Thursday night check in: reader, I quilted it + the stash report

The amaryllis will bloom while I'm away so I took it (and some produce) to Mike and Jen, the neighbors who will watch the house.  Not only do they have the house key but they also have the car keys because if the house is burning the cars need to get out of the garage. 

I was determined to finish The West Wing before the trip.  I watched four episodes Wednesday night (got through Matt Santos' election) which left me with five episodes for Thursday.   All that TV time meant sewing time. 

The prompt for round 2 of SAHRR is "seeing double."  I chose Double Four Patch, deconstructed. Well, technically I just constructed it halfway.  I don't want the project to get unwieldy, since it will be a wall hanging.   I used a text print to go along with the reading theme. 

I basted the batik courthouse steps Wednesday night and, by golly, I got it quilted Thursday evening.   (The West Wing ended. Whew. 155 episodes!  That left me time to watch two episodes of All Creatures Great and Small...more catching up.)

Here it is! 

 

The top doesn't look much different, but you can (sort of) see the jade green binding.

The back is a batik sarong that I got at an estate sale for $1.00.  It had been cut in half and sewn along the long edge. The estate sale cashier considered it a tablecloth. 

I added a strip along the side to make it wide enough. 

Since I won't be acquiring or using any more fabric in January, here's the stash report.

Fabric OUT, January:  66-1/2 yards.

Fabric IN, January:  none!  

Linking up with  Finished or Not Friday.  See you in a couple of weeks!

Midweek: it's a flimsy

 

Here it is!   63" x 77".  6 yards.

..... and of course more scraps resulted.... 

The prompt for SAHRR Round 2 is "seeing double."  I'm contemplating how to interpret that for my wallhanging.  

I'm in the throes of packing. I leave for New Zealand (Road Scholar #53) on Friday.

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: SAHRR, the answer is 42, scrappy souvenirs + reading

 Brrrrrrr!   I hope you are keeping warm during this storm.  I've been mostly indoors since Friday.  I went to two memorial visitations on Saturday (the son of a Rotary friend in the morning and a quilting friend in the afternoon) though I didn't stay for the funeral services.  I overrode the thermostat so the heat stays at daytime temperature overnight. Otherwise it would take all morning to warm up.   Snowfall was about 2", no wind.  

wrapped up in the Magpies' quilt with another quilt at my back

I appreciate all the people who braved the cold, wherever they were, to peacefully protest the outrageous, inhumane actions of ICE agents in cities across the country.  

# # # # #   The sewing studio is in the basement which is cooler than usual, yet cozier than the living room (where I am wrapped in a quilt as I type this).   I sewed a lot! 

I made hourglass units for the first round of SAHRR.   

42!   That's the answer to the ultimate question.  (Did you get the reference to Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe, and Everything?)    

All the TATW blocks are finished.  They will be mug rugs, so each will be quilted individually.

Since they're not due until the end of May I have set them aside for the time being.

There was a heap of 1.5" strips left over from the TATWs.  

Rather than pile them in the batik scrap bin I sewed 'em up.  

Here's what happened.   I thought I'd make blocks until I used all of the red batik that's the center square.  That's 76 blocks. Then I found another big chunk of the red so maybe I'll stop at 90?  The blocks are 7" finished so a 9 x 10 setting is 63" x 70".  3" borders would bring it to 69" x 76".

I will have to cut more strips to get to that many blocks, but that's fine!  

# # # # #

"First book" is another category for The Page Turner FB group.  

Susie Dent's erudite debut will appeal to mystery fans and word-lovers, of which I am both.   It's set at Oxford.  Martha and her team of editors at the Clarendon English Dictionary (that's fictional for the OED) receive a cryptic letter signed "Chorus."  They decode the message to realize that it refers to Charlie (Charlotte), Martha's older sister, who disappeared ten years before.  Charlie had made a major discovery in her PhD. research but left no other clues.   Chorus sends more coded messages that uncover secrets, old liasons, and a literary treasure.  

Each chapter heading is an obscure but very apt word.  Among them:  witship: witness, testimony, knowledge;  mathom: a precious thing, a valuable gift; obmutescence: a willful speechlessness; fernweh, the longing to be far away.  zemblanity: the inexorability of unwanted discoveries.   Would that I could recall them when the situation warrants!  

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

Friday check in: it's cold! + more trips + reading

 

An hour after I took this screenshot the temperature dropped another 2 degrees. 

The storm has been in the forecast all week and it's probably affecting where you are.   We're on the edge of the snow with just 1"-2" predicted for tomorrow.   

The retired library directors are meeting for lunch today but LS and I, who were going to ride together, have decided to stay in our respective homes.   I have enough to keep me busy.

# # # # # #

I only need 37 Trip Around the World blocks but I'm having such great fun with color/pattern placement that there will be 42.  A few extras won't hurt.  

I have no recollection of acquiring some of the batiks that keep coming out of the bins.  

# # # # # #

The Page Turner is a Facebook book club with a difference.  The reading challenge is self-paced and relies on prompts rather than specific titles (with the exception of TPTBOY, the Page Turner Book of the Year, which everyone reads).  Participants can interpret the prompt however they choose.   I confess that I've begun TPT several years and read in most, though not all, of the categories.  (So many books, so little time....)  

 The Book of Lost Friends fulfills the 2026 prompt for "a book with dual timelines."  It is set in 1875 and 1987.  Then: a former slave searches for her family.   Now: a young teacher helps the students in a small Louisiana town to discover their heritage. It's a good story.   

I listened to the multi-voiced audio edition ($1 from library book sale rack).   

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday

Midweek: now there are 30 + a good movie

 

Thirty TATW blocks on the wall!  Seven more for the project, though I'll probably make a couple of extras.

I'd like to finish them up (the blocks, that is; making them into table mats can wait) and put the batiks away.  Then I can get going on the Stay at Home Round Robin.  

# # # # # #

I'm still watching the West Wing (up to season 5).   The show ran from 1999-2005.  Issue then are issues now: Pres. Bartlet brokers a Gaza peace deal; Then there's a diplomatic goof when he accepts the wrong Taiwanese flag to the anger of the Chinese.   But nothing in the show can compare to DJT's threats and theatrics.

I took a break from fictional politics to watch The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  A dear friend lent me the book years ago and I really enjoyed it.  I've read a couple of author Rachel Joyce's other books (see the review I posted on Monday).   I found out the movie was released in 2023, now on Netflix. Rachel Joyce wrote the screenplay.  It was wonderful. 

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss

Weekly update: picture books, some surprises, remembering + MQG swap #2

The special exhibit at the Dunn Museum opened back in October.  I finally went to see it on Friday, two days before it closes. (Hmm. I went to last summer's big exhibit at the Art Institute a couple of days before it closed.)

The Dunn Museum is a division of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. Museum programming includes county-wide history (the annual history symposium (Zoom) this month was great), natural history, and traveling exhibits like this one.  Just $3 admission for seniors.

So many familiar and favorite illustrators were included.  You may not know their names but surely you recognize their art. Top: Wesley Dennis, Garth Williams, Feodor Rojanovksy.  Center:  Richard Scarry,  Gustave Tengren, Dr. Seuss. Bottom: (unnamed) Dick and Jane, Alice & Martin Provenson, Gerald McDermott. 

Saturday morning I went to Northbrook, my hometown, for the celebration of life for Judy Hughes who passed away in December.   She was the president and director of the historical society for decades, a school board member, a Rotarian, and so much more.  Judy and Mike and their new baby moved to the house at the end of our block in 1963 when I was 11.  That's practically forever ago!  Though I went off to college and work out of state and our family home was sold in 2002, knowing that Judy and Mike were still on Lincoln Ave. was an anchor.  They were wonderful neighbors!  (Judy always remembered that my mother was the first person to welcome them.)    And it's still their house; at the memorial service Mike said it's too soon for him to make any plans.   My sister came to the memorial service as did the Schulz "kids" who lived next door to us (all three of them moved away long ago, too; their mother is now in memory care).   It was providential that I went to the Northbrook Historical Society open house in November where I chatted with Judy.  She told me quietly that she was in treatment for cancer, and it turned out that the cause of death was a brain bleed, not the cancer.

There's a quilt shop in Northbrook!  I'd never been to it so after the memorial service I checked it out.   The shop owner is Maureen O'Connor. You may recognize her from her YouTube channel, The Opinionated Quilter.   (I've recently discovered a wealth of YouTube quilting videos....topic for another blog post.)   She was there so I met her in person.  But I didn't buy any fabric, not even a tempting bundle in the sale bin.

Still on my way home I went to Maggie's estate sale in Waukegan.  She passed away last year at age 97.    I'd known her for a long time, through P.E.O. and AAUW friends.   Maggie was a wonderful artist -- oils, mostly, but also drawing, knitting, and sewing. 

Look what I found!   This is the first time I've been to an estate sale and found pieces that I made in the sale!  

I made the daisy wallhanging as a thank you gift for Maggie when she gave a program for my P.E.O. chapter.  (It's signed and dated--2005.)  I made the tote bag and filled it with books for her 90th birthday party in 2017.  

I did not buy either one ($30 and $40). (I did buy a like-new Talbots linen shirt-jacket.) 

# # # # #  I still have the brown batik fabric that I used in Maggie's tote bag.  And batiks are all over my cutting table right now. 

I thought that the brown necktie bowtie wall hanging would be my half of the MQG  mini swap.  But something kept nagging me--silk is elegant but not really "modern."  A new idea occurred, the batiks were out, and in an afternoon and two evenings I made another mini.  I will only show a part of it because it's a surprise.  (I won't mail it until next month.) 

The neckties 

It can be argued that batiks aren't really "modern," either, but the wonky crumbs and wavy, close quilting tip that way.  

Did I say batiks?  There are now 23 TATW blocks on the design wall.   I need to make 37.   I've gotten the hang of the construction.  

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

P.S.   This was taken January 18, 2025.  We never forget the birthdays of the people we love the most.  

Friday check in: SAHRR starter, 16 trips + reading

The ZBPL retirees met for lunch on Wednesday.  Most of us still live in the area (two are in Wisconsin) but I don't cross paths with them very often.  

It's been too cold to walk and I miss stretching my legs.  (I could walk at the rec center but that's early morning and I prefer to walk in the afternoon.)

# # # # #  In the warm, cozy basement studio: 

 I have chosen the starter for the Stay At Home Round Robin.  

At the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 2018 I got two vendor tote bags with this Jane Austen quotation. I repurposed one of them into a fancier tote bag. (Both sides shown in the photos.  I filled it with advance reader copies and donated it to the AAUW convention fundraiser that year. 

SAHRR gives me the impetus to finally repurpose the other tote bag.  The panel is cut.  I hope it will turn into a wall quilt for the auction at the ALA Annual Conference in June.  

(A couple of years ago I repurposed another vendor's tote for a wall quilt for the auction.  The company CEO bought it for her office!)

Meanwhile, I've been working on the Trip Around the World mats.  As of last evening there are 16.  (And I corrected the mispiecing shown in the photo in the previous post.)  I have 20 more to make. They're due at the end of May so (for once) I am ahead of schedule.

Oh, yikes...more mispiecing. Second from left, bottom row. It was after 10 p.m. when I finished that block.

 # # # # # 

Vic Kemp was an outsider artist who rose to great fame and fortune with his signature style of outrageous, somewhat titillating portraiture.  His live-large philosophy and parenting style profoundly affected his four children.   The siblings (now in their 40's) are shocked by the news that he remarried a much, much younger woman (whom they have never heard of, let alone met) and further shocked to learn that he drowned in the lake next to the family summer villa in Italy.  The four immediately drop everything in London and gather at the villa.   In the messy present they confront their equally messy past and set the stage for their uneasy future.  

This is the fourth Rachel Joyce novel that I've read.  She's such a good writer!

Linking up with Brag About Your BeautiesFinished or Not Friday   SAHRR 2026       

Midweek: nine on the wall + a treat

SAHRR 2026 begins today. I thought I had just the right starter block but I'm having second thoughts....I'll make the decision by Friday. Come back to see what I choose!  

Meanwhile..... I've made nine Trip Around the World blocks.   I'm using batiks so that though there are many colors there's some genre uniformity.

I found two tutorials, one with five fabrics and one with four fabrics.  Both involve sewing strips and making a tube, slicing the tube, then unpicking the seam to create the stepped effect.   Five-fabric is somewhat livelier but trickier to piece. The four-fabric is easier.  It takes a couple of tries to get the hang of which seam to unpick. 

The block on the lower left is mispieced.  I'll correct it.

They are 9-1/2" unfinished.  They'll be finished individually as table mats or mug rugs.  

When I pulled out the batik FQ/chunks bins they kind of exploded.....

Somehow I missed some Kaffe books.  I treated myself and ordered them through Alibris. Now the collection is complete.  

I don't have a lot of Kaffe fabric and it seems the designs are getting simpler as the prints get wilder*  but the photo shoot scenes are so gorgeous! 

*The London book has the disclaimer that for designs worked in different colorways they only quilted the 'primary' quilt. The others were photographed as flimsies. Seems like a cop-out to me....

 

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss and checking out all the posts for Jennifer's latest blog hop. 

Weekly update: goal met, onto the next + reading

The last batch of placemats!  The units and blocks are from the orphan box/parts department.   Some are recent (the three at the lower right); some are middle-aged (the green/blue hourglasses are from Indigo Way (which itself is blocks-in-a-box); some are elderly (the hard-to-see scrappy trips that are the background for the two feathers in the upper right).  

Choosing layouts and coordinating fabrics was a great design exercise.

Each is approximately 13 x 20.

All 121 in the bin.   Each placemat averages 3/8 yard, so 45 yards.  (With thanks to QuiltDiva Julie who sent a set of four.)

These will be distributed when our Rotary Club delivers spaghetti dinners to shut-ins and community helpers in February.  

The next mass-production goal is to make 38 mug rugs or small mats.  They'll be given to Illinois P.E.O. chapters who are Partners in Peace at the state convention at the end of May.  

PIP chapters are those who contribute $500 in a year to the P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship.  IPS provides grants to women from other countries who are enrolled in U.S. or Canadian universities for graduate degrees.  Since  1949 IPS has provided over $52 million to 7,214 women.   I am the 2025-28 IPS Chair for Illinois. 

This is a prototype.  1-1/2" strips = 1-1/2" squares = 9 x 9".  Trip Around the World goes along with the idea of international students.   

I'm planning to make a larger quilt -- probably TATW -- as the backdrop for the IPS convention booth.  Though P.E.O. doesn't allow raffles at convention (I already asked, and I don't make the rules!), the quilt can be offered for sale.  (Scroll down in  this post to see the quilt I made for the committee I served on in 2022.)  

# # # # # #

I read a dud and listened to a good one this week.   

The premise of History Lessons (murder on a university campus; plucky new faculty member Daphne solves the case) was better than the execution (too many stretched metaphors and descriptions, plus rom-com which is a genre I don't care for).

At the Edge of the Orchard is set in mid-19th century Ohio and Gold Rush California.  The Goodenoughs migrate from Connecticut to northwest Ohio to carve a farm out of the forest and most importantly establish an apple orchard.  John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) sells them seeds and seedlings.  The dysfunctional family splits  apart and young Robert heads west. He eventually reaches California and he finds fulfilling work with William Lobb, another real person, who collected seeds and seedlings from trees and 'exotic' plants to ship to collectors in England.  The dramatic tension is enough to keep the reader's interest and the story ends with a twist and hope.   

 I've enjoyed Tracy Chevalier's well-researched books.  The multi-voiced audio narration was just right. 

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

Midweek: and then there were fifteen

 

I spent Monday visiting my sister.  After tending to some financial business we went to the Salvation Army.   I did NOT buy this sewing machine--$360 was far over-priced!  I got two books and my sister got a book and a small table.  

Monday evening the Magpies met by Zoom.  (Washington state, Missouri, Texas (2),  Illinois (2), Virginia, British Columbia (2), and Western Australia (where it was 10 a.m.))   "We need to do this again soon," everyone agreed.  And we will. 

# # # # # #

In the studio:  14 placemats finished with #15 under the needle.  Five to go for this month's goal.  

The orphans/parts department boxes are shallow (easier to find things) but not getting much emptier.  

Linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss  

Weekly update: first finish for 2026, placemat progress + reading

 

Lazy Goose, the January top-along, is finished!  I quilted it in parallel lines with the serpentine stitch.  The back is a print I've had since the 1990's.  

5-7/8 yards used in all. 

One of my January goals is to make 20 placemats.  I've finished six.

 

Six more are underway.

They all use units from the orphan blocks box.

(The fine points of terminology: a patch is a shape cut from fabric. A unit is composed of one or more patches sewn together. A block is composed of units sew together.) 

# # # # #  I have a fear of running out of reading material when I travel.  Ideally I'll take magazines and paperbacks that I can leave behind, but too often I like the book so much that I want to take it home to share with someone.  For the Florida trip I left the magazines behind but returned with the books I'd brought -- and bought another at the airport newsstand!  

I was fortunate to get a hardcover copy on a giveaway shelf.  This epistolary novel (=story told through correspondence, often one-sided) is as good as everyone has said.  Sybil could be our neighbor and our friend.  

I'm late in discovering Amor Towles' splendid fiction.  I read A Gentleman in Moscow a couple of years ago and I listened to The Lincoln Highway last month.  

Rules of Civility is his first novel.  Set in the 1930's (mostly), it's about privilege and downfall.  ("The rich are different than you and me. They have more money.")  Poignant and so very well-written.  

 I loved Powers' previous novel The Overstory so I knew I'd like Playground.

Though the ending was predictable (all these storylines rushing toward the inevitable), the writing style was so propulsive and the characters so interesting that I kept on going.  Wonderful!  

This is the book I bought at the airport. When I got home I found another copy in the TBR (to be read) stack.  I bought it (a UK edition) for $1 at a book sale. Now I have an extra to give away!  

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

Friday check in: final finish, Annual Reckoning, a few goals, top-along, RSC

Happy New Year!

 I managed to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve.   I watched a new movie and an old one on Netflix.  New: Wake Up Dead Man, the third (and best, so far) in the Knives Out series.  Old:  How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. A fun caper from 1966.  

As I watched I quilted and bound the golden bowties wall hanging.  (I left for Florida with it basted. I was afraid I'd make a mess of the quilting. But it turned out okay! I hand-sewed the binding to the back.) 

# # # # #

I've kept track of fabric acquired and used since 1998.  Thus this is year 28 for the Annual Reckoning.  The spreadsheet has gotten too long to easily reproduce here so I'll cut right to the chase:   more in than out for 2025 BUT I spent the next-to-the-least per yard since I've kept records.

2025      Fabric IN    1380 yards, $1327,  .96 per yard average.   Fabric OUT 989 yards.         Since 1998:   Fabric IN 18755 yards, $33,848. $2.61 per yard average. Fabric OUT 11833.   Average per year:   IN  532 yards, $1431.21.   OUT 423 yards.

# # # # #   Instead of sweeping, overarching goals I'm going to be SMART:  strategic, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.    The strategy, of course, is to use fabric on hand.  Measurable:  the stash report and the "flimsy completion project" (tab at the top of the blog) track progress.  Attainable:  of course I can do this.  Relevant:  it's all part of my creative life as a quilter. Time-bound:  I'll measure quarterly progress.

#1     Use at least one "I can't cut this" fabric in a project every quarter.                               #2     Use at least one vintage fabric in a project every quarter.                                             #3  Use a different specialty ruler for a project  each quarter.                                                #4   Make 20 placemats in January.                                                                                          #5 Make 37 mug rugs for the P.E.O. convention (end of May).                                                  #6   Participate in RSC 2026 with an ongoing block and a monthly stand-alone project.      #7  Participate in SAHRR 2026.

# # # # # I've already achieved the January segment of #6. 

  The Running Doe top-along pattern for January is Lazy Geese.  It's designed for FQs with jumbo (Baby Huey-sized) geese made from 16" HSTs.    

 The RSC color is blue.  I bought an 18-FQ bundle blues (Riley Blake Ocean Oasis) in Florida. 

I made 14" HSTs because I have a square ruler that size.  I'm auditioning backing fabric now.

The flimsy is 56" x 70" and uses just under 3 yards. 

The ongoing RSC project is definitely achievable.  The pattern is Coin Collecting, torn out from Quiltmaker #134, July/August 2010.   I'll make two 5" x 15" strip sets each month.

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday