Weekly update: garden tour and Care Bags

We had beautiful weather this weekend with sunshine and low humidity. Saturday was perfect for the annual Illinois Dunesland Garden Club garden walk.

The walk starts at the library where the maps to the five gardens are distributed. There's no admission fee. The club makes money on a bucket raffle with items on display in the library lobby.  I bought $30 worth of tickets and won two gift certificates, a gift basket, and a framed print. I got my money's worth!

This year's gardens were in Beach Park, Zion (two, across the alley from one another), Winthrop Harbor, and Carol Beach (just north of the state line).


Back in the studio:
I've supported the Care Bags Foundation for a long time.  They provide ditty bags filled with toiletries (plus a book and a small toy) that are distributed to kids in crisis. My goal is to make 100 bags a year.  I'm glad I checked the website before I began making this year's batch because the pattern has changed. The bags are larger to hold fleece blankets that other Care Bags volunteers make.

Of course larger bags mean I'll use up more stash!  I plumb the Deep Stash to find vintage fabrics, tablecloths, and fashion fabrics.


This poly/cotton woven plaid came from a thrift shop, mill outlet tag included. $5.99 was the original price (1960's, probably).  The 4-yard piece was enough for five bags.

I have two quilt donation opportunities, one for August and one later in the year. If nothing on hand will suit then, gee, I'll just have to start something new.  To that end I've begun perusing back issues of quilt magazines.

Monday linkups:
Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Design Wall Monday

P.S.  I am throwing my hat in the ring -- rather, my coins in the jar -- and joining Val for the 2017 Piggybank Challenge . You can see my score for 2017 in this post and my method in this post .

Raffle mania and the Piggy Bank Challenge

Our guild's July program is Raffle Mania. It's an opportunity to offload no-longer-loved quilting stuff and a chance to take home someone else's in a bucket raffle. (Bucket raffles used to be called Chinese auctions -- here is an explanation.)   Each member gets tickets based on attendance and participation during the year and additional tickets are for sale (.50).  I got 18 free tickets which was enough to "spend."

I contributed a specialty ruler I won a few years ago and never used, 24 patterns that I never got around to making, a shoebox with 16 yards of Christmas fabric, and a ziploc bag crammed full of 8 yards of Christmas scraps.



Here are my winnings.

This kit came in a vintage plastic box (remember styrene?). The pattern is dated 1985.  I only wanted the fabric. Another guild member was delighted when I gave her the pattern.




 More patterns.

In all, 11-1/2 yards of fabric, four patterns, and a bag of M&Ms for the price of attending guild meetings this year.

And now, on to the Piggy Bank Challenge.  Last July Val (Val's Quilting Studio) announced the 4th annual PBC.  The idea: save your change. A year later report the total and what quilty purchase you'll use it for.  My rules for my version, the Change Game, are detailed in this post -- basically, I save spare change, $5 bills, and $1 bills with Federal Reserve B and H designations.

The result, after a year:  $119.21 in change and $589 in currency.  That's $708.21.  This morning I placed an online order for a 40-yd roll of Warm and Natural batting for $321.99.   I still have money in the bank!

See how other quiltmakers have done in Val's link up