What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Last week Wisconsin Quilt Show returned to the Alliant Energy Center in Madison for the 21st year.   It was begun by Nancy Zieman and Wisconsin PBS as the Wisconsin Quilt Expo, hence my blog label.   This was the seventh time I've attended and the first time I've stayed overnight.

We set up the sewing machines in the hotel breakfast room / lounge.  That attracted other hotel guests and we had good conversations.  

Both the FW ...

(They designate 14 trails.  Participants have to walk (run, bike, jog...) seven of them to get the little commemorative medallion.  I overachieve and do all 14.)

I picked as many black raspberries as I could reach and carried them in my cap. They were great with vanilla ice cream.

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Top: compass flower, snakeroot, false Solomon's Seal (b.erries). Center: goldenrod, fungi, riverbank grapes. Bottom: white heath aster and skyblue aster, New England aster, butterfly weed (can you see how the spent stems make a whorl?).

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When I listed this at the facebook group: The Spiritual Co-Op Group online market, I dind't know it would sell within the first 7 minutes of listing!

Twenty years ago this month (August 10-12, 2001) the Magpies met up in Kansas City for a weekend of friendship, quilting, and some adventures. I dug out some photos. We haven't changed that much, have we? 

front: Jean, Chris

center: Anna, Celia

back: Janet, Stacey, Nann, Verdi, Tami

We're pretty sure that Verdi made the quilt. 

Upper left: a group went ...

**Don't miss the previous post with photos from our visit to the Endangered Species quilt exhibit**

Happy Independence Day!   I hope you and your family celebrated as much or as little as you pleased. (We stayed indoors in the air conditioning.) 

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Dark blue is the July color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  

This year I  am making 16 framed four-patch blocks each month. They're 5.5" unfinished.

I'm also participating in Joy's Table Scraps Challenge with two potholders in the monthly color.

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A hole was torn in the fabric of the Magpies' nest when Celia  Brown passed away on Friday, September 11.  In August she had surgery and developed unexpected and severe complications. 

Fort Worth, 2016: stockyards tour on a rainy day

 We met on in the mid-1990's on RCTQ, the rec.crafts.textiles.quilting newsgroup. Along with two dozen other RCTQ regulars we created the Magpies in order to chatter to our hearts' content. We've become a close-knit group with regular biennial in-person meetups -- this year in February. We were right on time to celebrate Celia's 81st birthday ...

The Magpies flocked together in Texas last week for our biennial in-person meet up (called TexFestDos because we had TexFest in 2016).  QuiltCon was in Austin. Our hostesses live in San Marcos and New Braunfels. They provided both quilty inspiration and hospitality.

Most of us arrived on Wednesday, either to San Antonio or Austin (that was Anna and me).

Carla and Gary's ca. 1900 farmhouse southeast of San Marcos was our central meeting place.

There were 16 of us from Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois (two), Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, California, British Columbia, and Texas (five). Two friends from Colorado ...