Catching up

Where do the days go?

I have a finish. The Flip Flop Quilt is done. I found the fabric when I was cleaning out fabric drawers. Thinking it would be a good quilt for summer, I decided to get it done. 

I machine quilted this donation quilt with a walking foot and straight lines both vertically and horizontally using Aurifil #1135 yellow, 50-weight thread. 

This quilt measures 55" by 55".

The back is a black dot fabric with the extra flip flop fabric.

Since I last blogged ...

• We attended the University of Wisconsin Marching Band Spring Concert. We go every year with a group of friends. It was Director Mike Leckrone's last concert - he is retiring this year after 50 years as the band's director!

• I finally blocked this scarf that I finished knitting in February.

• I began and finished the podcast of Friendship Album 1933. I thoroughly enjoyed listing to it.

• I decided the borders of this red/white quilt would be more squares from my 2 1/2" square collection. Now I just need to get this sandwiched and quilted.

• I've started another quilt using 2 1/2" squares. This one will use all batiks.

• We spend a pleasant day with my brother-in-law and his special lady. After lunch, we visited the New Melleray Abbey, a Trappist monastery, near Dubuque, Iowa.

     We were able to see their beautiful church.

     I loved the windows

     and this unique organ.

• I've done some baking. First I made 4 batches or chocolate chip cookies

and then 4 batches of big ginger cookies. They are not all for us!

• I've spent some time playing with my Cricut Maker. I bought a pattern for a guitar box and was amazed at how hard it was to make. I must have failed gluing in elementary school. These are versions 6 and 5. Whew!

In the next picture, you can see the box part.

I also made some bookmarks. Someone is graduating from preschool and I though these would be fun.

• Ray mowed the lawn for the first time this spring. I snapped this picture on Friday because a wild turkey was crossing our lawn.

On Saturday we had quite a spring snowstorm. I snapped this picture from the porch through the screen.

Sunday we woke to a beautiful day.

One thing I haven't done is erase my white board. I have this message left from Easter where I usually write grocery lists. Although he has to reach rather high, Griffin writes a message every time he visits. I always hate to erase it.

"hi I was here. I like to write stuf. Griffin"

I guess there are a lot of things I haven't done . . . so this week I'll try to accomplish a little more on my to do list!

A few projects finished!

I have a few projects completed.

Last year Ray and I attended Brynn's Blanket Party.  She has Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and is treated at University of Wisconsin Children's Hospital aka American Family's Children Hospital. At her party, we all made fleece blankets to donate to the hospital. We will most likely be traveling at the time of the party this year so I made a couple of blankets to give her to donate.

The dachshund blanket has a red back and is 54" square. I tied the front and back pieces together like people normally do with a square knot.

The gray and pink blanket has a pink back and is also 54" square. Ray and I cut a small slit at the top of each pair of front and back pieces. Then we pulled the two pieces through the slit. It took more time but turned out cute.

The Pink and Yellow Flannel Baby Quilt is done. This donation quilt is about 47" square.

The quilt was folded and I did not get on the floor to flatten it.

I made this quilt as a rectangle 5 squares wide and 10 squares long. Then I cut from the upper left corner to the middle point of the right side. I also cut from the bottom left corner to the same middle point of the right side. I sewed the two cutoff pieces together matching what was the top of the quilt to what was the bottom.This piece became the left half of the quilt and was sewn to the right half. I couldn't find instructions so I decided to try it my way and it worked fine!

The front is all flannels that I found in my stash. The back is a brushed cotton that was also in my stash. I used some of the leftover fabric from the front on the back. 

The quilting is a stipple with small flowers. I used Aurifil #2423 pink 50-weight thread.

I also finished Deb's Extras. My friend Deb gave me her Kaffe Fassett layer cake scraps at a quilt retreat last summer. I cut the pieces to 5" squares and made this quilt. The small blues squares are made of fabric from my stash.

This donation quilt finished at 50" by 59". I quilted this with a carnation motif using Aurifil 50-weight #1231 lime green thread.

The back is a green that was in my stash and seemed to look good with the front.

I think I have 16 quilts in the donation pile. I'm not sure how much sewing will get done before we leave in May. I have lots of projects started so if I find some time, I definitely have something to sew.

Indy Weekend

On Friday we traveled to Indianapolis where Ray had signed up for a photography workshop and photo shoot. We decided to keep the date and headed out. On the way, we traveled south on I-39 and west on I-74 in Illinois. We saw many cars and trucks pulled over by the police. Every single time, all of the traffic moved over. Every. Single. Time! It did our hearts good. Maybe people are beginning to follow Scott's Law or the Move Over Law. Sadly on the way home, we did witness a couple of violations but thankfully, no accidents.

In Indianapolis, we rented an Airbnb right downtown. We thought we'd be within 5 minutes driving distance of the photography store and we were within 2 minutes walking distance! It was a great rental and we were very close to Massachusetts Avenue District. Mass Ave is a 5-block diagonal street that showcases art, galleries, live theater, restaurants, and interesting shops. We walked there and walked the entire district plus more every day.

On Friday night, we were both excited to see jonquils blooming. Spring!

Saturday was sunny and warm. When Ray got 'home' in the late afternoon, we again headed over to Mass Ave. The sun was bright - you can see my shadow.

There were lots of flowers and some of the flowering trees were blooming too.

There were pedal powered bars. The patrons provided the power by doing the pedaling. They had to pedal faster to turn the corner. It looked like fun! 

We passed the frozen yogurt shop, Yogülatte, on Friday night and stopped on Saturday night. I didn't get a picture but we both enjoyed our treat.

     

I wanted a picture of this Mass Ave structure and finally found a moment when no one was standing by it. Of course the construction stuff was still there.

I spent much of my weekend resting. I managed to pull a muscle in my back a couple of weeks ago and then irritated it so rest was in order. I did a lot of reading, sewed the binding on a quilt, and did a little knitting. The rest helped and I'm much better. I was checking out the stores online while Ray was at the photo shoot on Sunday - I wanted to know if we had missed anything because we still had most of Sunday afternoon to be tourists. 

We needed to head a block further north than the main part of Mass Ave to find Crimson Tate, a cute little quilt shop. So of course, we went back to Mass Ave Sunday afternoon.

First we had a great lunch at Ralston's Drafthouse and I forgot to take pictures.

Then we walked on to Crimson Tate. 

I found treasures. The fabric fat eighths (measuring 9" by 22.25 to 25") are African Wax Block Prints. I'm working on ideas to use them them in a quilt. The price of Aurifil was good if I bought 12 spools so I did. It was hard not to buy LOTS of fabric. The shop is mostly geared to modern quilters and I loved their solids among other things, many, many other things!

On the way 'home', we walked by Kilwins candy store again. (I just found out it opened 2 weeks ago.) We decided that we NEEDED to stop. We bought one caramel pecan chocolate pretzel stick and one caramel pecan chocolate Rice Krispie treat. When we got 'home', we split them. Oh my! 

We headed home on Monday. On the way we stopped and enjoyed lunch with some friends. 

We decided this little trip was just what we both needed after our very sad week. I'm so glad we went and Ray said his workshop was fantastic. 

Honoring Trooper Brooke Jones-Story

Note: Some of these photos are not mine - they are from various sources.

There were hundreds of flags near the school and all around our village.

These 12 flags represent her years of service as a trooper.

Brooke's services were held at our school - which is also her school. She graduated from here in 2003.

There were many signs honoring her.

C.O.P. S. came in and helped with all of the arrangements. What an organization! With the help of MANY others, we were all able to truly honor Brooke.

Hundreds of officers came from more than 30 states and Canada to honor Brooke, both at the visitation on Tuesday and the funeral on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, we stood in line for a couple of hours before getting into the gym. We were the last two people to make it in before the Officer Walk-through which began with some of Brooke's fellow Illinois State Troopers from District 16. Next came the K9s - so many. I didn't get a good picture of the dogs.

Then more D16 officers followed by so many other officers. The walk-through lasted about 35 minutes and consisted of officers walking at a brisk rate past Brooke's ashes and the family. 

We had at least 3 city/county officers in attendance from across the Midwest that went to school here; two of them were classmates of our son who is a Trooper. 

So many, many came to pay their respects. While waiting in line, I stood by a retired Chicago Police Department detective. He was interesting to talk with. At one point, he told me his wife passed away in early January and this is the 10th or 11th funeral he's attended since her funeral. All of them were police related. How very kind of him to attend.

The following photos are from Wednesday. 

The black curtain has blue lights projecting up.
The two officers in front are guarding her ashes. This honor guard changed every 15 minutes.

There were so many officers I'm told over 1300 ...

This was taken from my seat high on the bleachers.

This was taken from near the back of the gym.

We were told to 'Hold on tight to those awesome memories.'  

After the inside part of the funeral, we all went outside to stand in and around the high school parking lot. I did not get a photo of the fly-over; I was too busy watching it and the 21 gun salute and the echo taps. 

The final call for Brooke from the dispatcher really did me in. There weren't many dry eyes. 16-42, you will be remembered.

About one-fourth of our streets were closed for police squad car parking and those streets were all made into one-way streets for 30 hours. You can see the cars are parked 3 abreast on this street ready for the procession.

The procession went out into the country. I'm told 599 cars were in the procession. There were still squad cars left in our village.

Helen Keller's words: What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. 

#PleaseMoveOver