Quilt Retreat Weekend

I went away for a quilt retreat this past weekend with my SIL and a good friend.  

It was about 2 hours away from home.  

We go every February and July. 

 It started out in July to celebrate my friends and my birthdays.  

Then we decided once a year was not enough so we planned a February one.  

I packed a lot of things but ended up workin on only one project.  

I make and trimmed SO MANY HST blocks!  

I spent all Thursday night and Friday sewing and trimming HST.  

I need to make 15 more blocks to have what I need for my Ocean Waves quilt.  

I brought one block so I would be able to lay them all out correctly before I sewed them.  

I got all 15 blocks worth of HST cut and trimmed to the correct size 

(Thank God for Block Lock rulers!)

Friday we took a break and went to Seven Sisters quilt shop.  

Always a fun trip!  

(I always look bald when I pull my hair back!)

I didn't take a lot of pictures as I was too busy sewing. 

I made some mistakes on Saturday so put the project down and went to bed.  

I got up on Sunday and fixed them, but that took me over 3 hours of ripping and resewing 

and ripping and resewing some more.  

I finally finished 7 of the 15 I need for this quilt.  

I guess they will go with me to the next retreat! 

 It is going to be pretty when it is finished.  

I am cutting into my hoarded, beloved, Neptune for some of the blocks too.  

I didn't have enough of the navy to make the whole thing out of that but 

I did cut up some of the navy and all the colors.

Cori finished 2 quilt tops for the veterans.

My SIL, Mary, finished this quilt top for her grandson, using the Double Slice pattern

She got all the applique fused to this llama quilt top but still needs to stitch around it all.

She cut all the flowers and letters on her Cricut.  

I love how they turned out.

That llama face is adorable!

She got much of the applique fused on this under the sea quilt for her grand daughter too.  

She still needs her fin and everyone needs their faces finished.

So I finished 7/15 OW blocks and they got much bigger projects finished.  

'm still happy about getting as much done as I did.  

It is so boring to sew the same thing over and over but I know the quilt will be amazing and 

it is going to go on my bed!

~XOP~

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~

Quilt Retreat

I went with some friends on a quilt retreat last weekend.  

My friend Cori (Crazy Quilt Girl Fabric Shop), my SIL Mary and two friends that I had not met IRL, Elaine and Pam (her aunt). 

 I had scheduled time at Creative Passions in Chesaning, MI.  

It was so much fun!  

We took a 5 person space (if you look at their website you can see which one we had, CP2B).  

It was located in an old church.  

We had one part and there is another part that holds 24 people but there was no one else there but us.  We brought LOTS of food and ate dinner in one night.

This was the creative space we all shared.  You can see Elaine hard at work!

Mary was working on an amazing Christmas quilt!

I decided to work on a Detroit sports quilt for my son.  

I did all the cutting on Friday for my quilt since I bought the sashing at the shop.

I had a different pattern in mind but when we got to the retreat, the owner had a version of this quilt hanging on the wall.  

The more I looked at hers the more I knew it would make a great sports quilt.

So I went online and found the pattern and thankfully they had a pdf that I could download.

On Friday we went to the Seven Sister's shop.  It is a great shop located in Carson City, MI.

We also went out to Miner's Fabric Shop, which is in a quaint Amish yard.  So cute!

I managed to get a photo of Pam as the Amish buggy was returning home!

We went out for dinner one night at a place by the river.  

Cori and I having a fun time!

We stopped at a super cute shop on Saturday that was not as far away as the first one.  

We had visited this shop previously but it had moved from Chesaning to St Charles.  

It is the Silver Thimble.  

I didn't take any pics of the shop but I did get a few photos of some cute things they had including this chair cover and that camper embroidery.

After sewing all morning and then most of the night. 

I had this much of the quilt together and just needed to put the borders on.  

I put the borders on Sunday morning. 

 I was so happy to have the top finished.  I ordered some 90" wide, gray minky for the backing.

In case you need to make one too, the pattern is called 

Ob-La-Di

by Abbey Lane

You can find it here.

Next up was to determine what else to work on. 

 I was going to bind the sports quilt in the black but decided that I wanted to see if I could cut out sashing for a second version of this quilt (non sports).  

I did not have the yardage the pattern required but thought I would try anyway.  

I managed to eek out the entire center part out of the yardage I had but not the borders. 

 Then it hit me.  

If I bound the sports quilt in something else I would have enough of the black for the borders of the second quilt!

Here is the sashing and borders all cut out for a second quilt!

I decided to make sports binding using all the team fabrics.  

In addition, I made bindings for 2 more quilts that are currently at the quilters so those are ready when the quilts come back.

Sprorts quilt

Priest's quilt

Fish quilt

I think it was a super productive weekend and I can't wait to do this again!

~XOP~

Sewing With Friends

A few times a year I get together with my friends Robin and Judith at Robin's home to sew.  

We have been choosing a project and then spend the day working on it. 

 Last time it was a wedding quilt for a co-worker.  

This time they decided they wanted me to show them how to make oven mitts.  

I have been using this online tutorial to make the once I have done in the past. 

 So they printed this out and selected their fabric and we all met at Robin's house on Saturday.

  I see Skip To My Lou has a new tutorial out also for a little bit different oven mitt pattern 

and that one can be found here.  

First up was choosing my own fabrics. 

 I selected this fun fish fabric by Michael Miller for the outside of one set of mitts.

  I used fabric from The Lovely Hunt by Lizzy House to make the bias binding.

For my other set I chose these math themed prints with a mint bias binding.  

My middle daughter has chosen these colors for her kitchen (and her BF is an architect).  

Of course my helper had to check things out!

I love this math fabric!

I decided to do "wavy" quilting on the fish mitts.  

I really like how it came out and it was super easy! 

 I enlarged a stitch on my machine and it did the waves for me. 

First set of mitts completed!

Robin and Judith and I were on the screened in porch.  

Robin had a station set up for each of us. 

 This was later in the day.  

We stopped for lunch during the thunderstorm and this was when we got back to it.

Here are my four mitts finished.

From left to right.  Robin made the gold ones for part of a wedding gift.  

The couple chose Kate Spade gold dots on white for the dishes.  

The 2 fish mitts are mine.  

The French Provincial is Judith's and the math ones are mine.  

We had a fabulous time sewing and gabbing and eating.  I am excited for our next little retreat!

What were you up to this weekend?

~XOP~