What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Stevens will be 85 on January 18.  Can you mail him a birthday card?  If you don't have our address, indicate that in your comment and I will PM it to you.  Five years ago he was quite surprised to get so many cards.   This year he's alert but he's declining, so now is the time.  THANK YOU! 

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I paid $1.60 per yard this time.  Many pieces of Thimbleberries (Paintbox 2002).  

Thank you for your compliments on the Bingo Board quilt I ...

The Moose Lodge gives us a great deal on the room--$100.  The other benefit is that their bar/restaurant are open so those who want an alcoholic drink can purchase at the bar and bring it upstairs.  

My friend Suzanne won the 50/50 cash raffle ($173 to her, $173 to the club).  My P.E.O ...

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

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

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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.)  

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The library is the starting point for the Illinois Dunesland Garden Club annual tour. 

This year's sites included the Garden of Faith at Memorial UMC (our church).  People can rent raised garden plots -- 20 this year with room to develop more -- for vegetables and flowers.  

Other gardens on view were in Winthrop Harbor, Carol Beach, and Pleasant Prairie.  

We've had good rainfall this season and the wildflowers are abundant. 

Illinois Beach/Hosah Park (89 degrees on Sunday). Clockwise from left: chokecherry, mullein, nodding onion ...

Yesterday was month #9 of Barb M's estate sale and I couldn't NOT go.   Paula and her helpers have become friends over the months.  Several quilting friends were among the shoppers.  The proceeds benefit a different charity each month, this time Kenosha food pantries.  From September to April they've given away $15,500 after expenses (storage unit, hotel meeting room, laundering).   Of course I don't *need* any more fabric!  

40 yards by weight, $2.00 per yard.

Also, two packages of printer fabric for $5.00.

Our favorite plant/produce shop is open for the season.  Susan always comes out to say hi to Stevens.  One of her customers made a stack of "hug blankets" to give away to other customers who might need a hug so she presented this one to him.

I got geraniums for the front stoop -- and, hooray -- FIVE healthy rhubarb plants that Susan started from seed.  I'll plant them tomorrow. 

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I finished quilting the second version of Twinkle.  

I spoke to the driver of one of the trucks hauling rocks for the shoreline stabilization project. He said the quarry is in Waterloo, Wisconsin.  Rocks for inshore are trucked in. Rocks for the offshore reefs are trucked to the Port of Milwaukee and sent by barge, a trip that can take six hours.  Because the weather has been so mild they've been able to get weeks ahead of schedule.  

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 The fifth installment of Barb M's estate sale was Tuesday afternoon.  (See here, here, here, and here for the previous sales.)  A quick recap:  Barb passed away in 2018 and left a LOT of sewing stuff -- machines, thread, notions, patterns, kits, and FABRIC.  Barb's husband and family finally needed closure but couldn't deal with it all.  

Enter Paula who enlisted a group of her friends.  Since September they've had monthly sales, the first in Paula's garage and the others in a hotel meeting room.  It took until December to get everything out of the house ...

I was going to post on Wednesday. I was going to post on Friday.  But things happen.

To make a long story short, I've been figuring out how to adapt the household layout to S's limited mobility and particularly to his advancing dementia.  He wrenched his knee last week so going down to the basement family ...

Here are my Bramble Blooms blossoms.  They're fused (Heat 'n' Bond Light) and sewn with a narrow zigzag stitch.

The weekend began and ended with concerts.   The Box Band played a lively set of bluegrass, folk, and country at our church on Friday evening.  The Kontras Quartet performed Haydn and Prokofieff at the season opening of the Lake County Community Concert Assn.  on Sunday afternoon.

A friend tipped me off to an estate sale on the west side of town (a street I didn't know existed).  She said there was a lot of sewing stuff.   I went mid-morning Saturday when everything was half off.  I bypassed the upstairs and garage and went to the finished basement which had ...

The back used up some long-in-the-stash fabrics.

There was an estate sale in town this weekend.  The website photos showed sewing machines, notions, patterns, and a lot of fabric. I went on Friday (opening day) to get an idea.  Apparently the woman made clothing ...

On the way back from a lake shore walk we saw two cranes at the edge of a pond in the park.  I was able to get pretty close to them.

This weekend there was an estate sale about three blocks away.   I had walked past the house often but I didn't know the people who lived there.  (I looked them up: he died in 2012 and she died earlier this year.) I went on Saturday when  everything was 50% off.

There were ...