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!!

D-Day!

Oh, the bags are packed, and I'm ready to go . . . . And yet, these are just the sewing bags!! These don't include any of my clothes!!

I'm headed off this afternoon to Park City for my Utah Valley Quilt Guild Retreat. Wahoo! Here's to three and a half wonderful days of sewing, quilting, and camaraderie! Stay tuned! I will try to keep posting throughout!

Getting Ready for Retreat

Do you remember packing up for summer camp when you were a kid? The packing would begin with excitement weeks before departure day. Now, I'm not talking about packing clothes and necessities -- that, my mother would largely take care of (thanks Mom!). No, I'm talking about the fun stuff. The flashlight that had what seemed like 15 different flashing functions (as if I was going camping alongside the Alaskan Coast Guard station), the 32 snack assortments, the hot pink fan (yes, Ella, I know you would have wanted that one!), the walkman I had wanted forEVER, the Sweet Valley High novels (remember those?), etc.

I would pack and repack, add more things to the ever-burgeoning piles, try to cram the lid shut on the oh so nifty trunk we had purchased at the Army-Navy surplus store. I was so thrilled to be going to camp, and I think the packing represented my excitement for all the experiences I was going to have. If I just packed the right things, If I only had the right accoutrements, If only . . .  then the experience would be AMAZING!!

Well, here I am  . . . cough . . .  years later and not much has changed!! I'm heading to my retreat with the Utah Valley Quilt Guild in just a few days, and I feel that same sense of excitement! And yes, that same packing frenzy! My piles are continuing to grow. You'd think that I'm going on a month-long quilting cruise, rather than a 3 and a half day retreat! But to have a whole three and half days of sewing seems so wonderfully intense that I've set a rather rigorous agenda for myself, and one that just keeps growing by the minute (especially every time I read a new blog post and discover a new wonderful project I could add to my Christmas "to do" list!). And how horrible would it be to be stuck in Park City (gasp) only to discover that I'm missing some critical piece of fabric?! Egad! So of course I'm  planning on bringing what feels like half my stash.

So, this is my current plan of action as it stands now (see my prior post for some more detail on a few of these projects):

1) Pieced scrap border quilt (thank you red pepper quilts!): I've pieced all the blocks, so I "just" have to sew the blocks together, baste it, quilt it, and bind it.

2) Polka dot baby quilt: I've pieced the blocks, so again "just" have to sew, baste, quilt, and bind.

3) Denyse Schmidt quilts: I have a bunchload of DS blocks pieced, from which I have a few baby quilts' worth of sewing to do! (not a top priority)

3) Ruby & Camille Scrap Quilt: I have all the scraps cut for this, but need to paper piece the blocks.

4) Christmas tree skirt: I have the sketches for this and the fabric picked out, but that's about it!

5) Modern Christmas table runner swap: I have my sketch and my fabric picked out.

6) Ana White work apron: I have the fabric and the pattern.

7) Tote bag (Christmas present): Fabric and pattern: I've made a ton of these, so this is a quick sew

8) An unmentionable project (Christmas present for one of my readers!)

9) Dog bone quilt: Fabric and pattern (Christmas present)

Getting the picture?? I may be biting off quite a bit more than I can chew. This may not be just a shortcookie, but quite a large cookie!! Just take a look at my "to go" pile (so far)!

Gearing up!

I know, I know!! Two days of blogging in a row!

In a few weeks I'm headed to the Utah Valley Quilt Guild retreat in Park City. Yay! High altitude quilting! I'm starting to pull my projects together and I am, of course, planning to accomplish in 3.5 days way more than is humanly possible! 

We're doing a pin cushion exchange, and I tackled one this last week:

There are so many great, free tutorials out there that it took forever to decide what to do! I especially loved the ones that Darling Adventures' blog shared! I have no idea what the other retreat ladies are making, so I hope mine is good enough! 

We're also doing a secret sister exchange of goodies over the course of the retreat. There's a $2 limit per day, so I have to be creative. I'm trusting that they're not assigning me to Sue, my roomie, and since I don't know anyone else at the retreat (and seriously doubt they follow my wee blog!), I'm spilling the beans . . . In addition to a few fat quarters, I decided to make a few things. First, I made one of Keyka Lou's great little clutches. It fits a cell phone, a credit card or two, and some cash. These have become my go-to gifts of late.

I also made this mug rug with a paper pieced spool:

I used selvedges for the spool's "thread." Thankfully, my free motion quilting is continuing to improve! Now if I can just manage to figure out how to FMQ on a large quilt and not just tiny mug rugs!