Dead Dog Creek Ravine, end of October

Dead Dog Creek Ravine is at the end of our block.  It's beautiful at any time of year.  Yesterday was the first time I'd remembered to take my camera.  (New resolution:  I will try to do so each month to record seasonal changes.)

Entry to the ravine from our street

The creek

Harvest

As I mentioned earlier, this summer we had a vegetable garden. It was the first since we've been in this house (2003).  Because I planted it late I just grabbed seed packets at the nursery so we had nice string beans and snow peas, TREMENDOUS cucumbers, and slow-growing carrots. The basil, sage, and mint (all from setting plants) were lush.  There were four different kinds of tomatoes, planted WAY too close, but oh, so abundant!  Delicious in salads and out-of-hand.  The freezer is stocked with tomato sauce and many packets of pesto.

The first frost was a couple of days ago, so Stevens pulled out the tomato vines and dug up the carrots. I made a green tomato pie yesterday and there's a green tomato cake in the oven now.


A bounty of green tomatoes!

There were a few almost-red tomatoes left.  The basil had been nipped by the cold.

Slow-growing but soooo sweet.

And next summer?  We're going to enlarge the garden plot!

Another finish Nine Patch and Blue

It's funny how a quilt with no destination and no deadline can come together quickly and without angst.  That's the case with "Nine Patch and Blue," which I began a week ago (October 17) and finished last evening. 

Most of the 272 mini 9-patches (3" finished) came from the occasional exchanges of the online  Block Swappers.   The fabric for the setting, border, and back came from my stash.  The back is a vintage cheater pattern from the late 60's/early 70's-- 36" wide -- made by VIP, I think.  I did simple straight-line quilting.  The quilt is 88 x 88.

Christmas Cottages II

This is the second Christmas Cottages quilt.  It will be raffled by the Friends of the Library.  Barb C., one of the library staff, contributed blocks to add to those I made.  There were five blocks extra and I pieced them into the back. I quilted it with a meandering pattern in the center, parallel zigzags in the inner border, and holly leaves in the outer border.    ( Click this to see the first quilt, which AAUW is raffling.)

October in northeasternmost Illinois

It's Columbus Day weekend. What better way to commemorate it than by going to the.....beach?   (The water was warm enough to wade in.) 

All photos taken at Camp Logan (North Unit, Illinois Beach State Park) about a mile and half from our house.





And one piece of beach glass for my recently-started collection.



A final sunrise

Taken at the ferry dock the day we left the Magdalens

Just a few photos from our trip

Green Gables (SWH in red sweater)

Kitchen, Green Gables

Old Harry Beach

Acadian Flag, Havre-Aubert

Sunrise



Sunset

Madelinot symbol: clothes on the line in the breeze!

Interior, St. Peter's-by-the-Sea ("Old Harry Church")

P.E.I. and the Magdalens: two weeks in Atlantic Canada

Our fall Road Scholar/Elderhostel trip, 9/11-9/24, is now a happy memory.   We actually participated in two RS/EH, back-to-back and in the same place.   We began in Charlottetown, P.E.I., and continued to the Magdalen Islands (Iles de la Madeleine), which are part of Quebec, although they are closer to P.E.I. and Cape Breton (Nova Scotia) than they are to mainland Quebec.

We arrived in Charlottetown late in the afternoon of Saturday, September 11,  The program began on Sunday evening which gave us a free morning to walk the 2.5 miles from our hotel to downtown.  (We took a cab back, however.)

There were just 9 participants in "The Island Way of Life," the smalled RS/EH we've been in.  Our group leader, Cathy B., is a francophone Madelinot, and our bus driver, Bobby A. (Cathy's partner), is an anglophone Madelinot.  P.E.I. is very English and the Magdalens are more French than English.

We had a tour of historic Charlottetown, including the excellent museum Founders' Hall.  Its interactive, multimedia exhibits tell the story of Canadian history and the pivotal Charlottetown Conference in 1864 which led to the Confederation in 1867.  We went to Province House,  the seat of P.E.I government. (The provincial assembly has 27 members...but then P.E.I. population is 137,000.) Green Gables  is a must for all P.E.I. visitors.  It was a thrill to see "Anne's house," the Haunted Wood, and the other places made famous in Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels.   The guide said they have as many as 1200 visitors  day at in the height of the summer season. Thankfully it was much, much less crowded when we were there.

On Tuesday we went to the little town of Souris where the ferry to the Magdalens docks.  After a five-hour trip we were finally on the Magdalens!   The tourism information is here:  http://tourismeilesdelamadeleine.com/   We stayed at La Salicorne ("salicorne" is a saltwater plant--seawort, in English).  Accommodations were good and the food was fabulous!

So, what did we do? 
*  Island tour, from one end of the archipelago to the other.
*  Tour of the fishing wharf.  The Magdalens were settled because of the seafood:  lobster, cod, halibut, herring, scallops, clams, oysters.  (Tourism did not became a major economic factor until the 1970's.)
*  A beach walk, with time to wade (and I did) in the not-too-cold Gulf of the St. Lawrence.
*  A nature walk, led by a francophone guide (her English was very good).
*  A visit to a smokehouse (herring), an artisinal cheesemaker (cattle are the breed Canadian), a winery ("bagosse" is distilled from locally grown fruit--sweet and high alcohol content), and a microbrewery ("L'abri de la tempete"="shelter from the storm").
*  A visit to the Mines Saleine, the salt mine.  Geologically the Magdalens are salt domes that go 5 KM down.  Salt was discovered in the late 1960's when Texaco came to drill for oil. There is oil, but they've been busy extracting salt since the late 1970's.   The mine is now the largest private employer in the Magdalens.

The first RS/EH program ended Saturday morning.  Everyone but us departed!  The second program began that afternoon.  (The first people we met were a couple from Antioch, Illinois--just 10 miles from where we live.)   There were 11 people in the second group.  Some of the activities were repeated from the first week, which was fine with us:  the beach walk and the island tour were splendid the second time around.

On Sunday we broke off from the group to go to the morning service at St. Peter's-by-the-Sea, one of the three churches in the Anglican parish.  There were 6 in worship that day:  the senior warden and his grandson, the priests (husband and wife), and us!  

Our group took the ferry to Entry Island, the one island in the archipelago accessible only by boat. It's one of the English settlements.   (We learned that for decades the French and the English stayed separate by choice.  In the last 25 years or so intermarriage has become more common.  The schools are either French (parochial) or English (depending on the town), and the high school is French (so anglophone students go to Charlottetown and board).)

Hurricane Igor drenched Newfoundland with 200ml of rain on Sept. 21.  The Magdalens had sunny skies that day but *50-knot* winds (over 60 mph).  That day was our island tour.  We made it, albeit buffeted about. 

Departure was early Thursday.  We had a ride from Souris to Charlottetown, the kindness of fellow Elderhostelers who parked their RV at Souris.  And home again on Friday.

Selected photos will be in the next post!

What I made next

I wrote yesterday that I was weary of "happy scrappy houses," as cute and perky as they are.  I had some 9-1/2" Ohio star blocks that didn't make it into a previous project (see this post).  I put them up on the design wall.  The setting trianges are one of those "I can't cut this!" prints that I've had for many years.  I found out I had nibbled away at it so much that there wasn't as much left as I thought, but there was enough for this project.  The border prints haven't been in my stash quite that long.  This flimsy is about 54 x 65.

Christmas Cottages

This is "Christmas Cottages I," made for the Waukegan Area Branch of AAUW for its holiday raffle.  The block is Happy Scrappy Houses by Bonnie Hunter.  The houses are 8"; with the setting triangles the blocks are 9.5" finished.  The quilt is approx. 69 x 78.   I finished the quilting and the binding today! 

 A companion quilt ("Christmas Cottages II") is in the works.  It will be the Friends of the Library holiday raffle.  One of my coworkers is making cottages for CC-II.  I welcome her assistance because, truth to tell, after making 42 houses for CC-I and 28 (out of 42) houses for CC-II, plus 12 non-Christmas houses for a BlockSwappers exchange, I'm ready to work on something different!

All aboard the S. S. Badger....and pure Michigan!

We commemorated our 30th anniversary by trying a new method of traveling.  We took the S. S. Badger carferry from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, last Thursday (and did the reverse today).  We'd always wanted to try it! (And everyone to whom we mentioned it said, "Oh, we've always wanted to try it.")  The Badger was built in 1953 as the last in a fleet that first carried railroad cars across the lake. Passenger service was added later. The Badger and its sister the Spartan were taken out of service in the 60's.  (Badgers, Spartans....no mention of Wolverines.)  In the early 90's entrepreneurs got the idea to start up the ferry, this time to take passengers and their cars.  The Badger makes the trip. The Spartan is docked at Ludington and is used for parts.

The 60-mile trip takes four hours.  The ship is like an un-fancy cruise ship, with several lounges, meal service, a movie theatre, an arcade, a kids' playroom, and staterooms.  We chose to stay on the upper deck both trips.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL and the lake was calm.

We stayed in Ludington Thursday night.  Friday we explored the town, which had its origins as a lumber port to ship Michigan white pine to Chicago and elsewhere.  We thoroughly enjoyed White Pine Village, an assemblage of 19th century houses and shops. 

Friday and Saturday nights we stayed at the Honor Motel in the tiny town of that name.  We caught the sunset at Point Betsie on the lake.  Here in Illinois we can see beautiful sunrises over that same lake -- but these Michigan sunsets are incredibly spectacular.   Kitesurfers were taking advantage of the surf. 

Saturday we explored all of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  I remembered the steep, sandy dunes from our 1959 family vacation -- and they are still there!  I made it to the first plateau of the dune climb.  Stevens waited down below. 

We drove up to Leland where we had a late lunch.  Leland's history as a commercial fishing port is marked by Fishtown.  There are now many fishing charters and the ferry to the Manitou Islands.  (No time to go there this trip....maybe next time?)  Stevens bought smoked trout and fish sausage at a market in Fishtown.  (He managed to keep both cool and they're in the fridge now.)   That evening we went back to Point Betsie for the sunset.  It looked much the same as the evening before -- and we enjoyed it as much!

Sunday we had a late breakfast and headed south to Ludington via the shore route.  That took us through several small towns and one larger one:  Manistee. Stevens' cousin Frank Mitchell was a prominent citizen of that city, according to The History of Michigan, elected as its mayor in 1915.  I found his address and we found the house and got photos.  Manistee looks a lot larger than it is (pop. 6500+).  Its main street is along the river and the storefronts have been nicely restored.  (The historical society was not open that day, unfortunately, or we'd have tried to find a photo of Cousin Frank.)

We returned to Ludington in time for dinner on Sunday.  I went to the municipal beach to get pictures of the sunset. That evening was partly cloudy, but I could see the sun's outline.  Even better, though, were the pictures I got of the S. S. Badger leaving port. It was the last night run of the season! (There is one trip each way daily through October, when service ends for the winter.) 

 

And all too soon it was morning and time for us to board the S. S. Badger for the 9 a.m. return trip.   We arrived on time, got our car, and headed back to Illinois.  We pulled into our driveway at 2:30.   Our "pure Michigan" getaway was a wonderful trip indeed!

Sawyer Pictures

Sawyer Pictures are hand-tinted photographs of scenes in northern New England (New Hampshire, mostly, and also Maine).  I discovered them at a shop in Brownington, Vermont, in 1998, and bought "Sunset on the Kennebec." 

For a product that was fairly widely distributed (think "quality souvenir"), apparently not many were purchased by Midwesterners because I haven't found them at sales or in shops in this area.  Today I found another one at an estate sale in Highland Park.  The man said, "It's a watercolor. $45."  I said, "It's a hand-tinted photograph.  $40."  He made a show of putting a jeweler's loupe to his eye. "It's a watercolor," he insisted.  I said, "Well, then I'm not interested," and began to walk away.  His daughter said, "Oh, Dad.  We'll take $45 for the picture and these other items." (A cookbook, one of L. M. Alcott's romantic thrillers, a box of vintage thread (the spools are labelled Willcox and Gibbs), and a box of contemporary notecards (c1996).)   The dad was not pleased, but I was.  And now "Crawford Notch from the Crawford House" joins "Sunset on the Kennebec." 

There still isn't much online information, but I found   this Wikipedia entry.

The new acquisition: Crawford Notch from the Crawford House

Sunset on the Kennebec

P.S. Here's the thread. The spools are about 1" high.

In the garden, again

In the garden

Swallowtail on echinacea purpurea (coneflower) in our front flower bed.

Winterthur quilts in Milwaukee

The day began cloudy and rainy, and the forecast was for hot and muggy, so DH and I  went to the Milwaukee Art Museum today to see "American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection."

The quilts were beautiful, of course, and varied. There were elegant wholecloth pieces with stitching smaller than what a sewing machine produces. Other wholecloth pieces with elaborate toiles, but just fabric pieced together (technically very utilitarian).
My favorite was this paper-pieced medallion quilt.  It was made in Pennsylvania between 1825 and 1846.

The gift shop had several beautiful OBWs (one-block wonder) by a Milwaukee-area quiltmaker (about $1200 each). There were also throw-sized mass-market quilts from India: cheap fabric, toe-catcher stitches. The OBWs were a compliment/complement to the exhibit. The Indian ones were good as a contrast to what good quilts can be! I bought a magnet of the medallion quilt, and some postcards, and a scrap quilt book (the gift shop had current quilt books for sale, all at $10.00). I'll order the exhibit catalog through the library.

We had lunch at a microbrewery in the Third Ward (http://www.historicthirdward.org/).
On the way home DH observed that it takes less time to get to downtown Milwaukee than to downtown Chicago. (Same distance from our house, though.)  We ought to go more often!

A little bit liberated

I'm not quite as free-form as others on the Liberated Quilters list are, but every so often my projects go in that direction.   The scrappy patches were leaders-and-enders over several months.  I emptied the shoebox of 2" squares!  I wasn't going to add a border, but with so many seams at the edges of the blocks I needed something to stabilize the perimeter. The yellow fabric (with red apples) adds a nice contrast, I think.  Blocks are 9" and the top is 66 x 66.

(Sorry about the crooked picture!)

Finally, a flimsy

I feel as though June was an unproductive month in terms of quilting. It was quite busy otherwise: getting going on my new AAUW assignment (state program v.p., which entails planning the fall conference and the spring convention); the library budget and fiscal year-end; and the ALA Annual Conference for which I had three presentations to prepare. 

Now that it's July I can report that I am behind on AAUW work. The budget was approved and the new fiscal year begun.  ALA, which was in Washington, DC, went very well: the three presentations were well-received; I saw many long-time friends; and I had time to be a tourist.

Here's my latest flimsy, finished this weekend.  It's one of two commissioned quilts that a colleague will give to her niece and nephew for Christmas. Obviously this is the niece's.  The request was for pink and green. I included some purple and yellow for variety. 

Here is the nephew's quilt. The request was for "red, blue, and sports." Each star has a different sports-themed fabric in the center.

Both quilts measure approximately 60 x 60.

Revisiting an old friend: "O Ye Jigs and Juleps"

I found an old friend among boxes of books donated to the library earlier this month:   "O Ye Jigs and Juleps."

I first read OYJ&J when I was 11 or so.  Its small format and easy-to-read (and funny!) text meant that it was a "grown-up" book that I could read.   Understanding the words is one thing; fully appreciating the humor came when I read it as an adult.

It is a series of essays purported to be written in 1904 by 10-year-old Virginia Cary.   The essays were discovered years later by her daughter.  Virginia lived in a southern city and was Episcopalian, which is central to her essays.  ("Most of the things you get somebody dies so you can get it, but you have to die your own self to get Everlasting Life.  When you are dead as a doornail, God gives it to you, and you can't get rid of it. You can't buy it, or sell it, or trade it. You have to keep it whether it suits you or not.")  She has other observations:  "Personal appearance is looking the best you can for the money."  "Spring is when you draw a circle in the dirt with your finger, if you don't have a stick, and win all of the boys' marbles. My mother rubs lemon on her hands to make them white. I rub salt on my shooting thumb to make it tough."

Perspicacious, indeed. Too good to be true? Tucked inside this recently-given volume was a leaflet from the Episcopal Book Club, Summer 1962. It says the essays are genuine. (For more information on the EBC and its parent organization, The Anglican Digest, and their 'home' at Hillspeak, click here.)

As I reread OYJ&J I realized how many of the passages I've memorized. I'll close with one of my favorites:  "The Library is full of dust. Mrs. Simons sits in the middle and George Washington hangs in the hall. In the library are three kinds of books. Books people like to read. Books people do not like to read, and books people never will read. Mrs. Simons says people like books with spice. Spice comes from India....The library is where my fatehr took his check book when I broke the window. I was only trying to kill a fly. It would take too long to tell you what my mother said....In the library there are signs. Silence. Mrs. Simons must not know they are there. Mrs. Simons talks the whole long day."

Amen, and be it so!

Using orphan blocks: 9 Patch Strippy

The 9-patch blocks are left over from this
quilt that was completed five years ago or so.
I've long wanted to make a zig-zag strippy (or, as EQ calls it, "half-dropped blocks, vertical set").  The setting fabric is red-orange on white, but it looks peach/solid in the photo. Yes, I know that the corner blocks would be more effective set on point, but that would entail wider borders and I didn't have enough of the border fabric for that.  53" X 72" or thereabouts.