Hello from beautiful St. Charles, Illinois!
St. Charles of the beautiful Fox river and lovely summers with parks and paddle boats and abundant things to see and do!
For those who don’t know the metro Chicago area (such as myself!) I asked my driver, Rachel where we were in relation to downtown Chicago.
And just like anyone would do these days….(Except for Michiganders, who will always put up a hand and show you by pointing at their palm!) she pulled out her phone, expanded a map by pinching and pulling on the screen with her fingers, and showed me. I get it now! We are a bit northeast of the city. Just on the outskirts of countryside and farmland.
It feels like small-town Midwest, yet it is so connected to so many things within a short drive. Just wonderful!
Knowing that I liked history, scenic drives, and since it was a Sunday in the early evening, she had hatched a plan to take me to dinner in a converted old church, a walk along the river afterwards and just enjoying the evening hours. PERFECT.
I’m off to St Charles, Illinois today –via Chicago O’Hare!
It’s a later morning flight, which is kind of nice. I can take my time getting myself out the door, which means I have time to write this post – because last night was BUSY BUSY with a Quilt-Cam of double trouble variety via Facebook Live!
Did you catch it?
If not, don’t worry. It will be embedded right here at the bottom of this post – so read on, my friends – read on!
The June Quilty Box is full of romantic flavor with some gorgeous Florabunda fabrics by Melanie Testa.
What is a Quilty Box?
Here are some highlights to keep in mind:
It was a day of lost things found –things discovered hiding in plain sight.
The last morning at the cabin means a bit of tidying up so that things are nice when I next return.
I looked everywhere for the blasted vacuum. I checked, rechecked, and triple checked every closet, every place that it may be found. I checked the Utility room, the garage, and even asked the hubster when his flight landed in Detroit if he had taken it out to his man shed.
I had completely given up hope when I turned around and saw it right next to the Accuquilt.
It had been here the whole time. I had walked past it at least a dozen times yesterday morning, passing right by it to double-triple-check the utility room for the vacuum. Not to mention how many times I have walked past it every day several times a day for the past week.
I did a ton of cutting at this Accuquilt Studio this week, prepping future projects. Yet I couldn’t see this vacuum sitting right here? Nuts!
I must be completely losing my mind.
It was a day of new faces and new off-the-beaten-path places -
And even the gently intermittent summer rain didn’t slow us down.
You can definitely forget cell phone connectivity out here, and leave it behind gratefully while you reconnect with nature and the surrounding ever-present history of this place.
Independence, Virginia.
The Town of Independence came into being in 1850 as the settlement of a dispute about where to locate the county seat. At that time, a controversy arose between the people of Old Town and people of the Elk Creek area. Each group wanted the County seat in its area.
The final decision, made by three commissioners from adjacent counties, was to locate on the site favored by a group of "independents" and to call the town Independence. These commissioners hiked to the top of Point Lookout Mountain and looked down into a grove of trees where 5 streams met and decided that would be the site for the new town.
Independence, Virginia is located 15 miles west of Galax, 40 miles east of Marion, 29 miles south of Wytheville, and 10 miles north of Sparta, North Carolina. [source]
Interesting factoid: The architect for the 1908 Courthouse in Independence was also the architect for Quiltville Inn, the Old Field's Mansion. Click HERE for my post on that beauty!
Outside of Independence, down a long and winding dirt road stands Ward Manor.
I caught the Summer Solstice at 6:07am this morning, rocking on the porch at the cabin.
Hello Summer, 2018!
There are some Quilt-Cam type announcements further down, be sure you read to the end. No skimming!
I have been working in the basement studio space at the cabin for most of the week – cranking on upcoming things.
So many things – All needing to be ready within the next few months!
While I love my space at the cabin – ANY four walls can start closing in on a person after a while and I needed a change of venue. Options are good, right?
My post to my Quiltville's Open Studio Group on Facebook simply read:
Yes. This is a black and white photo.
It’s nearly July. Do you know what black & white photos mean??
The vagueness of updates over the next several months may spark the realization that we have MUCH FUN ahead --
Our next Leader & Ender challenge starts in just a couple of weeks – could this be what I was cutting for? Perhaps!
And perhaps the cutting and organizing, pulling and culling and matching and planning also extends into what will be posted by Halloween --
Our next Quiltville Mystery season is just around the corner.
It might seem a long way off for you – but for me, behind the scenes, things are ramping up.
I have been unable to find the missing gate remote. No Clicker Anywhere!
I have nearly disassembled the van, searched under seats, in between seats and the center console, in the doors – everywhere.
I have NO idea where it ended up, but I’m afraid I’ll have to admit defeat on this one thing.
At some point it slid off my visor into the black hole of the Quilter's Bermuda triangle.
There are other “generic” remotes out there that can be programmed to work with this gate – it’s just the principle of the thing.
And the fact that I can’t resolve in my mind just what happened keeps it circling round and round and round – there is no closure other than to accept that it is gone.
I think there is a life lesson in that, don’t you?
Sometimes there is no reason why something is gone – it just is. It’s not worth stewing about.
But once the antique mall folks said “Nope, nothing here in our lost and found…..” I made a beeline to the back corner to see if something I saw earlier was still there.
This may look simple enough to set up, but let me tell you – I had one dead end after another, and was about to throw my hands up and call it a day.
My thought was to simply pull the treadle machine out on to the front porch from the dining room.
Not a long haul, but it does involve CARRYING the machine cabinet because you can’t roll those metal wheels over the threshold due to the risk of damaging the wood with the vintage metal wheels.
The machine is on carpet sliders in the house, but by the time you reach the threshold you are going to lose those and have to lift the cabinet to get it up and over anyway.
Were I to have a second person at hand, it wouldn’t be hard, but as I was only one – it went like this:
Slide the machine cabinet with the beautiful gifted Singer VS 2 to the first raised threshold. Remove machine head from cabinet to lighten the load. Carry the cabinet out the front door and set it on the porch. Replace sliders as to not damage the porch paint. Slide into desired location. Replace machine head – connect belt and get to treadling.
This photo is a new clipping that came into my life within the last month or so.
My niece Emilee, my brother Mark’s eldest is into genealogy and has found some amazing things online by searching newspaper records, old school year books (found a photo of my mom at 16!) and we have benefited greatly from her searching.
What a gift – these things that were thought lost, or never even knew they existed.
This photo is of my dad’s dad – my Grandpa Wilkinson who passed away when I was two. My brothers never knew him. I remember him faintly.
And here he is as a young man, just having returned from WWII with a bit of his story. I was in tears reading this as I never really “KNEW” this man. He was taken from us far too soon.
My dad is the cutie patootie blond 5 1/2 year old in the front with short shorts - named for his father.
The other crazy family thing is just how much my brother Scott looks like Grandpa. Serious family resemblance. And I love that.
