Midweek: table runner + reading

 

The two Waukegan-based P.E.O. chapters had their joint holiday party yesterday afternoon.  Though neither is my chapter, I knew most everyone there.   Just desserts, and delicious!

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I finished the table runner for the gift exchange at tomorrow's Rotary meeting.  I searched the stash and eventually found just the right fabric.   (I realize that I mispieced the Air Castle block at the bottom so it looks a little clunky. Too late!) 

Now I'm working on the coral HSTs for the Old Town mystery. I made 5 sets Tuesday evening.  Many more to come.

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This book is a gem and I commend it to you.  

Rundell writes about 23 marvelous creatures.  Some are well-known (elephants and wolves), some are not (golden moles and pangolins).  Some are on watchlists (monarch butterflies, giraffes) and some are not (humans).   Ultimately all are endangered (not to be alarmist, but  there could be a modern-day equivalent of the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs).  All have a place on the earth.   

The short chapters are a mix of how the creatures have been regarded through the ages and their current conditions.  An example from the seahorse essay:  "We live in a world of such marvels. We should wake in the morning and as we put on our trousers, we should remember the seahorse, and we should scream with awe and not stop screaming until we fall asleep, and the same the next day, and the next. Each single seahorse contains enough wonder to knock the whole of humanity off its feet, if we would but pay attention."  (136) 

After Rundell describes she prescribes what we can do to protect these and all the wonderful beasts.  Vote. Do all you can to mitigate climate change.  "Educate yourself. Educate others....The world deserves your clear-sighted and nuanced awe." (194)  "The time to give up is never. Hope--active, purposeful, informed hope--is what we owe the world. A body of unimaginable splendor turns on its axis, calling us to its aid." (195)

# # # # #  Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss  Midweek Makers   Susan has announced that December 25 will be the last Midweek Makers.  Thanks for hosting the weekly gathering!

Midweek: finished already!

At this time of year it's easy to justify any personal purchase as "a Christmas gift to myself." Here's what arrived yesterday afternoon.  

It came just in the (Saint) nick of time.    I had enough batting left for Black Diamond Strings without resorting to making a frankenbatt.   

I auditioned several prints for the backing before I remembered this one. It's genuine vintage (36" wide), a gift from an AAUW friend some years ago.  There's a yard remaining.

I used black thread to quilt serpentine lines through the center strings and at each block intersection.  

Hooray for a finish!   And now I'm just messing around . . . 

Linking up with Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss

Midweek: a finish

 It's been a quiet week so far.  Perhaps I'm simmering down after the disappointment of the election results, resigned to the announcements about the change in government and all the analyses of what happened.   

 S had dentist appointments Monday and Tuesday which went well (whew).  Last evening my P.E.O. chapter met by Zoom.  The program was given by a church choir director (a chapter sister is in that choir) who is also a middle school music teacher. She talked about requiems, the funeral masses set to music.   I had no idea there was so much to learn!   Mozart's Requiem is perhaps the most famous but other composers (Verdi, Brahms among them) wrote them, too.   One of the clips she showed was  this explanation of Dies Irae (day of wrath): four notes that you'll recognize! 

I've spent time in the studio and have a finish to show off.   Our guild holiday exchange is a gift box that is to include a seasonal runner that we've made and additional little presents. 

On Monday I wrote that had run out of background fabric for my version of Starstruck and I was contemplating another plan.  The first "other plan" was to set the blocks on point with a contrast fabric for the setting triangles -- but these blocks are 13" so on point the runner would be 20 x 60 -- pretty big!   I searched the Christmas stash again and found this stripe. It picks up all the colors in the blocks as well as the polka dots.  

There is NOTHING on the calendar today.  What kind of mischief can I make?  What can I catch up on?  

Looks as though the next project has leaped onto the table.

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Midweek: OMG for October

 

I crossed paths with a praying mantis at Illinois Beach State Park yesterday.   I tried to get a head-on photo but it moved too quickly.

We have one more warm day (80's!) and tomorrow it will be in the 60's, falling to the low 50's for trick or treating.

The squirrels decided to carve our pumpkin.  Ooooh noooo, Mr. Bill!  

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Last evening's P.E.O. Zoom meeting included a very interesting program.

The speaker was my friend-since-junior high Pam. She was an associate editor for Science  the journal of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, for 34 years.  She told us what is involved in accepting papers out of the  15,000 submissions a year.  Her subject area is neurobiology (she has a PhD.) and she traveled to many professional conferences around the world to stay abreast of the research.  Her job included arranging for peer review, sometimes a challenge in competitive niches.  Technology changed over the years from mailed submissions in manila envelopes to email (the extensive documentation overloaded the servers) to more efficient platforms.    

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In the studio:  it's time to recap the One Monthly Goal for October.  I said I'd spend the month piecing on Sweetness, my Singer 301, while Jolly Janome was in the shop for a tuneup. 

I made a scrappy half log cabin quilt 20 years ago or so.  I came across three of Sharyn Craig's HLC books and realized the block would be great in homespuns.  I'm using 2" strips so the blocks are 7.5" unfinished. 

Can you see what's in the backgroun of the photo on the left?  We picked up the Janome yesterday.  And I did NOT buy any fabric at the shop.  

I'll use Sweetness to get the HLC blocks to the flimsy stage.

Here's a collage of the four homespun flimsies I made this month. 

Linking up with OMG 2024 October  Wednesday Wait Loss Midweek Makers

Midweek: design rescue in the works

 

Our AAUW branch met in person last evening. I was happy to go for several reasons -- to see friends, to sell tickets for the holiday raffle quilt, and most of all for the excellent program.  The Dignity Index is a way we can thoughtfully respond to people whose statements and ideas may not align with ours.              from the website: The Dignity Index scores distinct phrases along an eight-point scale from contempt to dignity.  Lower scores (1-4) reflect divisive language while higher scores (5-8) reflect language grounded in dignity.                                                  At our meeting the facilitators (AAUW members from the Batavia-Geneva-St. Charles Branch) provided sample statements for us to evaluate.  It takes practice!     I encourage you to go to the website to learn more. 

In previous years I'd start selling tickets for the holiday quilt at the AAUW-IL fall conference but it was online this year and I wasn't able to attend. (I know there are online auction/raffle platforms but I still can't wrap my head around the logistics.)   Last night's meeting was the last in-person meeting until the holiday party when the winning ticket will be drawn.  

I made the quilt in July.  

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In the studio:   

I've been taken with Wanda's recent sixteen-patch project . I tried the block with the homespuns that have turned out to be my genre-of-the-month.  I alternated the plaids with cream/tan 'regular' fabric.   Pretty blah!  I stared at them for a while and the lightbulb turned on.    Tune in again to see what I've figured out. 

Linking up with Midweek Makers and  Wednesday Wait Loss

Thanks for the shout out, Jennifer! 

Midweek: estate sale encore and a flimsy + quilt history books

 Barb M's estate sale began in September, 2023.  Paula and her friends were off in July and this September but were back this month.  And there will be more!   They've raised nearly $25,000 for different charities.  

  Average price $2.20 per yard this time.  You can see why my homespun stash has not diminished.

Not that I am not trying.  Here's the nine/four patch flimsy. 

I have another homespun project underway -- photos to come.

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(Last week I mentioned that a local quilt shop sells gently-used quilt books for $2.00 with the proceeds going to charity.  Reading one of those led to rereading another.) 

Jonathan Holstein wrote Abstract Design in American Quilts: a Biography of an Exhibition in 1991 in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the landmark Whitney Museum exhibit of 60 quilts from his collection.  That was the first time an art museum displayed quilts hung like paintings.  Critics were awed.   

Holstein was born in 1936, grew up in Syracuse, and went to Harvard. In the 1960's he discovered old quilts at antiques shops, farm houses, and other out-of-the-way places in New England, upstate New York, and Pennsylvania.  He and his partner Gail van der Hoof filled their Manhattan apartment with quilts. They were entranced by the way 19th and early 20th century quilt makers perceived and used colors and shapes.     

The Whitney exhibit opened July 2, 1971, and closed September 12.  From there it went to Paris and Japan. The Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) used some of the Whitney quilts and others from the Holstein collection for a 21-city tour in 1973-74.   

My observation is that some of the quilts are terrific and some are ho-hum.  So many more quilts have been discovered, documented, and shown since then, many of them magnificent.  It is interesting to read quilt analysis from the art history/critic point of view rather than that of a quilt maker.  

My copy of The Pieced Quilt: An American Design Tradition is a reprint (Galahad Books) of the 1973 publication.   It is not a catalog of the Whitney exhibit but is a follow-up companion.  Holstein elaborates on American quilting development, again with the emphasis on design.  

 In 2003 Holstein donated his collection of quilts and documents to the International Quilt Museum.   The 400 quilts include the 62 from the Whitney exhibition.  Images are in the Quilt Index here.  (It was valued at $2.2 million, quite an increase considering that Holstein and van der Hoof set a budget of $36 per quilt on their buying trips.)   In 2021 IQM  remounted the exhibit for its fiftieth anniversary.   

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P. S.  Thanks for the shout out, Jennifer!  

Midweek: a flimsy and piecing fun

What an interesting cloud formation! I took the photo Monday afternoon at Middlefork Savanna

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 I took the Janome to Sew 'n' Save in Racine for an overdue cleaning.  I did not buy any fabric but I came home with some books.   The shop has two bookcases crammed full with quilt books donated by customers. They sell them for $2.00 and give the proceeds to a Wisconsin veterans' project.  

The Quilt Digest is issue #4, 1986.  It has an article by Suellen Meyer with this intriguing snippet.  

Here's the source.  

While the Janome is away Sweetness, the Singer 301, has come out to play.   A few drops of oil and she's humming away.   I paid $75 for her about 20 years ago.  (I also have a Featherweight but it needs a new belt.)   Note to self:  buy a new bottle of sewing machine oil! New machines are self-lubricating so it's not something I have to think about . . . until times like now.

Aunt Vina's Favorite is a flimsy.  6 yards.  

More homespun blocks are in the works.

Linking up with   Wednesday Wait Loss   Midweek Makers

Midweek: beautiful days, an unplanned project, and reading

 

Lots of sunshine, mid-70's, no humidity = ideal for walking!  2.7 miles at Sun Lake on Monday afternoon.   It counts as two trails (because of the distance) for Hike Lake County. 

Lower right is white snakeroot, a poisonous plant. When cows grazed on it they absorbed the poison When people drank their milk they contracted milk fever.  Here's the story of Anna Pierce, the white woman who learned about the relationship between the plant and the sickness from Native Americans. 

I had a woman's club board meeting Tuesday afternoon, so no walk.

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I am practicing avoidance on my two remaining August goals (hey, there's 10 days left!).  I had a box of 4.5" homespun HSTs.  I made a bunch of 4-patches and here's the work in progress.  (Yes, the two blocks at the upper left are mis-oriented.)  The blocks are 8.5" unfinished.  

Cynthia said her next block drive will use these blocks but in a different colorway.    

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My recent reading:  four novels, all published in 2024.

In 1960 Francesca Loftfield, an American field worker for a British aid agency, is sent to open a nursery school in the remote Calabrian village of Santa Chionia.   The villagers view her with suspicion.  She must figure out the power structure (men dominate but there are a few formidable women) and the relationships among families.   Because of its isolation the village has been neglected by the provincial and national government.    A flood washes away the rubble of a long-ruined municipal building and a skeleton is revealed.  Who was it?   A lost son? A missing husband?   Francesca tries to help.   

I found the story long and rather confusing.  There is a list of characters at the END of the book that I didn't discover until I was more than halfway through.  It would have been more helpful to have that at the beginning.

This fast-paced mystery is saturated with local color.  FBI agent Ryan Tapia is assigned to the Maine bureau, as far away as he can get from California where his wife and children were killed in a car wreck.  He is sent to Liberty Island (Deer Isle) to investigate the death of a lobsterman whose corpse washes up on shore of an Indian reservation.  The lobsterman was a thoroughly despicable person, as Ryan finds out, but who among the locals hated him enough to kill him?

The Weyward women are linked across five centuries in this absorbing novel that echoes the magical realism of Sarah Addison Allen and Alice Hoffman.

1619:  Altha is a healer, an herbalist, on trial for witchcraft.   1942:  Viola's father restricts her every movement, confining her to their country estate.  Then the dissolute cousin comes to visit and upends everything.  2019:  Kate inherits Viola's rural cottage, just in time as her controlling and abusive lover threatens her life.  

Yes, the connections and the outcome are obvious, but the story is so well-written that you'll want to read to the end.

I didn't know what to expect when I started reading this twisty thriller -- but it kept me in suspense. 

Esther is an accomplished artist who has the unfortunate tendency to make rash decisions that have affected her family and her career.  She and her partner are living in Asheville and looking forward to starting a family.  Without warning the partner departs without any explanation, leaving Esther not only adrift but with the mortgage.  Then a wealthy philanthropist offers Esther a job she cannot refuse:  take the documents stored in hundreds of file boxes and make them into scrapbooks, ostensibly as a surprise gift for the woman's husband.  As Esther works to recreate the woman's history she uncovers family secrets. Weeks into the project the woman dies. What is Esther to do?  She has to solve the mystery and pursues it to a most unlikely conclusion.  

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Midweek: cranes, estate sale again!, and a sneak peek

 

Mr. and Mrs. Crane ambled through a back yard a couple of blocks away.  I saw them because someone else was taking a photo.   

I was en route to month #11 of Barb M's estate sale.  Paula and her friends took July off.   Months 1-10 have raised $20,000 for local charities.  Proceeds this month go to Bricks of Hope which provides Lego sets to seriously ill kids.  (Read the founder's story about how having Legos to play with when he was treated for childhood leukemia.)  

My purchases at home.   $2.59 per yard this time.  

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This is the fourth out of six months for the guild round robin.   I used the Studio 180 Split Rects ruler to make the units for LT's quilt top.   The RR is a surprise so I can't show you the entire piece, but I really like the colors in this one!

I have two small projects, neither of which is on my OMG list but both of which need to get done soon.  As I root through the stash to select fabrics I am distracted by so many ideas for other projects.    I hope to have something to show you on Friday!  

See what other quilters are blogging about at Wednesday Wait Loss and Midweek Makers

Midweek: OMG success, under the needle, and flinging

 

Surely I am not the only person wondering where July has gone!  

My OMG was to make the quilt for the AAUW holiday raffle.  I finished it mid-month.  ("Don't 'peak' until Christmas"?) 

Here is the July OMG link up.

SIS-boom-dot is under the needle, though here it's shown rolled up for the last rows.  (SIS=square-in-square / boom = the brights / dot = the black pin dot.)

These boxes are empty!  They held various household items left over from my last garage sale (2019 according to the newspapers wrapped around glassware), a miscellany of tins, and more.   The contents are in cardboard boxes in my car, ready to go to the church for the late-August rummage sale.  

I'll have the stash report and the August OMG in Friday's post.  

Linking up with Midweek Makers and  Wednesday Wait Loss  as well as OMG.

Midweek: an unexpected project + reading

 

Monday afternoon:  a red admiral stopped long enough for a photo; a reddish mushroom 'protected' by poison ivy;  plantings on the restored beach.

The map: red arrow "you are here" and my finger shows where I walked on Sunday. That gives you an idea of the stretch of our lakefront.

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There was a 2-yard piece of black pin dot in the lot I bought at the estate sale Sunday.   I put it to use with a design inspired by Emily Bailey.   But yikes! I was short 12 HSTs for the corners of the SIS blocks and 10 2.5 x 6.5 sashes.  Whew!  There was a chunk of black pin dot in my stash.  It's ever-so-slightly different but the pin dots are so small no one will notice.  

Here's the work in progress.  The horizontal sashes are pieced but not shown.    Blocks are 6".

I use the Studio 180 Square 2 ruler for SIS.

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I finished two more Advance Reader Copies that I got at the ALA conference.

Ramona Emerson was a panelist at the Penguin Random House adult books luncheon.   

Readers were introduced to forensic photographer Rita Todacheene in Shutter ( reviewed here)  Rita is Navajo and lives in Gallup, New Mexico. She sees the ghosts of the victims whose photographs she takes for the county examiner. The ghosts tell her what really caused their deaths, and it's up to Rita to convince her superiors without revealing the otherworldly source.   

There's a parallel narrative.  A serial killer spins his story from his abused childhood to his work at a Gallup mission.  He is compelled to "release" indigent, often homeless, Native people by savagely murdering them.   The police department is stymied.   Rita is called in to help.

I'm not a big fan of paranormal fiction but I'm cheering for Rita!

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In 1924 Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander, scion of an elite New York family, married Alice Beatrice Jones, the daughter of a housemaid and a taxi driver. That match became a society scandal, not because of Alice's humble origin but because her father was a mixed-race Jamaican. Kip's father threatened to disinherit Kip if the wedding were not annulled.  Alice and her family fought back.  The legal battle made headlines not only in New York but across the country.

In 1940 Roberta Taylor, Alice's long-estranged niece, is a reporter for New York Amsterdam News, a Black newspaper. Roberta is able to interview Alice to find out the entire story that led to the eventual divorce (with a settlement contested by the Rhinelanders).

Anachronisms in the narrative spoiled the story for me. (Examples: p. 9, Roberta refers to Ms. Petry. In 1943 women were addressed as Mrs. or Miss. p. 124 "thrown under a bus"--not in 1924; the phrase is from the 70's/80's. p. 131 -- "go bonkers" --origin in WWII slang, not 1924. p. 143 using a can opener to open Coca Cola; Coke came in bottles then, so a bottle opener would be used.)

However, I'm sufficiently intrigued to look up the story of the Rhinelanders and the trial.

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Linking up with Midweek Makers Wednesday Wait Loss 

Thanks for the shout out, Jennifer. 

Midweek: all set!

 My car registration is due in July and this is the year for its emissions test, so we went to the Waukegan testing station Monday.   The car passed the test but the computer system to renew registrations was down.  Rather than hang around we headed south to Greenbelt.   

There are trails on both sides of Green Bay Road. This time we went to the west.  

From upper right rattlesnake master, which has such other-worldly flowers!  St. John's wort, eastern bottle brush grass. early goldenrod ("early" is part of the name, and it is!), a buried wheel rim likely from the time this was mostly a dumping ground.  (The website tactfully says "Greenbelt has felt the effect of 150 years of settlement.")

Also from the website:  "Greenbelt sits atop the sub-continental divide, marked by Green Bay Road. Rain falling on the east side of Green Bay Road h.  eads for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but rain falling on the west side heads for the Gulf of Mexico."

....And the car registration?  I went online and renewed it. 

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In the studio:   the Christmas mountain majesties are all set!  I'm auditioning fabric for the back.

I used several different lights for the background. 

Linking up  with Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss

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