Recovering from Retreat!

I'm back!! I just had the most fabulous 4 days retreating with the Utah Valley Quilt Guild in Park City. It almost turned into a longer retreat as we got socked in with a snowstorm! I loved it! There were 76 quilters . . . so amazingly talented with such diverse skills! I arrived the night before (Tuesday) and was able to get my area set up so I was ready to jump in first thing Wednesday morning. Good thing, as I set far too large an agenda for such a relatively short time (I know, I know, 4 days is really a long time, but not for the 12 projects I wanted to complete)!! 

Nevertheless, I'm so thrilled with what I accomplished. In ramping up before the retreat I had been prepping my pieced scrap border quilt strips so that I'd be ready to assemble the blocks. I actually had finished all but about 20 of the blocks before the retreat, so at the retreat I was able to finish that up, piece together the rows of alternating white and pieced blocks, and then finally sew it all together. My final goal was to baste the quilt before I returned home. I knew that I'd never get as good a baste as I could get on two tables pushed together (picture instead me at home: the quilt laid out on the carpeted floor, the dog hair flying through the air, with the dogs trying to lie down on the quilt top -- hopeless!). So, here she is! 

Now "all" I have to do is quilt and bind it, and I'll be done! My current idea (thanks Machelle!!) is to do concentric squares inside the squares. I do think that much spinning in circles on my little machine may drive me a bit dizzy, however!

While at the retreat, I also worked on the tablerunner for the swap. Here's the design I've come up with (again, with much help from the amazing women at my table!!). Thank you Sue, Vonda, Michelle, and Machelle! I was originally going to have the trees facing each other in the other direction (picture the shorter end of the table?), but Sue steered me in this direction instead, which I love!

 This is a closeup of one set of the trees. It was a bit of a monster to design the paper piecing pattern. Isn't it funny how simple it looks once it's done? I had to sew and unpick that tree on the left about 3 or 4 times because I first couldn't get the left line of the bottom of the big tree to align with the left line of the top of the tree, and then my tree trunk on the little tree on the left somehow ended up on the far left of the tree. Sigh. You know how some people wear little scissors around their neck when they're sewing? I think I need to wear my seam ripper instead!

There's lots more to tell about the retreat, so stay tuned for more in another post, but I'm oh so tired! Before I close up shop for the day, however, let me give a shout out to my retreat roomie, Sue. She was a great partner in crime, taught me so much, and kept me so entertained throughout the retreat! And hi to Robyn too! If you haven't yet, go check out her great blog. Look at what she can make!!