What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Historian Leslie Goddard presented an engaging program about Route 66 for the final Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon of the year.   She showed photos and told stories about how the highway changed small towns from Illinois to California (gas stations, restaurants, tourist courts).   It became the popular overland route because most of it was fairly flat (south of the higher Rockies). However, it was a two-lane road that went right through the centers of towns, and in the 1950s and 1960s it was superseded by the Interstate Highway System.  Rather than get stuck in backwater obscurity many of the towns ...

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 "Meet Madame Curie" was Lynn Rymarz portrayal at yesterday's Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon. The setting was 1920 when Marie Curie came to the U.S.   The Association of Collegiate Alumnae, as AAUW was then called, raised $100,000 to buy one gram of radium for her research.  Since many AAUW members come to Clara Cummings it was very fitting.   Dr. Curie sought medical applications to treat cancer but radium found commercial uses, too.  

The second character in Lynn's program was one of the   Radium Girls who painted watch faces and clock dials at the Radium Dial factory ...

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Sign of spring:   Mr. and Mrs. Crane let me get very close to snap this picture at Illinois Beach State Park this week.

Yet the day before the cranes I saw fungus on a tree stump in an icy pond.  

On Thursday the Clara Cummings Book Club was entertained by Mary Cunningham Logan, widow of Illinois Civil War General John Logan.   Jessica Michna's historical portrayal was so informative!  The Logans both grew up in southern Illinois (the Murphysboro library is named for her). She lived in Carbondale during the Civil War. When Logan was elected to Congress she moved ...

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Costume designer Edith Head visited the Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon on Thursday.  Martina Mathisen gave an interesting and informative portrayal. Head was awarded 8 Oscars over the span of her 60-year career, mostly with Paramount and later with Universal.   

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In the studio:   it's a finish!

Here is Spare Parts V.   72 x 80.  I estimate 8 yards used. 

  Last week I posted photos of the border/sashing I was considering. I searched further and found this gold batik. It's a Christmassy print (pinecones and sort-of poinsettias) that I got when we were on vacation in northern Minnesota ...

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Thursday:  it was great to join AAUW, P.E.O., and GFWC friends for the last Clara Cummings Book Club luncheon of the season.   Lynn Rymarz presented another one of her Tales in History, this time as Hedy Lamarr who was not only an actress but a patent-holding inventor.   It's always a delight to see Lynn, a friend and P.E.O. sister. 

Our friend Mary Lou said I could pick all the rhubarb I wanted from her garden.  I took her at her word!

Each bag has three cups. Because it loses so much volume when it's ...

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 [Next post will have quilting updates and the one book I managed to finish this week.]     

The 75th International Convention of the P.E.O. Sisterhood was held virtually this week. Because it was virtual any member could 'attend' at no charge. I registered months ago and fully intended to tune in -- but Life In General intervened.  I did watch the opening ceremony on Wednesday and one of the workshops.  Now I need to go back to see the results of the voting on amendments. There were many.  Like so many organizations P.E.O. is striving to improve its ...

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