It's Been a Minute

 I am so sorry it's been so long. 

 Life seems to be moving at warp speed these days. 

 Theo girl is already 7 months old.  

She is crusing around the furniture and I don't think it will be long before we have an independent walker, oh my!

Avery is almost three and a half already.

Learning his letters and we are having a lot of fun together.

My health.

I went home to MI in Feb for a quilt retreat but also for doctor appointments.

Mammogram was normal.

Oncology visit was normal.

Learned my oncologist is also a quilter.

I think we spent more time talking quilting after my check up was done than during the appointment!

She is awesome.

Quilt retreat was up next.

Met up with my SIL, my friend Kailie and my other friend Cori.

It was a much needed respite from childcare duties.

I had made this ghost pillow to go with the book,

the Patchwork Quilt that was a Ghost.

I stuffed him and closed him up at retreat.

I have a second one waiting to stuff and close at home.

Kailie taught me how to make a Hamingway pouch.

I am now OBSESSED with them.

I made this one for my kindle

I used 2 of my favorite Tilda fabrics.

Next up were some advent calendars.

I made this exact one for Avery and he loves his "mail pockets" so much

 one of his friends asked for one too

I made 2 of these.  

One for his friend and one for a dear friend of the family.

She had twin girls and has another daughter, and recently they just had a son.

This is the back of the one for Avery's friend

And this is the back of the one for our friends kids

Realizing that perhaps it might be too much to expect 4 kids to share one,

I made a second one for them.

Isn't this house the cutest?

This is the back of the house one.

The directions tell you how to add the pockets but not really how to finish it.

I quilted all three, and added the tabs then bound them.

They came out pretty cute, I think.

Can't wait to mail these off next fall.

Another quilt on the "to do" list was this Minnie mouse quilt.

I needed to bind it so I could gift it.

I managed to get it bound while at retreat.

Will have to gift when I get home in the fall.

I used a white minky on the back.

Here we are on our last day together.

I sure do miss these ladies!

Seems like all this just happened yet it was a whole month ago already!

I have more quilty things to catch you up on.

I will be posting over the next few days to catch up.

Hope you all have been well!

~XOP~

Quick Quilt Retreat

I headed out last Thursday with my SIL, to a quilt retreat in Chesaning, MI. 
 The retreat was at Creative Passions.  

We were in the basement of the big green house.

  We love retreating there.  

Our friend, Cori was not able to join us this year though and we really missed her!  

Mary and I spread out our "stuff" and that was nice too.
You can see my set up on the right. 

 Hers on the left and the gigantic pile of fabric.

I was working on my Ocean Wave blocks. 

 I started these several years ago now. 

 I even cut into my precious Neptune fabric! 

 I thought I had everything I needed to finish up the 8 blocks but alas, I did not. 

 I was missing the white squares for the final 3 blocks.  

Since it was an OOP fabric I had to wait until I got home to be able to cut more. 

 I guess these will be coming with me to NC!

 I did finish the five I had fabric for though.

I brought some old bee blocks I found when cleaning recently.

They were all made from vintage sheets.

I got that top put together.

I joined up with my local LQS during the pandemic to do their block of the week.

I kept up for half of the year then we left for NC.  

I brought the rest of the patterns and fabric to make the rest of the blocks with me.

I finished all 52 blocks!!!  They were super time consuming since they are 8" blocks.

We stayed in for our food and ate what we brought for most of our meals.

This allowed us to continue to sew.  

We got up early and stayed up late.

The one break we did take was to go to the quilt shop.

That always takes a bit of time as Seven Sisters is a little ways away.

We had a great time and got quite a bit finished.

I am leaving on Thursday for NC for 3 months.

Just packed up some projects and we shall see what I get done.

Will be playing with my grandson so not sure.

We will be meeting up with our friend, Kailie at the campground.

She is a quilter and we like to sew together.

Looking forward to all of it.

(Especially seeing GS and getting into warmer weather)

~XOP~

Rejects Retreat

 Oh My GOSH!!!!! 

 I used to go to a quilt retreat in California.

  I had awesome roommates.  

Things changed and we are no longer going to that retreat.  

So, we decided that we all still needed to get together and do a retreat, just the 5 of us. 

 We had it all planned for last year and then...COVID.  

So this year we tried again. 

 This was me getting ready to leave Detroit.

One of the women who lives in Kansas City, MO set it up for us at the KC Maker Studio retreat space.  It was the BOMB!  

I flew out to KC and our friend picked us up at the airport. 

 First place she took us was to the Fabric Chicks quilt shop.

  What a great shop!

We went to her home and met her dogs and her hubby and saw her amazing garden, 

then headed out to the retreat house. 

 Isn't it gorgeous? 

There were 3 floors and the sewing space. 

 Bedrooms were on floor 2 and 3. 

 My roommate and I stayed on the third floor and 

the other 3 stayed in 2 of the bedrooms on the second floor.

This was our sewing space.  The tables were fantastic and very sturdy. 

 We each had 2 tables and lots of lights! 

 I used the little machine you see in the bottom right. 

 Paula lent it to me.  

A little Tula Pink machine!!

Isn't it the cutest?
 

Directly behind me was the hallway leading to the restroom. 

 There was a fridge there and a coffee maker, microwave and snacks. 

 Also a big counter and another ironing station (there were 3 total for the  sewing space).

On the other side of the room was another little room just for cutting.  

There were 2 cutting tables with large mats and lots of lights in this room 

as well as another counter to set things on.

The house was great, the hosts were the best (they live there, Patti and Dana) 

and the sewing space was to die for!  

There was also a tv so we could watch movies while we were sewing. 
This is Mel and me at the studio.  

Patti just opened a quilt shop 5 weeks before we arrived.  

The space was pretty big and she had a lot of great fabrics!  

I have more to share but this is getting long so more soon!

~XOP~

Quilt Retreat Weekend!!

 On Thursday, I picked up my friend, Traci, from the airport and we headed north to a quilt retreat.  
Our friend, Cori met us at my house and we followed her to Chesaning and had dinner together.  

Then we headed to the retreat house and my SIL, Mary met us there.  

The four of us had not been together for 2 years! 

 It was so great to hang out. 

 We ate, laughed, sewed, watched movies, shopped and had some adult beverages. 

 We stayed up WAY too late! 

 It was so much fun!!  

I saw some amazing double coneflowers. 

 I wish I could have collected up some seeds.  

These were beautiful!

I spent most of the weekend working on my Prissy Pumpkins quilt. 

 I can't show the top just yet but it is adorable and you are SO  need the pattern. 

 It took me Thursday, Friday and Saturday to get it finished. 

 The quilt top is 80" square so it is a big quilt!  

On Sunday I decided that I wanted to try to put my Dorothy's Journey quilt top together. 

 I used the Nightingale pattern and the fabric is called Dorothy's Journey. 

 It is by Jill Howarth for Riley Blake. 
The background color us an Andover fabric. 

 I just managed to get it done before it was time to pack up to head home. 

 I had all the blocks made I just needed to assemble it. 

 I'm really happy that I have these 2 tops finished. 

This one is for a yet to be born baby.

I have a plan to use the panel for the back, so will have to piece it.

I had one left over block so will make a pillow with the leftover block.

 One more pattern test to go but I need a break from sewing right now.

Of course I brought Jack along.  He was exhausted and ready to head home too!

We are heading out to camp for a few days.

I am leaving my machine home and bringing some hand work and some books!

I did get my stitches out today and the scars look pretty good!

~XOP~

Quilt Retreat

Jack and I got all packed up for our "Up North" retreat.

He was pretty excited to go even thought it was just going to be me and my SIL.

I did not take many pictures this time though

We went to Seven Sisters quilt shop and I fell in love with this pixilated map of Michigan

I bought the pattern.

I am hoping to make this for our camper.

This weekend we called the Baby Edition of our quilt retreat.

We mostly worked on baby things for my daughter and Mary's grandchildren.

I did make one crib sheet.  I have fabric for 2 more.

Do you remember all those paper pieced letters and numbers I was making?  

Well I am using them to make a baby's Milestone Mat for GB1.  

I don't want to show you the entire mat as I want it to be a surprise for my daughter at her shower next month, but here is a sneak peek.  

The mat is my own design but the letters, and numbers are from other designers 

(at Quiet Play and From Blank Pages).

I also finished sewing the lines and cutting them on a chenille blanket.  

Also, not going to show it until it is gifted next month.  

I used the Tula Pink all stars blue and green owls for the back.  It is SO adorable!

It was my birthday on Saturday (yes 7/11), I'm so lucky, LOL.  

We got all crazy and did a few snap chat pics together.

We got so busy we never even made it out for dinner either night and stayed up WAY too late!

We had a bridal shower to attend on Sunday for a niece so had to leave early.  

Which was a bummer but the shower was great!

My eldest daughter gave me the coolest gift.  It is a hand painted peacock egg (from one of her birds).

The scene is from my favorite childhood (and adult) places to go.  

We went there every weekend from April 15-October 15 from the time I was born 

until I left home for college. 

 I love Hardy Dam!  

Such fond memories of growing up on the water.  

Met my best childhood friend there.  

Got my first visit from Aunt Flo there.  

Fell in love for the for the first time there (one of many, LOL). 

 Learned all about nature there.  

Many of my best memories occurred there.  

I instilled that same love for HD in my kids but I think especially in this daughter.  

I think some of their favorite childhood memories included Hardy Dam too even though they didn't go nearly as much as I did.

As you can see there is a string to hand it.  

I need to find a small thing to hand it from.  I knew immediately what the scene was.  

I was quietly looking at it and she said, excitedly, "It's Hardy Dam!"  

I said, "I know!"  

I don't think she thought I knew where it was.  

I knew immediately.

This is a very cherished gift, so thoughtful on her part.  

~XOP~