A good time was had by all

I returned home from knitting retreat just after noon today.   The facility was marvelous.  The food was great.  The company was exceptional.  I knit most of the time I was gone, except for Saturday afternoon when I finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch hand quilting on Emma's Quilt.

I was sure I would finish a pair of socks this weekend.  After all, one of the socks was finished on our trip.  at least 2" of the leg of the second sock was completed.  The socks are from DK weight yarn on #2 needles, which knits up much faster than the usual fingering yarn on #1 needles. 

By early Saturday afternoon I'd finished the gusset and was working on the foot.  It was then I decided I needed to try it on.  It was looking smaller than the other sock - I'd been thinking this for some time.  I figured my tension was just tighter.  Heaven knows why I never thought to try the sock on sooner, as it really looked small.  Needless to say, it was smaller than the other sock.  I couldn't even get my foot through the leg much less the heel onto my heel.  I imagine trying on my 6 year old granddaughter's socks would have looked similar. 

So I double and triple checked the pattern.  I always knit a size small, just making the foot longer.  Not so with the DK yarn and this pattern.  The first sock was a size medium, the second a size small.  No way to fix that except to rip it all out and start over.  At this point I took out the hand quilting while I was silently screaming in frustration.

After dinner, when I couldn't quilt anymore because I'd forgotten my ruler and marking tools for the border, I cast on the sock for the second time.  By the time I left this morning I was at the same point in the sock as I'd been before I ripped it out.  This time I'd tried it on to make sure it fit.  So  I should finish it sometime this week.   The other two knitting projects I'd taken along weren't even touched.

Some pictures from the weekend.

Group picture.  The Sister in the front is the director of the retreat center.

 

Shirley dancing with her newly finished shawl

We ate well

Everyone is hard at work

I'm already looking forward to November's retreat.

Quilt Camp

North Star Quilters - the little guild that I belong to - has held Quilt Camp early in November for four years now. The location isn't far away - about half an hour from our house - but it might as well be in another world. It's on the east fork of the Lewis River, and we can hear the river every time we step outside. There are wonderful woods all around the buildings that are filled with color this time of year. The camp was built in the 1950's and is similar to every other church camp I've ever been to - cabins, a lodge, a large dining hall, etc. We stay in the lodge in bunk beds which always takes me back to my childhood. This year and last we sewed in the dining hall so we had plenty of table space, a cosy area by the fireplace to do handwork, and meals on small tables at the opposite end of the room. This year's caterer prepared meals that were perfect for women - attractive, tasty, not too heavy with fats and sauces, and just the right amounts. She even made a traditional Mardi Gras King Cake for Saturday night's dessert. I can't think of a single thing that would have made for a better retreat.

This year's theme was Mardi Gras, and the committee went all out. Decorations were marvelous, goodie bags were full of delightful things, door prizes were great, and the company was fabulous. Time went all too quickly, in spite of the fact that I got WAY less sleep than usual because I stayed up so late each night sewing. We drew another string of Mardi Gras beads out of a jester's hat before every meal, which told us which table to sit at for that meal. I love the fact that they always do something similar at every retreat - that way we get to eat at least once with every other attendee. They also had a "fortune teller" - Madame Pascal (one of the guild member's daughters) tell our fortunes with Tarot cards, as well as a massage therapist giving chair massages for $1 a minute. That $20 was the best money I've spent in some time LOL!

My goal was to combine the two sets of PINS exchange blocks into a finished quilt top. It took until Friday midnight to accomplish that goal. I had cut WAY too many 1 1/2" strips but that was OK - I didn't want to run short. I just put the rest into the 1 1/2" strip drawer. Saturday I worked with a whole stack of 4 1/2" squares of reproductions that I found in a drawer when I was cleaning my island. I have no idea where they came from - they weren't pinked so it wasn't a fabric club. I can't remember anyone sending me a bunch of squares. I knew I'd not cut them because there were many I'd never seen before. I added the small number of 4 1/2" squares in my scrap box, and brought along all the shirtings left over from cutting the setting triangles for my president's quilt. I turned them into double four patches, which resulted in 108 seven inch blocks - enough for a twin size charity quilt. This used a bunch of scraps and stash as well as cleared out a plastic shoe box and island drawer. I couldn't be happier! I'll post a picture once the top is finished. That took most of Saturday. Saturday evening and Sunday morning I sat by the fire hand quilting - a perfect way to finish the weekend. I didn't win any door prizes - but a quilty weekend spent with great friends is priceless and makes everything worthwhile!

I'm constantly amazed at the creativity of each year's Quilt Camp committee. They work hard all year to make sure we have a wonderful time and received lots of neat little gifts - many handmade. This year a big thank you goes to Connie, Mary, Alana, and Gail. Well done ladies!

Friday news

I'm close to being ready to head out for retreat. Haven't even started packing clothes yet - that shouldn't take more than 10 minutes - but the sewing stuff is in the CRV. It's a good thing there is no one here that needs to ride with me - we'd be in big trouble! I always take my good sewing chair whenever possible - sitting for five days on a folding chair is not a good thing for this aging back! I still need to pack the laptop also - so far I can't find the case my daughter gave me to carry it in. Must be in a closet here somewhere!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time are familiar with the classes I'm taking with Eileen Trestain, and AQS certified quilt appraiser and fabric dating expert. Last night was our last mid-century Album class, which covered the period from 1830 to 1859. We received our last packet and the fabric for the final border of the quilt. There were several print pieces to choose from but none of them really thrilled me, so I choose to take 4 yards of the natural background and will do an appliqué border on my quilt. Eventually - this is going to be a very long term project.

We also had an introduction to the class that starts next month, which covers the Civil War and Centennial period of 1860-1879. Like the class that just finished, we will receive patterns for a sampler quilt, including twelve different layouts! Both appliqué and pieced blocks will be included. Eileen brought one of her antique quilts from the period from which she drew many of the designs. I just went nuts over this quilt - I have a feeling I will be doing something like this!

Notice the first of my 2008 goals listed on my sidebar? I've been doing great so far - but this week I took a huge nosedive into negative territory. I may not be able to recover this year - oh well. Why should this year be any different from the years before LOL! I've ordered a twenty yard bolt of Kona Cotton for my Dear Jane background, and I came home from Eileen's Tuesday class with a large sack full of fat quarters representing the 1880-1910 period. It wasn't until I washed them all, pressed them, and put them in a basket for retreat - along with a bunch of stuff from my stash - that I realized that I'd no idea how many yards I bought. So I just now dug out the sales slip. 38 fat quarters, which equals 9 1/2 yards. That's 29 1/2 yards bought this week, and now I'm going to be spending five days in the basement of my most favorite of all quilt shops. I already know there is going to be no hope of decreasing my stash this year - not unless I sew like a mad woman and don't stop to eat or sleep.

It is March 28th - where did March go? The weirdest thing is this - it is snowing outside! And it's actually sticking a bit! This is western Washington - where it rarely snows even in the winter! Weirder yet is that it's snowing at the ocean, with accumulations of 3-5 inches expected by evening. Talk out strange, mixed up weather!

OK - need to pack clothes and finish getting ready. Everybody have a great weekend. I'm going to try to post from the hotel using my laptop - if I can figure out how to do that.

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Gratitudes:

1. Quilt retreats

2. Safe travel home for my kids

3. Fascinating quilt classes

4. Marvelous quilt shops

5. Retreat snack foods!

Preparing for retreat

I think we all go through the same thing when packing for a retreat. Packing clothing is just an afterthought. The important thing is choosing which projects to take. It's important to take a little bit of everything so one has a project for whatever mood should strike. So far these are the things I've set out to take. I think this is probably enough, don't you?

1. My current hand quilting project - a Double Irish Chain from my teaching days of 1991-92

2. My current hand appliqué project - the mid-century Album Quilt

3. UFO - Heirloom Stitches - I need to piece and attach the inner sawtooth border and prep the outside appliqué borders

4. Scrap project - hourglass blocks

5. Current long term project - Civil War Diaries blocks

6. UFO - pre-1830's medallion - last two borders to do

7. New quilt history project - 1880-1910 random sampler - need to prewash some fabrics for this one

I was going to take my Rosewood Cottage BOM UFO as all it needed was one more large block and the borders. However, when I started prepping it yesterday I suddenly realized how little time it would take to finish it. So I worked on it yesterday and finished it today. It felt great to move it from the list of unfinished tops to the list of flimsies to quilt, bind and label. I thought this was a really old project - at least ten years old - but my UFO spreadsheet says it was started in 2002. I'm pretty sure that's wrong - unless that's when I started working on it. I know I had the monthly kits for 3-4 years before I started it. I love how it turned out!

I thought I had all day tomorrow as well as half of Friday for prep time, but Jeremy called about an hour ago and asked me if I'd like to come down and baby sit Sophie for a few hours tomorrow. They have a funeral to attend. Of course I said yes - I jumped at the chance! There's nothing better than time with a grand child that one doesn't have to share with anyone else!

So, I guess I'd better get those fabrics prewashed tonight!

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Gratitudes:

1. A nice glass of wine with dinner

2. Leftover Easter ham

3. 15% class discounts at the quilt shop!

Beach retreat - group pictures

Just got some new pics via email from my friend Sue. Much better than those I took! The first picture was taken Sunday morning just before leaving. Note the beautiful blue sky which was with us for a good deal of the weekend. From left to right: me, Liz, Lanny, Kathi, Peggy, Kim and Sue. We sure hated to leave when the weather was so beautiful. This was taken right in front of the house - didn't we have a marvelous view! That's Haystack Rock you see in the background - the landmark of Cannon Beach. Peggy's husband arrived early Sunday morning to pick her up as they were heading to a bridge retreat on the coast at Newport, so he consented to be our photographer. Thanks Al!

Sue took the second picture from the balcony on Saturday night. From left to right: Liz, me, Lanny, Peggy, Kathi, and Kim. We'd had a big lunch at a nice bayside restaurant in Wheeler, a little town a little over 20 miles south of Cannon Beach so we didn't want much dinner. (There is a very funky quilt shop there that we visited on Saturday.) We had pizza delivered Saturday night - yum! We sat around munching pizza - and lots of candy as you can see on the table - doing handwork, and watching episode after episode of HGTV's "Divine Design" that Kim had recorded and brought along.

Quilting retreats with good friends are simply the best!

Beach retreat

Our Tangled Threads group picked a great weekend for a beach retreat as far as the weather was concerned. Fog greeted us when we arrived on Thursday. We could tell from the sounds and smells that the ocean was right in front of the house, but all we could see was fog. Friday morning was cloudy but the fog was gone. I left for Vancouver after breakfast, driving through heavy showers, but the afternoon cleared up nicely for those still at the beach. Other than a thunder storm late Friday night the weather was beautiful the rest of the weekend. Lots of time for walking on the beach and around town.

We are guessing that the house was built in the 1960's. It would have been very modern for that time but is very dated today. The location made up for that, however. It had a great view as it is only about 100 feet from the beach. Only a couple blocks walk for morning coffee, and one block farther to get to the quilt shop. Good restaurants in walking distance too, and only a few blocks to downtown and all the shops.

I got very few pictures - once again because my camera kept acting up - hopefully the others will send me some good ones. I tried for a group picture, but it looks like we are standing in the middle of dense fog - you can hardly tell we are there! You might enjoy going to the website for the house and seeing the 360 degree pictures of both the beach views and the funky kitchen and great room. Here is the link.

I did have a great time - in spite of the fact that I did the almost two hour drive four times in four days. I arrived back at the beach about 8:30 on Saturday morning which gave me most of that day with my friends. All in all a great time was had by everyone!

Retreat report

Oh what a bad blogger I've been! I can't believe it's been another week since I posted. And I can't claim to have nothing to write about either. Maybe that's the problem - so much "life" has been happening that I've had very little computer time!

Last weekend's retreat was marvelous. Twenty-three of us had a great time sewing, chatting, laughing and eating together. This year we had a extra room - the camp dining room - which is in a separate building from the lodge. The light in that room was much better so all we did in the lodge was sleep - some a little more than others LOL! We reserved 2/3 of the dining room for the sewing tables and the other 1/3 for eating. Plus we had a nice semi-circle of chairs and a loveseat for us hand stitchers. I think everyone got a great deal accomplished, and as usual the retreat committee went all out on door prizes, table favors, decorations, and more. This time I didn't come home empty handed - I "won" enough tokens to bid the top bid on a "little quilts package" - a Jo Morton book, a bunch of fat quarters tied with a ribbon, and a tiny little iron. What fun! There was also a silent auction with hidden prizes - you took your chance bidding on these. $38 for a bookmark and a little rotary ruler sounds like a lot - until one remembers that the bidding is being done with "money tokens" earned during the weekend.

Friday night I stitched the binding and label on my Fireworks quilt. It was so good to be stitching again! That was one of my oldest UFO's. I finished it in time to sleep under it both Friday and Saturday night. Saturday I did some hand appliqué - finished a large block for the mid-century medallion quilt, and then hand quilted on another hand quilting project that I started years ago. This is a double Irish Chain that was also a class sample from the early 90's Daisy Kingdom class days. Years ago I quilted a fancy design in three of the white squares using a dark raspberry colored quilting thread, and then stopped. When I started working on it again on Saturday I quickly remembered why I'd stopped. The white is some of the first white-on-white fabric that was available, and feels like the design is painted onto the fabric. Not fun to quilt through! I stuck with it and quilted three more of the designs. Once I finish those I'll load it onto the longarm and machine stitch the rest of it. Hopefully I can get that UFO finished by early next year if not this year.

I also took along some stitchery - a few stamped dish towels and embroidery thread. As soon as I started the first one I knew it wasn't going to work. What was advertised in the catalog as a flour sack towel is more like a cheesecloth towel. I can see my hand through the fabric! Really irritates me as I bought a whole bunch of these towels but can't return them. Anyone know of a great place to order quality flour sack towels for embroidery?

Even the weather cooperated with us for the weekend. It rained on Friday during unloading but cleared up by evening and then was sunny for the rest of the weekend. The camp is in a beautiful setting on the Lewis River in southwest Washington, and there was still much color to be seen in all the leaves. It was so very hard to go home on Sunday afternoon! The last thing we did was pose for a group picture outside. Unfortunately the camp caretaker wasn't familiar enough with cameras and photography to know that he should zoom in on the group!

Retreat Projects

Note the portable design wall in the first picture. We all fell in love with it. It's supported by lightweight folding metal poles - the same kinds of folding poles that now come with tents. They slip into pockets on each edge of the flannel design wall, then clips hold the corners together. Super easy to put up and take down. By the time all of us had used it during the retreat we all knew we wanted one also. This is the 6'x6' model - it comes in small sizes also. Pam found it online at the designer's website - but Ardis found it on sale here on Eleanor Burns website. I told Fred about it and he's ordered me one for my Christmas present! I can set it up temporarily in the computer room as needed - no more reaching over the ironing board when I need a large design space!

Show and Tell at Retreat

Back from Retreat

I had a marvelous time at the PINS retreat - I always do. It was great to see so many of my PINS friends again. Especially those who've not made it to a retreat in the past year or two.

Jo was a great hostess, and everyone got a lot done. I worked on several projects and am pretty happy with my progress. Jo had tables and cutting and pressing stations spread through the house, so everyone took breaks from sewing to wander around and look at what everyone else was working on. Two new additions to our group were there - Cher from Marathon Quilter and Julie, a sister of Pam and Marcia from the wheat fields of Pomeroy Washington.

I finished the Happy Jack top, finished quilting the sashings on the Fireworks quilt, and sewed 35 string blocks for my next string top. I originally intended for this to be a Chinese Coins quilt, but decided I liked the looks of the strips sewn right next to each other. Gets rid of more strings that way! Unfortunately this didn't seem to make a dent in the box - I can't imagine how many more quilts are there in that box waiting to be born. I'm getting tired of working with strings, however, so after this top is finished I think I'll put them away for awhile.

We had a nice time on Saturday - visiting a couple quilt shops and having lunch out. Both were very lovely shops, and many of the gals found lots of buy. I couldn't believe it - I just wasn't in the mood to buy fabric! I bought a couple yards of a brown, gold and orange homespun to use for a quilt border, a couple quilting stencils, a couple packages of needles, a larger embroidery hoop than the one I have, and that was it. Less than $25! I was so proud of myself!

We ate well - Italian one night, Mexican the next, then lunch out on Saturday then a champagne brunch on Sunday morning. Homemade soup and sandwiches for dinner that night, then Applebee's the last evening. Lots of munchies at Jo's house, plus some marvelous huckleberry wine brought by the Pomeroy girls. Nobody even thought the word "diet" most of the time we were there LOL!

It was hard to come home and head back to work. My shoulder felt pretty good most of the time I was gone, but starting on Thursday it started hurting much worse. I'd increased the number of times I was doing my exercises and I think I might have overdone it. I intended to write this post on Thursday evening but went to bed before 8:00 p.m. instead. I couldn't believe it when I woke up Friday morning - I'd slept almost 12 hours. I did the same thing on
Friday night - lights out before 10:00 p.m. and then discovered it was almost 10:00 a.m. when I got up. Not sure what was going on there - obviously I needed to sleep. I'm not one to stay up sewing a lot at retreats - I got my 8 hours of sleep every night - so it wasn't that. I guess it was just my body's way of dealing with the increased pain. So very frustrating! I'd hoped to try my longarm this weekend but decided that probably wasn't a good idea. So I've been mostly sitting and reading and resting my shoulder.

Enough about that - no one wants to read about my ills. I've put pictures of my projects as well as some of the "quilting times"pictures in this post, and will do another with general retreat pictures.