I am still feeling a little sleep deprived after two full and two half days of retreating earlier this week. Our bee + a few friends of the bee headed west to Danville, IL and set up shop in the big room at Threads of Time.
We had a great time sewing, chatting, eating, and shop hopping. We even went to a winery! I was really productive on this retreat and got several projects into finished tops and some others on the way. Here's the rundown:
On Sunday afternoon, we met at my mom's house, packed a ton of stuff into the cars, and headed out to Danville. With the time change, we arrived there just about the time we left Indiana! We were a little early to unpack and get set up in the retreat center, so we looked around the shop a while. After unloading the kitchen items, a small group of us went up the road about 10 minutes to a local winery. We had some samples and I brought home a couple bottles of wine.
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| Headed in to try some wine |
Sunday evening, I worked on a kit my mom brought me from Quilt Market last year - I didn't pay close enough attention to the instructions and mis-cut a few of the fabrics, but it still turned out okay. I finished the whole top on the first night! (It is only 10 1/2" square, but I still say it counts!)
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| Christmas kit - done on the first night! |
By Monday, I had the blocks together and then added borders for my Disappearing Four Patch quilt. This is a kit I bought in December and I am so happy to have the top together so soon after buying it! I have some charm squares left from the kit, so am planning to make a holiday season purse to use them up.
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| Holiday Disappearing 4-Patch |
While working on the prior two projects, I used some of Lois' 1 3/4" precut strips as leaders and enders and by Monday evening, I had another top together! I will add a few borders to this and quilt it to be a wheelchair donation quilt.
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| Tons and Tons of florals..and it doesn't even make a dent in the box of 1 3/4" strips! |
We also took a few hours out on Monday afternoon to go on a quilt shopping trip to Sew Sassy in Champaign. It was a nice shop with lots of great fabric. I added a few pieces to my stash and found a good piece for my Easy Street border.
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| Sassy quilters in front of the Sew Sassy wall of batiks |
Tuesday was to be my day to work on my paper piecing project. I decided to do a few other things first and wound up procrastinating on it until about 9 pm! I started by working on one of Lois' UFOs - it is a quilt made from a drawing that was on the front of a quilt shop newsletter. Lois figured out all the measurements and had made about 3 or 4 hearts. I passed the rest of the hearts out to my bee last year and they made them in the fabrics she had planned. I had to make a couple more hearts to finish up the top and the piano key borders, but I got that finished on Tuesday afternoon. I am really pleased with how bright and cheery it is and look forward to finishing it to pass on to her family. I didn't get a picture of it on my camera, but if you link to Karen's pictures below, you can see it. I will also share a picture when it is finished.
After that, I worked on hemming a shirt, made a headband, and then finally pulled out my paper piecing project, only to find that I hadn't printed all the needed sheets for it - UGH! I did get one section done - it doesn't look like much this way, but this will become a sun rising over a mountain.
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| Future Sun |
Wednesday morning we had a few hours to sew before we had to pack up and head home and I'd gotten as far as I could manage on my paper piecing project, so I pulled out Easy Street to put on the borders. Boy, borders on a big quilt are sure a challenge! It took me a couple hours to get them both on, but I was really happy to finish that before heading home.
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| Easy Street with borders |
If you want to see some more pictures of the retreat center, our group, and other people's projects, you can take a look at Karen's pictures. It was another successful retreat and a good time was had by all! We're looking forward to doing it again next spring!
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