Wisconsin

I've been back from my 5-day trip to Wisconsin/Illinois for nearly a week, and haven't sewn a single stitch since getting home! The main reason for that appalling lack of stitchery is that 18 hours after touching down, I was attending a rehearsal of a women's singing group (Women of Heartsong) and have made that my new singing home. There's been a glut of music to reformat and learn. Thursday I finally had enough of a handle on things that I could look at everything I brought home with me, pull out my camera, and start taking photos not only of some batik panels from Nann's stash that I promised to list for her on ebay . . .

. . . but 23 other pieces from the CF!Q stash I'd been setting aside over the last several weeks, also for ebay. Yesterday I stared at all those pieces again, comparing real-life colors to what my camera captured and tweaking as necessary (I could barely see straight after 9 hours of that). Today I'm determined to get the CF!Q listing finished, then do some sewing!

I did plenty of sewing while away with Nann, in Wisconsin. This is a repeat of what Nann wrote, but she drove from her home to the Wisconsin show in Madison, bringing her 301 and FeatherWeight Singers, and picking me up at the airport along the way. Our first night at the hotel was the most productive because we had done nothing, essentially, but sit in a car (and plane) all day, so we had plenty of energy to burn.

Nann claimed Sweetness and I got to play with Betty. This looks like a split-screen commercial for something, doesn't it? Which of us, I wonder, is using the humdrum generic brand of whatever's being hawked?

Assembling hundreds of 1.5" squares into 16-patches for Arkansas Cross Road blocks for this project.

The show was just the right size. We filled the first day (Thursday) with walking, gazing, walking, voting, eating, walking, shopping, resting, and walking some more. (Debbie, with whom we dined that night at a local and very good Mexican restaurant, claims 6,000 steps. I've no reason to doubt her!) I had only an already-full backpack and large purse in which to get any purchases home (all the way home, not just 'hotel room home'), so I was judicious in my shopping. I looked for (and found, quelle surprise) a cone of variegated thread, an interesting stripe for binding (my favorite form of souvenir) and a couple of unusual neutrals. I also found a new wallet made of cork fabric (no problem of space--the old wallet was tossed), and a T-shirt for The Loud:

Oh, and a yard of intriguing brown fabric that was priced for clearance. How I got Nann's 7 batik panels into the backpack as well is a puzzlement of physics and finite space.

We (Nann, Anna, and new-to-us friend Betty) repeated this routine on Friday at House on the Rock. Holy ... (whatever expletive you prefer)--the biography sold in the gift shop is aptly named: "Never Enough: The Creative Life of Alex Jordan".

Betty, me, Nann, Anna

In this shot (above) we're standing at the midpoint of this structure (below):

If you're curious, Doofus Dad's tale of his experience captures the whole thing perfectly.

There was only one thing I'd wished I'd taken a picture of, but the interwebs coughed one up. It was this sign, near the Rube Goldberg contraption.

"Carolyn, you speak German. Read that to us!" So I dutifully started reading it aloud (with correct pronunciation, mind you!), translating as I read. By the second sentence it became apparent that no translation was needed. The joy was in the sounds of the ridiculous nonsense words. 

Saturday, we went back to the show (we'd all bought multi-day tickets). My intent was to sew for the Nancy Zieman donation quilt project until the others were done shopping. That project was well organized--squares had already been cut, some 4-patches created and paired with larger squares, and sets of these pairings grouped for the volunteers to sew together into a top.

 

The Captain told me to sew things up any way I wished. So I chain-pieced lots of minion 4-patches to lots of orange/minion squares and red squares, then an organizer took them and started pressing the seams for me. And that's when things took a different turn.

There were, I found, two captains in the room: Captain-my-Captain (the one who set me loose on the sewing machine and gave me the block pieces) and the Captain of the Quilt Police (who was ironing my blocks). CQP was most unhappy with my work! All the blue and yellow squares must go in the same direction! There must be orderly diagonals marching across the top! And yet, for having such a firm and clear idea of How Things Must Be, her instructions for How Things Must Be were almost unintelligible. I listened to her trying to explain the Right Way to a new volunteer--there were lots of gaps in her explanation one had to fill based on one's years of quilting. CaptainMyCaptain was sitting next to me trying to get another machine up and running, and she piped up with, "I like the 'Do Whatever You Want' approach". I added my agreement (not that CQP asked for my input).

With CaptainMyCaptain's tacit blessings, I kept going. The only attempt I made at sameness, my single nod to CQP, was to make sure the red squares formed diagonals and that the blocks in rows 3 and 7 were all going the same way.

Assembling the blocks into rows, and the rows into a top, was a challenge like no other. The pieces I'd been given were sewn by various people, with varying ideas of what a 1/4" seam looks like (hint--it doesn't NOT start out at 1/8" and veer into 3/4" by the end). Some seam ripping was done. Someone had started all her seams roughly an inch in from the edge of the fabric. Some additional sewing was done. Some of the cutting was done with a vague idea of the neighborhood of 8.5". Trimming was NOT done. Nor was any more ironing, because after the first hour my intent was to get the entire top assembled in the next hour (so it would be too daunting for CQP to consider undoing all my work). I lined up rows, didn't worry about matching seams (as if they would) and sewed a 1/2" seam in order to catch all the various widths of blocks. The rows mostly ended up finishing at the same length.

The border fabric was already cut and waiting on the table for me, so I sewed those strips together and threw the borders on (1/2" seams again) just in time for Nann to arrive and take the photo (CaptainMyCaptain is holding the other corner, out of sight). I've never assembled a top as rapidly as I did that one! But when stubbornness and bloody-minded, "I'll show you"-edness is your motivation, miracles can happen.

That evening Nann and I spent at her home, instead of the hotel. Such a relaxing, fabric-filled evening! We fondled fabrics, auditioned fabrics (for her Kaffe wedges), dug through, sorted, displayed fabrics (Nann), and researched fabrics (me--trying to find information about some mystery pieces she pulled out):

Sunday dawned clear and warm so we spent a leisurely morning strolling along various parts of Lake Michigan. Nann collected beach glass (and a bright new penny) and I collected sand in my shoes. Lake sand is much finer than ocean sand!

All in all, a thoroughly wonderful time.