What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I do not have a wooden hiking stick to which to nail it, nor do I have an RV to which to glue it, but I do have a bulletin board. <g>

And I'm still walking!

There cannot be too many golden autumn woods photos.

These were taken at McDonald Woods (Thursday) and Lyons Woods (Sunday).  

Such a beautiful time of year!

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On Friday Stevens and I took our friend Pat out to lunch.  The restaurant ...

Fall colors at Van Patten Woods on Friday afternoon.  Left: sumac. Right: white snakeroot or bone set (gone to seed).  Center:  hickory nuts.  Bottom: Virginia creeper, fungus on a log. 

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In the studio:  it's a finish!  

The pattern is Entwined by Evelyn Sloppy from her book Forty Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts.

I used a batik and two hand-dyes (all gifts from a friend ...

It was a very nice weekend at home.  My sanity benefitted greatly from not leave the house the entire weekend. Being a hermit for a bit felt so nice. We've been on the move most of the summer and early fall with family stuff and special events. The holidays are coming up, so things are going to stay busy, but hopefully we won't be going as much on the weekends till we hit Thanksgiving.  

Temperatures in the high 50's and abundant sunshine made this a brilliant fall weekend. 

On Saturday afternoon we went to Ryerson Woods.  The Ryersons were Chicago industrialists who built their weekend farm on 257 acres where they raised Arabian horses.   In 1966 they deeded the property to the Lake Co. Forest Preserve District.  There are several activity centers, including barns and open pastures with a demonstration farm,  Brushwood (the Ryersons' house) used as an event center, several cabins used for environmental education, and miles of trails in restored woodlands.  

How many sunlight-filtering-through-the-leaves photos are too many? 

It was a busy weekend. My Mom celebrates her 80th birthday this week, so we had a party for her on Sunday.  It was especially nice since Grad Girl was able to come home for it. So mom had all her kids and grandkids there. Thankfully she was feeling better after a rough week and we all had a great time. 

Since the weekend was spent with family, there wasn't a lot of stitching time this weekend, but there was a bit of progress in the sewing room during the weekdays.  All the pieces needed for Unity are cut ...

This early fall weather is glorious -- lots of sunshine and blue, blue skies.  We went to Waukegan Savanna, Independence Grove and Old School, three of the designated sites for this year's Hike Lake County challenge.  

This is prairie dock, also known as Lucy Braun's prairie dock. Had the flower and the spent flowerhead not been on one plant I wouldn't have known they are the same.

Here  is more about the eponymous Lucy Braun.  

This pretty purple flower is brown knapweed, also called French hard-head (!).  I've only  seen it at Wadsworth Savanna.  Since it is invasive ...

It's been months since I've spent much time at all in my sewing room. I did reasonably well this last week at climbing the stairs to do a bit of stitching.  Part of the time in my sewing room has been spent regrouping and deciding what to tackle first, second, and third. 

I've been working on grocery sacks for Grad Girl, her roommates she left behind in Stillwater and My Guy.  I decided to finish these before tackling any of my other UFOs.  Grad Girl's bag was finished before Labor Day so it could make the ...

Bumblebee on liatris (blazing star), New England aster, a big mushroom.

Riverbank grapes, hawthorn, bottle grass.

Monarch on butterfly weed, lobelia, gray dogwood. 

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The first Corningware I got was in the late 1970's, a Christmas gift. Back then it was new and pricey relative to my budget.  I have used the 10" casserole a lot!  The stains won't come out and the glass lid is very dishwasher-etched.  When I found the same size, same pattern, never-used for ...

Coneflower, compass plant, lobelia.

Sumac, wild cucumber, gray dogwood.

Common reed, elderberry "lace" (after the birds have eaten the berries), ragweed. 

Cardinal flower / lobelia was a new one for me. It was growing alongside a stream in a shady patch.    

Teasel is invasive  This patch was right next to the path so I could easily get closeup photos.  The upper and lower right photos show it in bloom, with all the little tiny flowers.   

The lower landscape photo is the Des Plaines River at Sedge Meadow. The middle landscape photo is one of the ponds at McDonald Woods.  From the LCFPD website ...

Thunderstorms between midnight and 5 a.m. on Saturday brought very welcome rain.   The sun was out the rest of the weekend.

Pinnate prairie coneflower, jewel weed, rosin weed,  bluebell (campanula), spurge, joe pye weed.

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I do find time to sew, of course!

I used the picnic basket block (the guild July BOM) for the next batch of daisy mug rugs for an ongoing P.E.O. project.   All the baskets use the same daisy print.   (2 yards for all 16.)

On Saturday evening we saw Sondheim's Into the Woods at the College of Lake County's performing arts center.  Fairy tales retold, and how!   

It was the first live theater we've seen since 2019.  (Bonus:  tickets were only $17 each.)    

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I got a good walk on Saturday ...

We were shocked and saddened by the shooting in Highland Park on the Fourth of July.  Among the victims were the superintendent of one of our local school districts and her eight-year-old son.  (HP is 25 miles south of us.)    

Wildflowers are in abundance!  Our outings this week were to Van Patten Woods, Raven Glen, and Illinois Beach. 

Top: purple prairie clover, purple coneflower, butterfly weed, hoary puccoon, tall cinquefoil, salsify (gone to seed), lead plant, Deptford pink, flowering spurge.

I love Turk's Cap lilies.  The photo collage includes a view from directly above and from directly below.

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Left: purplestem angelica.  Right:  Ohio spiderwort (beautiful blue!), Carolina puccoon.  Bottom: downy phlox, yellow star grass, coreopsis. 

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Stevens' annual wellness checkup was Wednesday. His chronic conditions are no worse, no better.  Heart, lungs, blood are all fine.  We followed appointment up with lunch at our favorite local Mexican restaurant and then casting our ballots in the Illinois primary (early voting). 

On Thursday evening I went ...

Upper left: a tangle of garter snakes (two here; a third slithered away (perhaps establishing dominance before mating?).   Downy pagoda plant (blephilia ciliata -- a new one). Cow parsnip.  Middle: common cinquefoil. Columbine/aquilegia (there are blue ones in our ...