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 faithfully remembered the first-day rabbit, rabbit charm.

 I'm trying a variation to the traditional Hoppin' John.  It's a  recipe from the Washington Post:   Jollof Rice.  In addition to the black-eyed peas it has brown rice, canned tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic, tumeric, and thyme.   The peas are simmering now (with salt pork) and smell delicious.

This was us last evening.   

We watched Dalgleish (based on P.D. James mysteries) and an episode of The Larkins (delightful!). 

On Thursday Zion Woman's Club members helped with the Elf Network.  The bags contain sorted Christmas gifts, personalized by age/gender for each family.  Bags are numbered, people present their number and get their bag.  It was very efficient.   

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 ...

It's a wildflower wonderland here in northeasternmost Illinois.  We went to Ethel's Woods and Pine Dunes.

Compass plant, false white indigo, monada/bee balm, mountain mint. butterfly weed, show tick trefoil, rattlesnake master, pickerelweed, Culver's root.

Bumblebee on a purple coneflower and a flock of little yellow butterflies.

  The Lake County Symphony Orchestra performed on Thursday evening.   The tuba solo (Strauss's Happy Farmer) was fun. 

  Though we missed the fireworks at the park in Zion the neighborhood was a-poppin' with firecrackers until nearly midnight.  The smell of the powder was heavy the next morning.  

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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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 I've always wanted to try Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesties.  I showed a photo of someone's version (found online) to Janice. She liked it.  Decision made!   I chose a cool blue/green ...

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 ...

Ornaments are hung along the trail at Lyons Woods.  Once you see one you see another, and another.   (I will pay this wonder forward. I have a box of ornaments (rummage sale purchase) that I'll hang along another trail.)  

The Lake County Women's Coalition steering committee combined business and socializing with a luncheon meeting Saturday.  Plans for the Women's History Month luncheon in March are well underway.  

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I used Deb Tucker's V-block Trimmer to make the second units for Indigo Way.   More accurate than Tri-Recs though it takes a bit to figure out how to flip ...

Photo taken at the state park.  I stopped on the way home from church but I didn't take a walk!

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I've made many of the Quiltville mysteries.  I was greatly disappointed in two of them Grand Illusion and Rhododendron Trail) and skipped their immediate successors, Allietare and Chilhowie.  Those turned out to be designs I liked. 

I have a hoard of South African indigos but ...

All of the spool blocks are restitched, and, I am ready to officially begin the assembly of the quilt. This is an exciting part of quilting. Making an on point quilt one row at a time, is very satisfying....until the center haha. There is seam matching every three inches.

Rectangle wrangle is finished. I brought it out of the ufo closet in May 2023. I made progress through out the year. I started assembly in July. It was a top in August. I love how it looks and feels. Shirt fabrics are very forgiving, and, so fun to use. Only a few of hubby's old shirts are in this one. The rest are recycled form thrift stores. I see more light than I was expecting while I was making this. I guess that is the magic of using shirt fabrics.

90 x 102 = 27 yards

I am just making bits and bobbles while I work on my spools quilt.

9 patch on point - top monkey wrench - bottom

lil beauty baskets - top 4 patches for strip tease - bottom

2 weeks ago, I opened the spoolin around leader/ ender ufo from 2013. I discovered that some of the blocks were not pieced right.

first, I took the halves apart, so, I could just switch the direction of the spools, but, then, I realized, that the individual spools needed work too. I took them all apart down to individual spools again. I made these 10 years ago, and, my skills were not as good as they are now. I knew I could do better, and, I did.

I ...

Hand me down is finished. This is an older UFo from 2018. I found this pattern in the first Bonnie Hunter book scraps and shirttails. I brought this out of the UFO closet in March of this year, and, it was a top in April. I love this quilt. It is more colorful than it appears on camera. It is made with recycled shirts and a blue from my stash. It was part of my 5 quilts project, but, was late making it to the longarm.

90 x 90 - 21 yards

I cut and sewed a little bit of yellow this week for the rainbow scrap challenge at so scrappy. I made 9 patches for diffusion which is done in fall colors. I might add a few brown later this year, and, then, count, and recalculate what I need.

diffusion - quilted twins

spoolin around was the second quiltville leader/ ender challenge in 2013. I was excited when I opened the ufo box, to see I had all the spool blocks (648) in blocks of 4, ready to assemble. But, oh wait, many of them were put together wrong. It matters if the blocks are all arranged the same LOL. I can't move on with this project unless, I take them all apart. I am having fun revisiting all these scraps from a few years ago. I did put together a few of the short rows with the correct blocks. I think ...

Yellow is officially my favorite color. I find it a difficult color to like in fabric. Pops of it are fun in any scrappy quilt, but, finding a consistent dependable yellow seems difficult. I will keep trying. I made hollow nine blocks and fish school blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge at so scrappy.

hollow nine

I finished one of my 5 quilts a little bit ago, but, couldn't get it on the longarm. I think it is time to dig it out again, and, finish it for August's one monthly goal.

hand me down blocks

hand me down border

oh scrap

one monthly goal