Happy Valentine’s Day Weekend!!

 Last week we were at our Guild’s Annual Retreat.  My husband always wonders why we leave home, which has a quilt store; to go up the coast 35 miles and stay.  Gold Beach doesn’t have a quilt store!!  But we have 39 quilters in a large conference room.  And the ideas are flying around!!  Laughter, and a good time was held by all!

I can’t claim to have finished anything … BUT I did touch everything I brought to work on!!  Several ancient UFOs!

This Lovely was a free Sue Spargo mystery(?) many years back.  I used all Cherrywood Hand Dyed fabrics for it.  And, of course,  I kind of followed the directions, but not closely!  I’m anxious to finish this, then I’ll allow myself to use the rest of my Cherrywood collection!!  BUT we figured out it needs another column to make it bigger.  Hope to get this top finished by summer!!  Yes, you heard it here!!  A promise to ‘get’r dun’!!

Next up was my ModSquad Improv challenge.  It’s an odd size - wall quilt or table runner-ish?  It was one of two projects that I pin-basted before retreat.  So I was actually machine quilting!  Our tables were big enough to quilt that size.  When I presented the challenge, a friend asked me what I was going to do with it - I flippantly said, “Make a dog quilt.”  Well, she told me in no uncertain terms - THAT was not an option!!

Can we talk about the really, really, ugly carpet in the conference center??  Oh yeah - you really have to plan ahead to avoid that in pictures!!  And OMG! It is indistructable!  I have a picture of it when I was sewing a dress for Miss P - when she was in Kindergarten???  She’s 19 now and doing great at University of Oregon!!

The first day, I started with long-time project - Tickertape!!  You know how I love scraps … Well, P and I have been sewing them together (Willy-Nilly!) and cutting them to 2.5” wide.  So fun to work with them - no color choices, just what’s there in front of you!!  I found a pattern I finally thought would work.  More info later!!

What else??

• I also touched charm HSTs - it’s going to be great!!  
• Orphan Blocks that I worked on last retreat.  That needs some more neutral fabric to set it off … so laters!  
• A kid quilt that I started at a pattern tester.  It didn’t work!  So it’s been sitting for years.  It needs another block or two.
• And I saw at least 2 new projects at the other tables I want to start!!!  Ah, retreats!!

We were table 3 and each table had to come up with music that would be good to exercise with.  Well, at the beginning we were going to have to dance to it, etc!  But it all calmed down but, AFTER we bought accessories to wear!!

So - here we are … Stop in the Name of Love was our song.  We had audio setup so we didn’t have to sing along!!!  The whole room participated - at the beginning I told them we were going to sashay out to the ‘Treats Table’ after our work out!!

Off we go!!  What are you working on this week?

Can anything "TOP" a great Retreat??

Just came home from an awesome retreat with our Brookings Quilt Guild.  It was perfect quilting weather because it was storming outside for 3 days!  When the rain broke today, we all ran out and loaded our cars like there was free fabric somewhere!!  There wasn't that many breaks in the rain ... gotta move those machines out to the car when we can!!!

On Friday, CY came up with her serger and we made 130 pillow cases from white sheets to transport quilts for our Memorial Day Show.  We were pillowcase sweat shop machines!!  For 5 hours we were cutting up sheets, hemming the parts that needed to be hemmed and serging those puppies together! WTG gang! Thanks for all the help!

My DH makes fun of us, because we leave our town - with 3 quilt shops and we retreat 25 miles up the coast.  And there isn't even a quilt store in that town, or a Dairy Queen!!  But we stay at the Gold Beach Resort and they treat us oh-so-right!

We take over the conference center but get to sleep in hotel rooms at night!  We provide the food. There is a lot of "crock pot" foods; salads and sandwiches.  I'm not going to describe the 24' table of Snackies we bring!!  We do not starve!  Not by a long shot!  And a washcloth creature in our room!  I think it's a slug - they are rampant here!!

Here are some tops I did at retreat.  They were less than half of what I packed and I thought I packed light!!  I really could have stayed there another week and still have projects to start!  And Lord knows, the Snackies Table would have supported us that long too!

I made the center panel after I finished my "Pies and Tarts" quilt a few years back.  I thought they looked like beach balls and wanted to check it out.  Yep, beach balls.  

I don't know why it was in "time-out" for so long.  I was looking for the perfect border fabrics, I guess.  Found them!  Hope to get it finished for the Soroptimist Brookings Baby Shower in March.

I saw this cutie online - gave you the source last blogpost.  I went with a white background instead of black.  I love it!!  It's 48 x 60.  A little big for a baby quilt!  Must work on my math skills!!  But good for a toddler bed??  Too cute to languish - hope to quilt it before our show Memorial Day Weekend.

This is the center of a Christmas table runner.  6" Fabric borders are added at each end.  It's going to be a great size 18.5" x 39".  

The pattern is "Split Log Cabin Table Runner" by Needle and Thread.  I made 24 green log courthouse steps-like blocks.  Then I turned them into a HST with light fabric squares.  

I didn't want to repeat blocks so I have enough HSTs to make one more.  Since I didn't follow the pattern (who me??) Next time I'll start with lights in the center.  You can choose your favorite.

This is a wonky 9 patch!!  The 9 patches are purposely off center with no lines  continuing from block to block "Wonky".  I found a baggie of the 24 blocks for $1 at a guild garage sale many moons ago.  I like it - it reads very modern!!  I have to find a splotchy fabric for a border.  It'll be another cute baby quilt!

So I'm home - DH is on a golf trip and I'm sitting here in front of the SuperBowl.  Not really paying attention to the game, but want to see the commercials!  It's very hard to "come to attention" when the commercials come on.  Goes against the grain!!  When do you head for the bathroom???

So far I like the talking yearbook ad the best. AND all the diversity / united together ads.  Hope they help!!

Making Quilt Kits

Lat weekend I went up to Portland, the weather was coooperating and Miss P had her first basketball game of the season.  I started at the crack of dawn and arrived just as the kids got out of school.  Our schedule was a moving target but we had fun.

First on the to-do list was to finish a special project that I was too sick to help with over the Christmas visit. (Thank goodness, that episode is over!)

We often make presents for their mom and dad.  One year we made "52 reasons we love you".  The kids dictated the reasons to me.  I wrote them down, printed them off and we all glued them to cards.  I punched holes in the cards and they connected them all by yarn ... I was there a week that visit and we just barely got it done!!  Pinterest is the best and worst place to research these "nifty gifties!"  If you love Pinterest - you know what I mean!!

This year Miss P saw some plaques made with Scrabble tiles.  My first thought, was "Good Grief, who taught this kid about Pinterest!"  Oh, never mind - it was me!

I didn't like the columns of letters next to each other because reading across was NOT words!  But I refined it with crossword puzzle assembly.  We were doing this all long distance!!  She'd send me a pin, I'd send back an idea ... great fun because there were snow days before Christmas and this helped!  It was all very hush-hush!

It was time to pick words.  There were names, hobbies, favorite teams, dogs ...
Miss P was picking things she's like to do!  Ice skating!!! No, we have to pick things that will remind you of all the times you did that, it's not a to-do list!!!

I had an old scrabble board, found and bought new scrabble tiles on Amazon.  You know, there are only 99 slightly oblong letter tiles in every game.  AND you can't spell much with them!  Especially names!  We have a lot (relatively speaking) "Y"s and "K"s in our family!  But not a lot of them in the games!

The kids were still coming up with ideas.  There are crossword puzzle makers online.  You put in the words, they come up with a layout.  I started with that. Longest word first when making these!  BUT sometimes the words were not placed as you would like.  So I got out the graph paper and started adjusting.

It's quite addicting! In the end we had 21 words.  We had to spell Lego with 2 "G"s to fit in "Gus" the new German Shepard!!  We figured it was worth it!

I got home Monday afternoon - tomorrow I go to retreat.  Yikes! What was I thinking? Two days to get ready for retreat??? AND I have to make soup for one of the meals??  So I've been oh-so-busy getting 'quilt kits' made to take with me.

Ideally, I would have Mary Poppin's carpet bag.  Any supply you need, any fabric from home, even any snack, photo, comfy pants ... just reach in and grab it!  But, it's not to be.  So you have to think "What will I be in the mood to work on??" and take 50 of your favorite choices!  Well, it is a 4 day retreat!!!  LOL!

I tried to add a picture of the scrabble project, but Photo Shop is not following my artistic ideas today!!  I need to blur out the proper names ... better look next time!

But here are some of the kits I'm making for baby quilts for retreat!

  

               Geometry                                               Log Cabin Table Runner

  

                 Rainbows                                     Redpepperquilts.com

Quilting Daze

Yes - we have a scrappy theme --- AGAIN!  I always have a scrappy theme!!