again to Jennifer for including me in her WWL post this week.

Weekly update: farewells and new beginnings (with music)

 

2020:  a drive-by birthday parade to honor Sally

Saturday morning I attended the memorial service for Sally Zeit who passed away in December at age 94.  I first met her in AAUW. She was the branch voter registration chair (coordinating training for voter registrars and then registration events).  She connected my husband to the Lake County chaplaincy agency where he served as a nursing home and hospice chaplain.  We attended many church services for which she was the organist.  But I'd only known her as a fierce and feisty senior citizen.   Her memorial service provided a life story of decades of community activism and advocacy for justice.  (Here is a 1991 Tribune story about her work with prisoners.  (I'm sure it came up in Google because many people looked it up.  One of the participants in the service read a letter from a prisoner  she worked with many years ago. He never forgot her kindness.))  

Sally truly exemplified Micah 6:8 which was the Old Testament reading:  "He has told you, O mortal, what is good,   And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?"  

A fun anecdote was about Sally's famous almond cake.  She baked it for every occasion.  It turned out that Marilyn M., one of Sally's dearest friends and fellow activist, gave the recipe to Sally -- only at the memorial service did we learn the rest of the story!  **

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Saturday evening we enjoyed the Lake County Symphony Orchestra's annual Classical Jazz concert -- Brazilian jazz and Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition. (The  Promenade has been a pleasant earworm since.)

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Sunday afternoon I attended the installation of a new P.E.O. chapter -- OP.  (Chapters are named in alphabetical order and a town is assigned.  This one is Bull Valley in McHenry County.)  This was the first new chapter installation I've been to since 1987 when I was part of Chapter G (Maine).    Among the attendees were the state board, past state presidents, and P.E.O.s from area chapters.  I knew so many!  (My friend Fran, now on the board, lives far downstate.  She was upstate for officer workshops and this event.  So good to see her!)

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Yes, I did have some sewing time!

Thank you all for your suggestions about the Civil War pinwheels.

I rearranged the nine-patch idea so the pinwheels dominate.  I'm still considering.  

Meanwhile, while the CW repros were out, I began something new. 

The logs are 1.5" and the blocks are 8.5" unfinished.  I have in mind an 8 x 9 setting (64"x 72").  

Linking up with  Oh Scrap!  Design Wall Monday

**  P.S.  There are many recipes for almond pound cake.  This version is Sally's from her friend Marilyn. 

Scandinavian Almond Cake
 
1 1/4 C sugar
1 egg
2/3 C milk
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
Beat well, then add:
1 1/4 C flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Beat well, then add:
1 stick melted butter

Beat well.  Pour into small greased tube pan. Bake in preheated 350 oven 50-60 minutes. Cool completely, and sprinkle with confectioners sugar.  

Weekly update: entertainment + two finishes

 

Sign of spring:   Mr. and Mrs. Crane let me get very close to snap this picture at Illinois Beach State Park this week.

Yet the day before the cranes I saw fungus on a tree stump in an icy pond.  

On Thursday the Clara Cummings Book Club was entertained by Mary Cunningham Logan, widow of Illinois Civil War General John Logan.   Jessica Michna's historical portrayal was so informative!  The Logans both grew up in southern Illinois (the Murphysboro library is named for her). She lived in Carbondale during the Civil War. When Logan was elected to Congress she moved to Washington, DC, with him. Mary was active with the Red Cross and in 1904 became its second president (after Clara Barton). She was also an active suffragist. She wrote three books and was a prolific letter-to-the-editor writer whose letters were published in newspapers nationally. (More about Mary here.)

(Clara Cummings founded the Book Club in the 1930's when she was not invited to join the very exclusive Excelsior Club in Waukegan.  The Excelsior no longer exists but the CCBC -- which used to host professional book reviewers -- still meets as a lunch group.   AAUW, P.E.O., and GFWC friends are among the attendees.)

Trumpet, harp, and soprano in one musical group? Illumine Trio provided a superb concert Sunday afternoon.   Bach, musical theater, Metallica, and a dash of Star Trek.  (Look up their music on YouTube!)

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Jeannine and I met for coffee on Wednesday to transfer the files for the P.E.O. Lake County Round Table.  I came home with the a briefcase for my new role as president.  She went home with the wall hanging I made on behalf of the Round Table to thank her for her six years of service.  

In the studio:

I have several yard-plus pieces of floral-on-dark-blue in my stash.  But now I have less!   I came across a pattern using the Carrie Nation block.  I was intrigued by the emphatic diagonal lines of the chains.  I cut, sewed, and by Saturday evening I had finished the whole quilt!  

The blocks are 12". 60 x 72, 5-7/8 in all.

Every spring I donate a quilt for my AAUW branch to raffle.  I made this bright log cabin a while ago and Barb quilted it this week.   

I've named it Out of the Box.   It's 73 x 83.    

The logs are 1/2" and they are not paper-pieced.  Once I got going that size (1" unfinished) wasn't difficult.   

  

A new project is in the works.

Busy week ahead.  I need to compose and post a book review!  

Linking up with Oh Scrap! and  Design Wall Monday

P.S.   Our concert selfie. 

Weekly update: our Christmas gift, the kitchen, Frolic 4 -- and LOG CABINS!

Our Christmas gift to one another was a pair of tickets to today's matinee performance of The Light in the Piazza at the Lyric Opera in Chicago.   Soprano Renee Fleming was magnificent in the starring role. The rest of the cast was great, too.  (Signor Naccarelli was played by Alex Jennings who was the Duke of Windsor in The Crown.)

 The opera house is on the Chicago River (the white stone building on the right). We had not been downtown on a Sunday for many years. The train down and back was pretty full.

Now I'm going to borrow the original novel and try to find the 1962 movie version.

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 Here's the kitchen on Sunday morning.  I put post-its on the cupboard doors so we'll both know what's inside.   I haven't unpacked all the boxes partly because I want to make decisions about keeping things before squirreling rarely-used items into hard-to-access corners. And how much Fiesta do I need to have on display all the time?

The other reason is shelf pegs....You may recall that shelf pegs were the seed for this entire project. (Well, shelf pegs and being tired of the acres and acres of floral wallpaper.)  I read an article by a woman who was waked up in the middle of the night when a kitchen shelf collapsed because the shelf pegs had given way.  I checked the pegs on our shelves and discovered that not only were the shelves hanging on by sheer geometry, but also the cupboard walls were bowing badly due to the heavy weight of dishes on the top shelves. I removed the contents of the top shelves (stored in boxes in the basement).   The carpenter replaced the pegs with metal ones though he had to drill larger holes. Pegs held but wall still bowed. 

The deep hidden corner

The new shelves have plastic pegs that appear to be flimsy.  I went to Lowe's and got metal pegs.  I tried to insert them. Same diameter, fine. But the *length* of the peg is longer.  I asked the carpenter about that. He said that drilling the holes deeper might poke through the cupboard walls. They'd need to look into that and perhaps they'd have to plane the edges of the shelves.  The contractor is coming Monday morning to go over the punch list and I will ask.

 The drawer pulls look assertive, but my husband's arthritic fingers can grab them easily.
There is a pull-out cabinet for the wastebasket but it is in the exact corner where I do most cooking.  I can't stand in front of it when it's pulled out. I will buy a  lidded stainless steel wastebasket to park at the end of the counter (where the white wastebasket is now).  The trash can cabinet will be refitted with pull-out shelves.

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 Here is part 4 of Frolic, the Quiltville mystery. The units are sets of four sewn HSTs and four unsewn QSTs, each set from one blue and one aqua fabric.  I put each set in a sandwich bag to keep them sorted.

I have NO idea how the blocks will be put together!


A few weeks ago I found a pattern for paper-pieced 5" log cabin blocks in AmP&Q.    I didn't want to tear out all that paper so I sewed the blocks conventionally.  The strips were cut 1" and finished at 1/2". That size was not hard to work with. I trimmed each round as I went. I sewed the blocks in fours with a skinny inner sashing and a contrasting outer sashing. (By that time my design had totally deviated from the magazine pattern.) I knew I wanted a busy background. This citrusy print was not the one I originally chose but it provides just the effect I sought:  log cabins floating on a cheerful background.   The flimsy is approx. 68 x 80 and used 9-1/2 yards by weight.

I'm linking up with other bloggers at
 Oh Scrap
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday


P.S.  I culled a few food items as I put things away.

Weekly update: the kitchen (still) and log cabins

The cabinets are in.  Counter tops this week  Electrical work this week.

We need to buy a dishwasher to replace the 10-year-old model which wasn't cleaning so well. The refrigerator is newer than that but because of the new location I can consider a bottom-freezer model.  (Any opinions?)

My husband caught a bug last week but seems to be over it. I came down with a cold Saturday evening -- I think the worst of it was Sunday night. We should be healthier by Thanksgiving Day. We've been invited to have dinner with friends.  I bought a turkey anyway (those pre-holiday prices are irresistible). Since the stove is out of commission I will cook it in the electric roaster.

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I made the rest of the black/white/bright slab blocks (see last week's post). I don't have a photo of those because the design wall has been taken over by the log cabins.  I made 120 and assembled them in 4's with skinny sashing (strips cut 1" that finish at 1/2", the same as the  logs).  I What's stuck in my head is using a very busy print between the blocks and for the borders -- think Kaffe Fassett.  The sample
in the photo is a wonderfully lively Free Spirit print and I have enough of it for the project.   But I will audition something lower-volume -- red, maybe? Or lime green?

I'd like to get both the slab blocks and the log cabins to the flimsy stage by Friday. That's when Bonnie will publish the first clue for the 2019 mystery.  I love the colorway -- aqua, blue, raspberry, green.

Have a great holiday! 

Linking up with
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Design Wall Monday
Monday Making

Weekly update: kitchen, OMG, stars, and SQUIRREL!

The kitchen and dining room walls are now "Gleeful." (The contrast wall at the end of the entry hall is "Lime Rickey," a shade darker.) The base cabinets are in place and the upper cabinets are waiting in the garage for the carpenters this week.

My November OMG was to make a bookshelf quilt for a former coworker who is retiring this month.  This is the 40th bookshelf quilt I've made since 2004, all using Christine Thresh's pattern (Winnowing.com)  (I have gotten my money's worth!)

I'm linking this post to the  OMG November finish .

I was pleased to get a place in the star swap that  Barb Vedder  is hosting. They're not due until mid-January but I forged ahead and made all 31 (with a couple of extras).









Earlier this month I made some black and white slab blocks. When I got to 24 I put them on the design wall.  I don't want to replicate last year's Modern Cabin.  I arranged them horizontally by accent color and realized that may be the setting -- six rows, six blocks, each row a different accent color. Since I took this photo I've made another green, another yellow, and four turquoise blocks. Orange and purple to come.

And the SQUIRREL?  It leaped across my quilting path, metaphorically speaking, when I leafed through a stack of patterns clipped from magazines.  The pattern uses 100 paper-pieced 5-1/2" (unfin.) blocks.  I didn't want to go to the effort of printing 100 paper foundations and I really didn't want to have to tear out all that paper. Instead I'm piecing the blocks conventionally. They have 2-1/2" centers (I have a shoebox of them) and 1" strips (cut from the 1-1/2", 2", and 2-1/2" strip bins, and some yardage).  The skinny strips are not hard to work with.  I make the blocks in batches and press and trim after each round.   I've made 57 blocks so far.  The random arrangement on the design wall puts me in mind of the lively designs by Kathy Doughty and Jen Kingwell .  I'm not sure where I'll go with these blocks but after all,  SQUIRRELS dash here and there.

Linking up with
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Monday Making
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