Retreat

I went on a retreat with the New Braunfels Area Quilt Guild.

It was at Summers Mills Retreat Center in Belton, TX.

Debbie and I traveled there together and it was so much fun to have someone else along with me.

The retreat committee gathered gift certificates for us and we stopped at two quilt shops on our way out of town. 

We stopped at the Honey Bee Quilt Shop in Austin, TX.

We stopped at Poppy Quilt N Sew in Georgetown, TX.

Our first night there we have time to pick out our own door prizes.

Then, I also bought some long arm rulers from Debbie.

This is my haul from all of those places.

It was so much fun.

There were 43 of us sewing in the center and we all got along, even with all the scare about the Corna Virus.

The first day there we could get into the sewing center at 1 pm and set up our stuff.

We checked into the cute room with a kitchenette and went back to sewing.

The food was provided by the committee and was BBQ with all the sides to it.

Very very good food.

We took the time to have a little ice breaker to get to know each other better and then back to sewing.

We had 3 meals a day and lots of snacks.

They were very accommodating about my allergies.

The first day I was working on Crumb piecing. 

I've never done this before, and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again.

My first color for the placemat was purple.

These are Easter (April) placemats for DD's apartment.

Next up was the yellow one.

I didn't get it all put together before the evening was over, but I finished it the next day.

Friday I worked on the orange and green placemats.

So, all 4 placemats needed some decoration.

Pam helped me out by drawing the lines for my specialty stitching.

I've only sewn on this machine once before and never saw how to get the stitches to work.

I learned at the retreat with the help of Debbie.

Each placemat received three lines of stitching on each line Pam drew.

I used alternate colors on the eggs.

You can really see it on the yellow. 

I think DD will enjoy them.

Next was time for one of my long term UFOs.

I was making batik lime green and blue 9 patches for a swap while at the BAB retreat in 2006.

A friend, Kim, told me she wanted a quilt made out of those colors, so when I got home, I made her a tiny 9 patch quilt and sent it to her.

Needless to say, I had leftovers to use.

I was making these little key rings trying to use up the leftovers and Charlotte said that the boutique could use them to sell.

I made 6 and donated them to the boutique.

I still have some leftover strips.

The ladies at the table suggested a pincushion.

Oh, that would work because I am in a pincushion swap.

I made 4 more of those little 9 patches and sewed them together into a pincushion.

The back was some of those strips sewn together.

I still had pieces leftover, so I made some longer pincushions with the remaining pieces.

It is all gone.

Two more pincushions ready to swap.

I picked out the orphan blocks I had brought with me.

It was time to make pillow covers.

I didn't like the brown by itself with this block, so I had some binding with me and used it to add a pop of color to the pillow cover.

The next one I had some blue fabric. I had trouble deciding how to quilt this one, so Debbie helped me with the design for quilting it.

I went back to the brown fabric and added a border of gold to this fan orphan block.

This goes with the first one well, so it could be a gift of two pillow covers.

Saturday was spent working on a Kitchen scarf for the boutique.

 I started to work on my blocks from the Biloxi retreat from January.

I had one fish that needed to be fixed, so I did that.

I added the corner triangles to let the fishes swim the way they needed to go.

Our table of friends was wonderful.

Everyone enjoyed each other and there was loads of laughter.

Apparently, during one time, I was laughing so much that some of the other retreaters were wondering if I had too much to drink.

When they asked Debbie how much wine I had, she had to tell them that I was not drinking.

The Corona Virus had us all wondering why people were so crazy, so there were some crazy jokes going around about toilet paper.

I'll leave it at that. 

:)

We had a little game that we played with charms.

I didn't win, but I had lots of fun.

I started to work on the second fishes blocks on Saturday.

I finished these up on Sunday 

I started to work on my Karen K Stone log cabins from the Biloxi retreat.

I didn't get them finished, but I am well on my way to having the first set done.

I'll be working on these from home.

Directly after brunch, we left for home.

We didn't stop anywhere on Sunday, so were home early afternoon.

It is so much fun seeing what everyone brings to retreat and how much some folks get done.

I felt like I was in slow motion, but I'm happy with my accomplishments.

This was a fun retreat without any drama.