What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I took up HLC in 2020 as a pandemic exercise.  Each year I've overachieved by doing all of the designated trails.  Regular readers know I keep going all year.  

A couple of these are new.  Some are close to home, others are at the opposite corner of the county.   

It rained off and on yesterday but the sun is out today. Tune in ...

We've been enjoying other fast and high-flying events on the Olympics this week.  Paris is 7 hours ahead of Chicago so their evening events are late morning and afternoon here.  (Simone and Suni!  Katie! and events we're not as familiar with -- equestrian, fencing, BMX.)

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Sis-boom-dot is finished.

I used the serpentine stitch and purple thread to quilt it.

The back uses an Alexander Henry print from Barb M's estate sale and an insert of a Kaffe Fassett print. 

The Kaffe was ...

Used book sales, destashes, and publishers' warehouse clearance have been the source for most of the many, many quilt books I've acquired.   Just as with fabric--if I can't not buy them, then I need to get bargains.  

This year I am really and truly paring down all that creative potential.  I've gone through a stack, sorting them into "totally unlikely to make anything from this" and "review again just in case."   Why is ...

One of many bumblebees enjoying foxglove, aka beardtongue.

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Lupine, wild rose, spiderwort, cup plant, Canadian anemone, dame's rocket, daisy fleabane.  

The great cicada confluence is upon us. 

 Every 221 years the 13-year and 17-year locust broods emerge at the same time.  The 13-year brood is southern and gets into central Illinois. The 17-year brood is midwestern and gets -- here.  "Here" meaning towns about 10 miles south of where we live.   We haven't seen or heard them in the neighborhood.  

My cicada story was published in the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday.  

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I made the flimsy way back in 2020 when I had the notion that I could reduce the Civil War stash.  (All posts for that project are labeled CWRSRP.  It is a longterm goal. <g>)

  Baptist Fan for the center and border, with circles in the inner border.

North Prairie UMC ("the other Methodist ...

On a clear day you can see Chicago, 40 miles away.  (Wednesday afternoon, Illinois Beach State Park.) 

Lupines have started to bloom. 

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It rained off and on yesterday.   When we got home from the Rotary breakfast meeting we stayed inside.  

To assuage that guilt I am determined to sew at least some of it.

I don't especially like metallic prints so I've never purposely sought them ...

Setting up

 I dropped tickets in the bags for the fabric that really appealed to me.  I had tickets left so I dropped them into random bags.  That unscientific ...

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The weather cooperated yesterday with sunshine and 45 degrees.  We enjoyed a forest preserve walk at McDonald Woods (2 miles)   

I've been working on the homespun quilt.  There's a piece of green tape to mark the misplaced unit (fourth row, second column).  

The fabric for the setting triangles was a serendipitous find on the shelf.   I haven't decided whether or not there will be a border.  

 Thank you, all who commented on my cataract surgery.  Post-op yesterday concluded all is well, with another bottle of eyedrops and a chart to remind me when to use which.  If I put my glasses on, with the trifocal lens on the left and nothing on the right, I see at two levels.  Today I'm not wearing eyeglasses at all.  My right eye is doing the seeing and my left eye is providing binocular balance (it's too nearsighted to see anything clearly).   

 Here is the cobblestones flimsy.  3-7/8" yards used.  The ...

Today is the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.   The Celts called it Imbolc.   German-Americans created Groundhog Day (in Germany they observed badgers rather than groundhogs).   It is also Candlemas, which "celebrates three occasions according to Christian belief: the presentation of the child Jesus; Jesus’ first entry into the temple; and it celebrates the Virgin Mary’s purification."    

Time and Date adds, "Snowdrops (galanthas nivalis) are known as Candlemas Bells because they often bloom early in the year, even before Candlemas. Some varieties bloom all winter (in the northern hemisphere). The superstitious used to believe that ...

 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 ...

There was lasagna left over for Stevens to enjoy the next day (and more in the freezer).   

The gift card "tree" was actually a picture frame with $300 worth of gift cards.  Judy and Dottie are holding it. Dottie's niece was the winner.  

We chose "festive food" for the gift exchange.  I got a gift certificate to a local bakery cleverly packaged in a holiday mug.

Wednesday:  Northern Lake County Quilters Guild holiday dinner.   The meal was catered ...

Moss on fungus at Lyons Woods on Wednesday. 

Queen Anne's lace is still lacy at Sun Lake on Thursday.

After all that walking (the Sun Lake trail is 2.5 miles) I allowed myself generous portions for Thanksgiving dinner.  

I've signed up for Audrey's Bramble Blooms QAL.  More accurately it is a DAL -- design along -- and I look forward to the exercise in creativity.  

I started with light green, then went to pink, and finally purple.

They are similar but distinct from one another.

I learned to make pieced backgrounds in a  workshop with Pat Sloan and I've made them several ...

With the brisk northeast breeze I was glad I brought my windbreaker.

Bull thistle, cutleaf coneflower (also called green-headed coneflower), ironweed, scarlet lobelia.

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My quilting month was ...

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What about sashing?   Nothing in the Aussie fabric box worked (mostly F8ths and FQs in that collection)  My stash yielded a Stonehenge print that was just right.  Alas, I was a few sashes short.  I found another tone-on-tone yellow-gold that blends nicely and I'm going to go with it.

Yellow is the RSC color for August so there's a goal achieved.