Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Retreat News

I have been home three days and I haven't posted! Pretty lame, I know. The retreat was awesome! I stayed healthy through the whole weekend. A refreshing change from the last two. As a result I got a lot done, I just don't have any pictures yet to show my projects. I did get both of the baby quilts completely finished and got the hand-sewing done on the little Christmas wall hanging/table topper. I did some work on my Lady of the Lake blocks also but didn't get all 56 finished and hope to finish the rest soon and get that project finished.

My two bigger projects at the retreat were a bag and putting together my crazy quilt blocks. I got the bag done on Friday in spite of not paying close attention to the cutting directions (I am so glad I bought more fabric than was called for) and not enough fusible interfacing (had to make an early morning run to JoAnn's) and a visit from my daughter and grandkids at the retreat. And, in spite of everything, it turned out really great! It is from this pattern. One of the scrapbookers at the retreat has asked me to make her one so I might have to make several and see if they sell.

On Saturday I started out making 6 more crazy quilt blocks so I would have 90 for a 9 X 10 layout. Then I just sewed them to the sashing pieces and made up the sashing/setting block rows without any planning and had it together shortly after dinner and in time for our retreat show-n-tell. I got some border fabric yesterday and added 6 inch blue borders and it ended up being about 76" X 84".

I will get some pictures as soon as the clouds lift around here. The one down side of my trip is that I missed 5 of the 6 sunny days here in Western Washington last week. I could have gotten a lot done outside but who would have thought that mid-February would have been so gorgeous here!

Another upside to the trip was seeing all three of my kids and my grandkids over the course of the weekend. On Wednesday I had dinner with my daughter and her hubby and the kids and my son and his girlfriend. It was my first time meeting Peia and she is very cute and sweet. She passed the 'first impression test' easily because she obviously cares about my little boy and she thinks my grandkids are adorable! She even let Layden have a taste of her Thai iced tea and didn't freak when he didn't like it and spit it back in her glass! My second daughter is currently working at the camp where the retreat is held so we had some fun together there. She even did some sewing - making a few 'ditty' bags out of my bag of 'scraps'. This bag was a reusable grocery type bag that was at least half full of fabrics given to me by other quilters who don't save every little scrap like I do. One of them gave me most of it. She cleaned out her stash and included were some fat quarters of fabric that she just didn't want anymore!

Well, off to the sewing room to get thing sorted out more!

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