Quilt Retreat

As you all know already, Thursday was my BIG 60th birthday.  

What you don't know is that it is also my annual retreat with 3 of my best friends.  

Every year for the last 3 years we have gotten together to celebrate my birthday 

(and my friend Cori's birthday, although that got forgotten this year, sorry Cori).  

She and I used to go out to dinner and then one year I suggested 

we make our own quilt retreat, so we did!  

I also invited my SIL, Mary and after the first year, my friend Traci.  

Traci is the only one that doesn't live in MI.  S

he flies in from Wisconsin.  

Traci arrived at the airport on Thursday.  

I picked her up and we went shopping at some quilt shops, at the grocery store and at JAF.  

THEN we got pedicures and then it was time to go home and pack up the car.

Here we are getting our toes done.

Much to no one's surprise mine are sparkly teal!

Next up was heading to the retreat.  

We arrived and got unpacked and settled in.  

I cannot believe the amount of food we brought for the 4 of us.  

Also movies, lots and lots of movies. 

 I forgot Bad Mom's Christmas, which they would not let me forget

I suggested that we make the Double Slice quilt.  It required one layer cake.  

Cori, Mary and I each made one.

I used some of my Vintage Sheets to make mine and made it a row longer.

Cori made one that used the blocks, cut yet again, into 2.5" pieces to make the borders

Mary's was the original pattern.  

Cori, that little over achiever, finished this quilt before making her Double Slice quilt top.

Cori had her needle come off and it stuck right in her fabric, still threaded!

Traci was helping the other 2 make an "easy" bag 

while I was working away on the infamous"Wedding Quilt". 

 Little did I realize how small the blocks for this pattern are.  

I had to make 670 blocks before I could even begin assembling the top. 

I sewed, and sewed and SEWED.  

This is about half of my trimmings.  

I can't even show you the blocks yet.  

I did manage to get all of the blocks made.  

I still need to trim the last 70 of them, but I thought I did pretty well!

 Cori made one more top too.  

They both finished their bags and Cori made a one hour basket.  

Traci finished her bag, and some other things. 

Mary also got started on some dresses for her grands, did some self binding blankets and 

finished her Winnie the Pooh top.

I made kabobs for our Friday night dinner and Cori brought the rice.  

We got to eat outside.  

It was so nice.

Mary brought her famous sugar cookies

(goodbye Ketosis for me)

Back to work for everyone.

Mary gave us all unicorn pinatas full of sewing notions.  Jack made a new friend.

Birthday gifts and cards were abundant.

Check out the science wine.

I even received a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  Delivered after I got home from my sweet SIL.

I'm pretty sure this was one of my best birthdays ever!  I'm hoping we can do this again next year.

Maybe the year each of them turns 60 it will be their turn to be showered with so much love.

Thank you my sweet, sweet friends for making this an amazing birthday.  

My sixties have begun with so much love, I hope the whole decade is the same.  

You guys are the BEST!

I miss you already

Is it February yet??

~XOP~

Some New Gadgets

I was talking with my friend, Cori, (Crazy Quilt Girl Fabric Shop) 

about some of the things I use all the time when I sew.  

I thought I would share a few of these things with you all.  

I will provide links to her shop if you are interested in purchasing them too.  

I do not receive any compensation for this, 

just her willingness to mail my packages and watch my cats when I go away = )

First up is the amazing Bloc Loc ruler.  

I have the HST rulers in several sizes but find that I use the 2.5" one the most.  

You may remember the Ocean Waves quilt where I am making a BAZILLION HST for each block?  

I would die a thousand deaths 

without the accuracy the Bloc Loc ruler provides me for trimming these units.  

It makes putting the block together 

SO. MUCH. EASIER. 

 Notice I did not say *easy*, just easier. 

 If you want to pick up a Bloc Loc ruler please click HERE.  

I can promise you that you will NOT be sorry!

I used the 3.5" size for the HST on the Chubby Chicks quilt.

Turning mat is also a very valuable tool.  

Use your coupon at JAF and get yourself one of these too!

Another thing that goes hand in hand with making HST is a Clearly Perfect.  

You may have heard me GUSH about these in the past but not understood what I was talking about. 

 I did a video to show you!  

Don't laugh, it's really difficult to sew and film at the same time!

You will have to go to You Tube to view the video as it was too large a file to upload to Blogger.

Click HERE to go to the video I made (you can hear my voice) of how to use the Clearly Perfect.

Please click over and watch it.

It just may change your quilting life forever!

It did mine.

If you want a Clearly Perfect you can click HERE and get one for yourself.  

I forgot to bring mine when I went on my last retreat and I cried!  

Unless your squares are gigantic, you will be able to make HST without drawing on lines.  

I always oversize mine and then use the Bloc Loc rulers to trim them to the correct size.

Next up is the Grabaroo gloves. 

I am in complete LOVE with these gloves and you will be too once you try a pair.  

They are not very expensive and they will give you a level of control that 

you will wonder how you ever lived without!  

They have little gripper things on the fingers.  

You can put them on either hand and there are grippers on BOTH sides.  

So no wrong way to put them on.  

BONUS

Of course the obvious thing to use them for is free motion quilting.  

They work GREAT for that.  

I hear you say, but I don't do FMQ.  

I feel you.  

I don't do it very much either, 

but when I do any quilting these help me move the quilt 

without the usual tension I seem to get in my hands and shoulders when I work.

Do you remember seeing these?

I dropped my feed dogs, put on my applique foot, and my Grabaroo gloves,

 then I free motion stitched around them.  

I call it scribble stitching.  

The control I had using the gloves made such a HUGE difference in my ability to control the lines and in the amount of time it took me to outline each bird.  

I got them all stitched around in one night, PAIN FREE!  

I have some tendonitis in my hands and I get super tense in my shoulders when I FM stitch.  

The gloves make a world of difference.  

My friend, Crazy Quilt Girl is now carrying these in her shop too!  

She has 3 sizes. 

 I think mine are the small (I have pretty small hands).  

You need a pair of these in your life.

  Click HERE to a link for the small, 

HERE for the Medium and 

HERE for the Large.  

She can get Extra Large if you need them just email her.  

If you are unsure of your size message her and ask!  

She is super helpful.  

You can also call her shop from 9am - 5pm EST at 1-866-807-3776. 

 Tell her Mama Spark sent you!

She just got the cutest Binding Babies in this week too.  

They are from Dohicky Designs and they are so cute!  

I am picking one up from her when I get home from vacation to try.  

I think I need the blonde one.  

She has multiple hair colors too.

I will do a review of these when I get mine and can give it a try.  

If you want to see them and order one they can be found by clicking HERE.  

She currently has them on her home page as they are new.

You can see how to use them in this You Tube tutorial by Dohicky Designs. 

 I can't wait to pick one up and give it a try.  

She currently has the large size in stock.  

OK, I guess this is enough information for one post!  

LOL

Sorry for such a long post but I have been wanting to talk about these for awhile now.

I hope you find these things (and my review) helpful.

If you have not checked out Crazy Quilt Girl Fabric Shop,

you are missing out!

Corina is the sweetest and her service is top notch.

She has super fast shipping too.

That crazy woman ships twice a day most days!!!

Enjoy your new tools and let me know if you have any questions.

I am happy to answer any questions or explain things further.

Please, leave your email in your comments.

I have had several comments lately and no way to answer as they are from no-reply people.

This makes me sad!

If you are ever wondering why I never write you back that's why!

Check the comments later and sometimes I reply back on those when I can't find your email.

OK, go forth and try new things!

~XOP~

Hanging With My Friends

I was able to go shopping with a few of my work friends last weekend.  

There is a BIG outlet mall a few hours away.  

So we loaded up our car and drove there, picking up another friend on the way. 

 The first stop was Bronners.  

A HUGE store full of Christmas ornaments and related items.

I snapped this outside of Bronners. 

 I bought some Santa headbands but no one wanted to wear them...YET

This was cool but too dark.

Here we were inside the shop.

Isn't this winter scene so cute?  I loved the light up trees.

There was a light up pond with Rudolph and Clarise on it too!!

 I have a Jim Shore nativity but this white version is so pretty!

My daughter does not put up a Christmas tree or this peacock tree topper would have come home with me!

 Next up was lunch at a famous place called Tonys. 

 Known for their gigantic portions of food. 

 Especially bacon!  

None of us got the bacon but a nice man let me snap this pic of his club sandwich.

After we were all fed we were off for some serious shopping. 

 Here are the four of us wearing our Santa headbands.  We had such a fun day shopping together!

This was the back of the car with all of our purchases!!!

Judith (in the red) was wanting to go so she borrowed my scarf and blindfolded our other friend to lead her out of the store!  

A fun time was had by all.  As we dropped off our one friend we all ended up back at our friend, Robin's house for a glass of wine and some chatter to talk about our trip.

I think we are going to make this an annual event.

~XOP~

Wedding Quilt For Amy and Grant

I am posting about a quilt I finished quite a long time ago.  

It has a long convoluted story but I am not going to go into that right now.  

Instead I am going to talk about how happy I was to be able to gift this quilt to a very special, young couple that got married last January.  

Amy has been a friend of my middle daughter's since they were both 5 years old.  

They were besties for many years and when they talk it's like things pick right up where they left off.  I think most of us have friends like that right? 

She spent so much time at our house she is like another daughter to us!

 Anyway, I designed this quilt for their wedding.  Without further ado I will just share the photos.

This quilt may look like some others but I assure you it was completely designed by me using EQ7.  Kathy Koch did the amazing quilting.

This is the quilt on their bed.

I love how the colors look in this photo here on the bed.

A quick shot of the label

The quilt was fairly large so I ended up having to piece the back.  I could not be happier with how amazing the back turned out!

Of course you can see Kathy's amazing quilting on the back too. 

Here is a photo of Amy and Grant from their wedding.  

(borrowed from Amy's FB page)

This is an oldie but a goodie of Amy and my daughter up north at Hardy Dam.

They both look so young to me here!  

I hope you have enjoyed the quilt and the story too.  

I am linking up to Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have a great weekend and happy sewing!

~XOP~