What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 

It's been sunny and hot all week. We really need some rain!  But it's been great for walks:  three sections of Illinois Beach and one forest preserve. 

Here's a closeup photo of fringed gentian.  You can clearly see the fringes at the edges of the petals.  The blue is such a heavenly color!  I found several clumps at the middle unit of Illinois Beach State Park.  

 Left: blue wood aster.  Top: apple, primrose.  Center: New England aster, white heath aster.   Bottom: purple lovegrass, hairy aster. 

I saw something move in the grass.  It was a frog.

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In ...

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A post to a local FB group yesterday drew my attention to this stone circle on the lakefront at North Point Marina.

I didn't realize that it is an art installation.  It was created in 1990 by Marcia Weese as an homage to the prairie.  

The quotations continue around the circle.

I took photos of all of them. (Twenty or so.)  

Apparently the intent was to have prairie flowers and grasses in the center, but it hasn't been maintained that way. 

There are other sculptures at the marina that I'll need to explore.  

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The quilting week began ...

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 We've had a string of unusually warm days (80's) with full sunshine.  A cold front is coming through this afternoon and the temperatures will drop 20 degrees.  

Left:  the bumblebee was intent on the liatris (blazing star) as I snapped several photos.  

A 2' long eastern fox snake was crossing the path.  It curled up when I stomped.  The snake is not venomous.  It warns predators off by shaking its tail to mimic a rattlesnake.  I saw the behavior as it swished the gravel on the path.  Then it slithered into the undergrowth.  

I found another fringed gentian ...

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 The weather was perfect on  Friday for the 23rd annual Jack McElmurry Golf Tournament at Shepherd's Crook golf course in Zion.  That's our Rotary Club's big fundraiser.  With a nearly-full complement of 140 golfers and many Rotarians pitching in how could it not be a success?  Oh, and I did mention the weather?  (77 and full sunshine).

  

Registration was at 11, tee time at noon, dinner and raffles at 5, and it was over at 7:30.   It will be a while until the final results are calculated but the proceeds will be in the neighborhood of ...

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Yesterday we experienced a weather phenomenon called a pneumonia front.  From AccuWeather:   A pneumonia front is a localism originating from the midwestern U.S. that describes when cold air over Lake Michigan rushes inland, causing templates to drop dramatically. The rapid decline in temperature can also be accompanied by clouds and rain showers.

When I was on the trail it was 80 degrees -- a lovely spring afternoon.   We got home and in minutes the temperature dropped to 60! 

Clockwise:  wild strawberries, blue-eyed grass, starry false lily of the valley, wild geranium (aka cranesbill), apple blossom.

A butterfly (at the vegetable ...

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Waukegan Area Branch members

 Saturday's AAUW meeting was the annual Fellows Luncheon.   The Waukegan and Deerfield branches invite women who have received AAUW fellowships to study in the U.S. (specifically, the Chicago area) to tell us about their research.

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Lizzy accompanied her husband to a conference in Chicago last week. She had a free day Thursday and came up for a visit.   We met on the Usenet newsgroup Rec.Crafts.Textiles.Quilting in the late 1990's. It was such fun to meet her in person!   We enjoyed lunch, a tour of Zion, and a nice walk at Illinois Beach State Park.

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Lake Michigan at Illinois Beach State Park this weekend:   if you look closely you can see a freighter on the horizon.  

The beach is back after strong autumn storms with over-wash -- the waves went over the low dunes along the shoreline.   

I paced the length of this trunk. It's nearly fifty feet.  A year and a half or two years ago it was growing some feet from the beach. The erosion is so severe that it undercut the dune and the tree toppled.

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In the studio:

Our guild has an ornament exchange at the holiday party. Ornaments don't ...

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Rabbit, rabbit!  (Here is the explanation of the good-luck legend.) 

We get our Pfizer booster shots this morning --another good luck token.

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Here's a collage of Michaelmas daisies for Michaelmas Day, September 29. (It's also Archangels Day but the other archangels don't have fall wildflowers named after them.)  

According to Wikipedia the traditional meal features goose . We're not High Church so we had chicken.  Maybe next year I'll remember to bake a version of St. Michael's bannock.  

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I quilted the tilted slab blocks. The bias I mentioned in the previous post was not a ...

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 [Next post will have quilting updates and the one book I managed to finish this week.]     

The 75th International Convention of the P.E.O. Sisterhood was held virtually this week. Because it was virtual any member could 'attend' at no charge. I registered months ago and fully intended to tune in -- but Life In General intervened.  I did watch the opening ceremony on Wednesday and one of the workshops.  Now I need to go back to see the results of the voting on amendments. There were many.  Like so many organizations P.E.O. is striving to improve its ...

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The last week of summer has been sunny, warm, and dry.  

Top center: closeup of goldenrod florets; middle center: liatris with a bumblebee; right center: aster; lower right: another aster.  Lower left:  thistledown! 

Fringed gentian are blooming now.  Look closely at the petals to see the fringes.  What a beautiful color!

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The 21st Annual Jack McElmurry Golf Outing was Friday.   We used to have the event in May when it was likely to be chilly. The pandemic pushed the 2020 outing to September.  The change worked well both years and we're going to stick with it. 

We are 'major ...

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 Storms blew through at the beginning of the week and ushered in a string of absolutely perfect days:  80 degrees, low humidity, no clouds.  

Swamp thistle, spotted joe-pyeweed, white snakeroot.**  

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As we were returning from one of our forest preserve walks we saw the crane family enjoying the summer afternoon.  (I think it's two parents and their young.)

We, too, took advantage of the sunshine and visited three forest preserves (Old School  Van Patten Woods Des Plaines River canoe launch (the latter has a trail along the river)) and Hosah Park (Zion's piece of the lakefront, wedged between the north and south units of Illinois Beach State Park).   

Purple coneflower, lady fern, common reed.   Sumac, woodland sunflower. Purple loosestrife with a bumble bee, burdock in flower (a little ...

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Rabbit, rabbit!  Yes, I remembered to say that first thing this morning. 

Our afternoon outings this week took us to two units of Illinois Beach State Park and to two forest preserves (Pine Dunes and Grant Woods).  The wildflowers are stunning.  I know they've always been there but I am really alert to them this year as I've taken 'destination' walks (rather than just in the neighborhood).  The Picture This app on my phone makes identification easy. 

It was 90 degrees  on Monday when I walked 2+ miles on the Dunes Trail at Illinois Beach.  I wanted to ...

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 Signs of progress:  the Zion Woman's Club board and the AAUW Waukegan Branch board met this week. Both groups met in person for the first time in over a year.  It was so good to be together! 

(Left: though this is specifically AAUW, it's representative of the other groups I'm in.  Sitting next to one another in someone's living room after a potluck dinner!)

Stevens and I made several visits to different parts of Illinois Beach State Park and also to one of the forest preserves this past week.  Here are just some of the many ...

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But first, some state park photos.   As we drove into the park we saw a man on a bicycle, stopped, looking at a turtle in the middle of the road.  I pulled over.  "It's a snapper," the man said.  He retrieved a forked branch from the roadside and I took pictures as he encouraged/urged the turtle to get to safety.  

Monarchs are active now and there is a lot of milkweed in the state park. 

 

 I got some raspberries before the birds did.  (Generous person that I am, I gave these morsels to my husband who downed them ...

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 Wildflowers are in abundance at Illinois Beach State Park and the forest preserves (McDonald Woods).

Left: creeping juniper, also called Waukegan juniper because it is native to this part of the lakeshore; shrubby St. John's wort.

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I woke up at 4:00 this morning, muttered "Rabbit, rabbit," and woke up again at 6:00.  Here is why.  (I first learned about RR in a Trixie Belden book I read when I was 11.  Only in more recent years have I said it each month. Maybe I need good luck more these days?)

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The stash report for May:

Fabric IN:  19-1/2 yards, $57                                Fabric OUT: 34-3/4                                              Fabric IN YTD: 99-5/8, $158.50 (average $1.59/yd) Fabric OUT YTD: 217-3/8                                                                                                                           Net  reduction:  117-3/4

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The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for June is purple ...

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The water is still cold!

  My sister came to visit on Friday.  We walked in the ravine (at the end of our block) and in the state park.  Though the drought continues the wildflowers are beautiful and the migratory birds are trilling away. 

Phlox, false Solomon's seal, Golden Alexander,  Star of Bethlehem (a garden escapee), fringed puccoon aka narrowleaf stoneseed, sweet Cicely, mayapple, wild columbine (aquilegia).

Puccoon, blue-eyed grass, lupine, chokecherry, daisy fleabane, and what the i.d. app calls Umbellate Bastard Toadflax which to me sounds like a Shakespearean insult.

Every year I look for this patch of ...

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