Life after a retreat?? ... mostly naps!

We're home from 5 days of retreating above Forget Me Knots Quilt shop in Bandon, Oregon.  And boy, did we have fun!

We're at our first stop the Port Orford Quilt Shop!

Last week I was busy as a bee making kits for the projects I wanted to work on at  retreat.  I fit everything I was taking (Except the sewing machine which always sits in the foot well behind the driver) into my trunk!  And I was taking food, a blowup mattress with all the bedding too!!  Yep, it was a miracle!!

There were a few bad kits :(  For one, I brought 1/2 the cut pieces, I forgot that I like to make 2 at once for no matches of HSTs.



And one project was just too complicated to do in a distracting environment!! Rainbow colors wafting across a quilt.  I couldn't put it up on the design wall correctly.  BUT after most everyone was in bed, I was able to put it up (that's it to the right) and get it just right.  Then I sewed it in a hurry - to get the design wall free for the next person ... 7 boo-boos!! I'll try that one again here at home!

I also worked on a proposed pattern by a friend.  It had been in timeout on my portable design wall (flannel backed 'Popsicle' picnic table cloth) for a year and a half!  Now I know why!!

But I progressed it enough that I was able to take it off the flannel and have that available for the March Madness this week!! Pictures of first and last day!!

I touched everything I brought.  I didn't do any hand quilting but used that quilt on my bed!!  Hey - it counts!!  Tee-hee!

I did miss my usual bag of scraps.  Not just to play with but to share when someone needed extra brown!


Here is my favorite 'new' project:  A Plus Quilt.  I found this lovely little quilt on Pinterest here.  I've been collecting 'word' fabrics for a few years. (collecting sounds a little tame - lets say "obsessing over" word fabrics!)  But hadn't found a project that would use them to my liking!!  Well, I have now!

The blocks are only 3.5 x 5.5!!  And the bright little plus signs are a great partner with the busy, busy word fabrics!  It's going to be hard to 'finish' my other projects with this one occupying my mind!




We ate like queens and had both enough food and projects left over to stay another week!!  Tempting, we do have a washing machine up there - so we could rinse out our unmentionables when needed!!

Presenting our "Finishing School" Honor Students!!  We'll be back next year!

When I got home, I had a 'greeter' by our staircase.  ICK!  This little dude was over 8 inches long!  (I was carrying a ruler, you know!)  I told him to stay where he was and not try to get a ride with me upstairs!! 

 

It must be the start of slug season!!

Rainy Days get you down ... you'd better not live @ the Oregon Coast!

Boy oh boy - we're out of the drought now.  Some of us are dreaming of the days of the drought!!  I leave for finishing school tomorrow and am NOT looking forward to loading the cars in a deluge!  And that's what we're having today.

BUT rainy weather does make us stay inside and quilt - per chance??  And I've been busy.  I have two finishes - one is an UFO!!  Ticker tape parade!!

The prototype Christmas Log Cabin Table Runner!  20 x 44 which is a great size for our 66 x 38 table!  When I asked DH why that size, he mumbled something about having a place to sit and eat even when I was in the midst of a project!  Wise man!

Lovely little log cabin quilt ... or is it??

Take a closer look and notice it's a ruse!  Make all green log cabin with a red center, cut a neutral block the same size; make RSTs!!  I quilted it "around" the logs and I think that makes it even more like a real log cabin.

My second project is a quilt I found on the web "Kelsey's Quilt".  Very easy and you could use all kinds of fabrics.  A two color quilt?  A boy's superhero quilt? All pastels?  The list is endless.  What happens when you use dark sashing??  Lots of variations to explore. 40 x 44 and all from stash!!  

An artistic shot like my DD is so good with!!  But as a quilter I want to see it full out and straight please!!  But, since it's bigger than my table and since it's pouring outside - you'll have to settle for almost full out!! Variegated thread for the machine quilting.

I have a dozen pairs of fabrics (like the fish on green background) mixed in so you can play I spy with it too!

Doesn't finishing projects feel good!  It's amazing that we have UFOs at all!!! (And boy, do I!)

I made lasagna yesterday and it smelled so good.  It tasted good too - but today I had to make brownies to take along to retreat.  Nothing smells better than brownies baking!  I don't bake cookies very often, you can see why!

Isn't that saddest batch of cookies you've ever seen?  Luckily it tasted good - 5 different kinds of chips!!  Had to take it to guild Fun Day.  I kept eating the "worst" ones and could see that would lead to madness!

How can you make a "typo" when you're writing by hand???  Can you find it?

This is the top of the pin cushions for Finishing School.  Still have to finish those little gems.  Even though I promise myself I am NOT going to be sewing at the last minute again!!!

Woke up to a surprise Sunday morning!  Snow on the coast!  What??  We left NE to get out of this weather - NE is 77 degrees this week!!!  But it soon melted away and started raining again. :(

March 1!?! Time Marches on - indeed!

Life is getting back to normal, Heaven help us all!! I'm back at TaiChi and in the pool too. (Transpore tape was approved to wear in the pool)

I have a mission this year.  (I know, I have a mission every year, but it's usually forgotten about by now!!)  And this year I'm still working on it!!  The mission is to FIT in my SEWING SPACE!

Now I'm the first to admit I'm a wee bit spoiled by DH.  When I'm cranky he sends me to my room.  - The sewing room!  And our dining space has 3 Ikea cubby-book cases with 22 bins chock full of stash. (I magnanimously gave him TWO whole bins for paperwork!!)  Most visitors don't notice the horizontal bookcases and never suspect they hold fabric until a blabbermouth (me) tells them.

But I'm not talking about that space!!!  I'm talking about the 10x12 'spare' bedroom (we only have 2!) that is the designated sewing space.  Or as I like to call it "The Staging Area"!  It is so crowded in there that I have to move things from one flat surface to another to come up with room to sew.  Then I have to clear anything off the twin bed in there every night in case beloved insomniac DH wants to sleep in there during the wee morning hours. And yes, fabric overflow, any that doesn't fit into the 22 bins, is in there too.

Here's the problem:  Stuff - I have too much!!

Here's the other problems:  1) I am QOV chair in my guild.  That means I collect the QOV tops, send them to the long-armers, receive them back, give them back to the guild members.  This involves shipping boxes; piles going out, piles coming back.  And keeping track of paperwork!!!  I need a designated area for this category.

2) We try to see our grandchildren every month or so.  But my DIL is a school teacher with 5 and 3 year old boys.  Yep, they are busy.   My DD lives 6 hours away and her 8 and 10 year olds are in music and sports teams ... also busy.  So during winter months between the flu, the mountain pass, and trying to merge our schedules, we see them less.  So I start stockpiling things that need to go to both families.  I need a designated spot to stockpile those things so I don't forget any.  At Christmas I forgot the whole box!!!  (sigh)

So my plan of attack is to 'fix' the stuff in plain sight first!  Last fall, I was doing the great stash clean out.  I actually cut 30 some pillowcase kits for the DGKs and the Million Pillowcase for Kids charity project.  Then I got sick, busy, bored (who knows) ... and didn't actually make them.  I have been moving that box here, there and yonder in that room for months!  Monday, during Guild Fun Day I started sewing them.  My friend U helped and I turned in 12 pillowcases that night at meeting.  I have 12 more ready to finish and I actually sent the sad, floppy box that they were in to the recycling bin!

Monday was also the box raffle at guild.  I made 4!  (1) A little black tray-like box with 3 spools of quilting thread; 1 spool of dark thread, the Christmas pin cushion I made this year for the PotLuck, a clear bobbin box, and a crochet-chain summer necklace.  (2) A small round red basket with  dark red FQs from my stash stuffed into it.  (3) A square cardboard box from $1 Tree filled with embroidery floss on the the little flat cardboard 'spools', another pincushion and embroidery needles. AND (4)a clear project bag filled with extra notions: a pin box of old buttons, needles, scissors case, tape measure, etc.  Felt good but did not noticeably help the problem!!  Must remember to take pix of these before given away!!!

This week I have to finish the Finishing School pin cushions.  But I have no wool roving to stuff them with!  I'm going to get them ready to stuff and pick up some roving on the way to FS and stuff them there!!  It simply isn't worth the 4 hour round trip drive to get the stuffing!  And having it mailed?? Small town to small town?? That's a whole 'nother crap shoot!  So-o they'll 'get what they get and don't have a fit'!!

I really wasn't going to make these fiddle-ly little things - but they begged me!! LOL! One week from today we retreat!  Nine crazy quilters headed for a retreat center above a quilt store!  Yep, it's heaven!!  We'll be there for FIVE days! (counting the travel day on both ends) It's going to be great.

I was busy last weekend trying to keep up the finishing of baby quilts.

Beach Ball baby is an UFO that I started after finishing my Pies & Tarts quilt.  It's quilted now and ready to make it's debut on my daughter's Etsy store! Pictures show front and the quilting from the back.

 "Mom, I need some fabric projects to show off the brass collections!"  That's how you get into this situation!

 

Jungle Babies is also completely finished.  5pointed stars in the large squares and simple diagonal lines through the 4patches. Front and pieced back shown above.

I also worked on the pastels Magic Numbers - including drawing up my own 'block' to incorporate the additional sizes I cut.  It still needs to be quilted. So stay tuned.

I machine quilted the squares and sashing baby quilt - waiting to be bound.

And  I machine quilted one of the Christmas log cabin table runners.  I love it, it still needs binding.

Add a 15" square Modern Design "Lines" assignment for ModSquad and I'm going to be busy this weekend too.

Ladies - time to party in the sewing room!!  Let the wild rumpus begin!!

Life sped up on me! Sorry!

We're having a normal Oregon Coast winter. The last 2-3 years we have been in a drought.  Not this year! And, well, you forget!  I've been wishing life could be more like that movie - "The Truman Show" where it mainly rains at night - not all day!!!  Welcome to 'partly cloudy' on the Coast!

There's been a lot going on.  I hosted the "Finishing School" in Bandon at the end of February.  And yes, I got those blessed little pin cushions done!  They turned out real cute this year - but I'm changing them up next year.  I mean really, paper piecing is supposed to be accurate.  But 3" schoolhouses that have one of the chimneys hanging off the roof just might be a sign that you're past that skill now!  Yep, feeling old and arthritic!!

We had added another day this year - and it was unanimous to do it again next year.  The added day made the whole thing seem more relaxed!!  There was no packing up the day before we left (by anyone else but me!) and that's unusual.  Granted we had enough food and drink to last a few more days ... We have a full kitchen and we use it!!  Our menu was varied and awesome this year!  With lots of leftovers!  But no leftover brownies!!!!  I'm not in this picture - my Ipad camera refused to work for the clerk who was taking our group shot!!

My DSIL's father passed away the night before Retreat ended.  So I did pack up early and left at the crack of dawn (6:45 these days) to drive up to Portland and stay with the 'Littles' while L & J helped out with all the paperwork and arrangements that follow.  Everyone has been doing okay.  But no matter how old you are, you're not old enough to lose a dad.

So I have recently become re-energized about Life and it's possibilities!  There are several new projects I want to do NOW!  There are a dozen UFOs I want done NOW!  And here's where it gets murky!  I don't want someone else to do them.  I want to do them and yet have them finished fast!

Here is the QuiltMania BOM of a few years ago.  I love the house blocks and even made up extra blocks to complete my town.  I'm "auditioning" the mountains border - I've been told it's too dark.

And this is my favorite "new" project.  This year, three of us quilting maniacs in our small town decided to split a subscription of the three QuiltMania magazines.  So far it's been very distracting!  When we got QuiltMania P and I fell in love with the "Camelot" quilt in it.  We gathered fabrics and worked on it at Finishing School.  Well, I dropped out after the first hour!  I could not get the curved piecing to curve!!  P journeyed on ... until the 2nd block - then she was joining me "at the burn barrel"!

So this is our first Simply Moderne issue - and we fell in love with the cover quilt!  I didn't like the mauve background (I don't care if it IS coming back!) BUT when I read further and the appliques were wool - Celebrate!  They had me then!!!  

But after our misadventure with the Camelot blocks - well we decided to do the first quarter and if we didn't like it - it would still be interestingly asymmetrical!   I'm using beige-ings for the backgrounds, a different one for each quarter.  There are a kazillion wool circles on this.  Trying to figure out the easiest, cheapest way to produce them! Don't want an Accuquilt - small apartment, no storage, no room.  Tried some circle punches, hard on my hands.  Bought a package of 30 precut 1" circles at the Ashland Quilt Store, but don't want to spend .16 on each circle!  Right now I'm trying to draw circles (from handy dandy template - $5!) onto freezer paper and fusing that to the wool and cutting them out.  They aren't perfect, no surprise, but neither are my houses!  And my hands seems to hold up to that.  I cut 68 last night watching tv!  BUT always open to a better way!  Suggestions??

I also want to lose weight; read books; watch the DVR programs; spring clean and declutter, increase our savings; cook healthier meals;  .... but oddly, not take a nap!!! (I always crave naps when I have too much to do!)  So whats your favorite method to work on everything at once?? I don't think the "scatter shot" method is my thing!

Last week we were back in Portland (in the rain) for the Memorial service. We went up early to spend an extra day with the 'Littles' and spoil them too.  We played games, including a Disney Trivia game - our 9 year old expert showed us who's the boss!

Then after school was the big chess match - will Papa keep his winning record?? Nope, he did not.  This is really a BIG DEAL!  Papa doesn't dumb down his game for children!!  Mr M was beaming!

Before we came, I repaired a cute little denim skirt for Miss P and have decided against ever doing that again! 5 hours later ... I ended up making the waist like a PJ bottoms waist.  Sewing in the elastic is apparently not completely covered in the tutorial!  When I got it sewed in there were strange little hard sticky-out parts along the waistband.  Uneven stretching of the elastic???? Don't know, but it's a PIA to rip out!!

I had asked my DD to measure waist to bottom of hem on Miss P - she "guesstimated" and last night I had to raise the hem by hand!!!  Sigh!  All I can say is it better be her favorite skirt and I should see her in it a lot!

We came home, I attended our "March Madness" sew in for quilt guild and we left to babysit the other "Littles" the next morning. Still raining thru all this traveling and adventures.  Had a great time with the boys; had a lot of light saber fights with short pool noodles.  Went to the science museum and I had as much fun as the Littles did!  Maybe more!

Coming home across the mountain, still raining and the river was in flood stage - we've never seen it so big and fast!  But home again, home again.  I'm ready to stay for a few weeks, no travel for me, please.  Not for a while at least!

Hooray for good friends and time to quilt!

Last week was the third annual "Finishing School".  A small quilting retreat that I organize.  Three years ago, I was trying to organize a guild retreat.  There wasn't much interest in changing anything up! But there were 8 of us who wanted to get together.  In Bandon, there's an awesome quilt store - with - wait for it! a retreat center above it!  Perfection!  Thank you Forget Me Knots!!

And so Finishing School started.  Every year it's full and every year we have a great time! This year, 9 of us went and it was very productive!

My first project was "Over the river and through the woods" by by Crabapple Hill.  A good friend in Newport did the embroidery for both of us and I did the piecing for both.  Unfortunately, we both just did each others!  So both of our projects languished for Y*E*A*R*S!!  So typical!  In middle of this I moved to Brookings, so I would hope we would have finished them faster if we were still neighbors.  But I'm glad to say, my top is done!  With my own little twist, of course!  Made enough blocks to create rows above and below the embroidered panels.  The scariest part of the whole project was cutting the embroideries to the correct size!

Next up was bringing out an "oldie-goldie" Courthouse steps and 54-40 stars.  I thought I would finish it as a couple of baby quilts.  I thought I had lost interest in it.  But when I laid it out on the design wall - it was love again!  I had paper pieced the stars, why, I have no idea!  So I spend a good amount of time removing the papers while being entertained by everyone around the table!  Good place to do it.  New plan - make more blocks!

In between quilting projects I made baby receiving blankies.  The cutting room was perfectly set up to trim and pin.  I made eight!!  Four of which went to my DDs house this week.  Her friends are having babies at an alarming rate!  LOL! And she made me promise to make these comfy square little quilts.  They are easy care, and great for tummy-time, swaddling and protecting against those really big burps!  I wrote up instructions here.

My last quilting project was a baby size I spy.  I was looking thru someone else's magazine and saw this pattern.  Sorry I don't remember which magazine.  I jotted down the measurements ... and was worried about sashing that was just cut 1 1/2".  But it came out wonderfully!  This will probably go to the next community baby shower.  But it's going to be a "go to" pattern for me!  Sorry, just noticed the picture was of blocks.  I'll post another one when it's quilted! Promise!

And here we are - the Finishing School Graduates!  Thanks ladies for such fun!  We've got next year already booked!  Can't wait.

Finishing School 2015 - Bandon Oregon

It's the rainy season ... we knew it was coming!!!

Hello-o-o-o from the wet and wild west coast!  Rain and grey today - yesterday was 'eat on the deck in the sun' day ... but hard to even remember that today!!  The weather - it's always "what have you done for me lately!!"  And the weather everywhere this year has been ... well, let's not go there!

Last weekend was the Finishing School 2014.  I organize this retreat and it's a blast!!  There's a retreat center above the Bandon Quilt Store: Forget Me Knots - you're already liking it, aren't you!!  The retreat center holds 8.  There are 3 bedrooms with twin beds - with quilts on each!!  An awesome workroom with  ceiling to floor windows and great lighting.  A full kitchen with another table to eat at.  AND it's AwEsOmE!!  We had such fun this year.  We stayed up late, got up early, made excellent meals for ourselves, shopped the store in our slippers and laughed as much as we possibly could.

Each year I SWEAR I will make the official pin cushion early ... I failed big time this year!  The night before the retreat I'm stuffing those little gems and slipstitching them closed.  And I'm pretty grumpy about it!!  But seeing their shining faces when they receive them ... well, next year again for sure!

The first year (this was our second annual Finishing School) the schoolhouses were red.  So this year they are a 'beachy' green.  Last year I ate a whole lot of Trader Joe's Frozen Birds Nests (not a problem, try them, they are delicious!!) and saved the trays they are frozen in.  Why??? Because the trays are perfect to set beside your sewing machine and put all those little tools you need into. The ripper, the empty bobbins, etc. It keeps them all together and keeps you from brushing them off the table with your elbow too!

I offered a prize to anyone who brought the last year's trays back this year ... would you believe 5 of the 7 from last year did!  Didn't expect that!  Headed down to the store and picked up sale FQs for the prizes.  Everyone else got a new tray for this year.  I put the pincushion; an emory board, a scissor fob with their name on it and set it on top of a hand-stamped stationary pad I made!!  Three people brought back their red schoolhouse pin cushion!!  You realize that they had to keep track of those items for a whole year!! No way that happens unless they are using them!  I'm so excited they found them useful!

This is A - she's a garage sale and thrift store queen!  She was designing a fall quilt with bits and pieces that she's picked up everywhere!  It was so fascinating watching this develop ... the retreat center has this entire design wall that we all used alot!!  

Okay - I have to admit - that's my sewing space front and center.  I am not a neat, organized quilter - hard to believe, I'm sure - [okay, I heard that snickering from friends!!  Stop it!]  I have the bow on my machine because my light that attaches, well the brackets that hold the cord up and out of the way keep peeling off.  I tie it in the bow and it seems to take the pressure off the remaining brackets.  That baggie full of stuff was a garage sale purchase that was being passed and oohed over.  We did decide that a good song for the Finishing School was the Theme from Jaws!  Overflowing stash and supplies sneaking up on you, ready to pounce on your sewing space!! Da da, da da da da!!!

The was one of the Quilts of Valor I worked on.  It's a disappearing 9patch but the setting is a variation.  It's a pattern card available at quilt shops.  Bandon gave us it in our welcome packet.  I, of course, have put it somewhere safe ... I don't have to say anything else, do I??  When I come across it - I'll let you know the name - it starts with T???

We also rented the AccuCut machine from the shop during our time there.  Oh my goodness!  Did we have fun with that!  We cut Jelly Rolls; Hawaiian Applique blocks; and lots and lots of wool applique goodies!!  Those machines are pretty slick and I can see renting it again!!

Here's our intrepid class!  Thanks ladies - it was so-o much fun!  We're already booked for next year. We added an additional day and we're full!!  That must be a sign of a good time had by all!

Monday, back to reality.  We were all EXHAUSTED!  Sore from all the hauling up and down the stairs and nobody went to the guild's Fun Day!  7 of us went to the evening guild meeting, many of us didn't stay for the activity!!  I know I napped ALOT this week.  Didn't even sew for 5 days, but I'm back on track now!!

Stay tuned for the report from the "DH is away; Doni's sweat shoppe report!!  Wa-aahh-aahh!