A Great Retreat

I was very fortunate to be able to attend another Quilter's Retreat last weekend and I had a great time. I was able to spend three days with two of my sisters, 3 friends from Atlanta (neighboring town) and my sewing machine. We did lots of laughing, chatting, sewing and sharing. And all of us managed to get quite a bit of sewing done.

This was my work station and where I spent many, many hours.

I finished putting together this quilt top at the retreat. Actually this was the 3rd retreat for this quilt. It is the final project from the Prairie Women's Circle I was involved in last year. I really had fun working on it. All of the bow ties are scrappy. I love the color blue and most of my quilts have blue in them. I decided that I wanted to do a project and challenge myself to not include any blue. I am very happy with the way ot turned out.

My sisters Connie and Carol are very intent in their projects.

Sue and Sue are working on projects. I wonder where Mary is? Maybe making dinner. The retreat was held at a Quilt Shop and I know I told myself that I had to use some restraint until I could get some stuff used up here. Well ...... the Quilt Shop had a sale corner of $3 per yard fabric. Who can resist that? Not me, I bought 1 yard of fabric just because and 6 yards of fabric for a backing. I also bought a cute pattern and a cute pin cusion/thread catcher. I have one that I made many years ago but forgot to take it with me. So I guess I didn't do toooooooo bad. Before our retreat was over we talked about when we can get together to do another retreat. I have to admit that I was pooped when I got home. I think I am finally caught up on my rest.

I am a very lucky quilter!

I am a very lucky quilter and also spoiled by my husband. I am on my way to another Quilter's Retreat first thing tomorrow morning. This retreat is held at a Quilt Shop about an hour from home. Guild friends who have retreated there before invited 2 of my sister and I to join them this weekend. I am really looking forward to going and I totally appreciate my husbands support. I got most of my packing done yesterday and am taking the bow tie blocks and the honey bee blocks that I started awhile ago. I took both of them to the camp last week but ran out of fabric to finish them. Hopefully I can make some progress on both of them. I also threw in a bag of squares that I have accumulated and started making 9 patch block just in case I need another project. And I think I will throw in some yarn in case I need to take a break from the sewing machine. Now comes the challenge - I will be sleeping and spending 3 days at a Quilt Shop. And remember my issues of not buying anything until I get some things finished up? What is a girl to do? I will make my confession when I get home!!!!!

A New Adventure

I have been a member of the Michigan Quilt Network for several years. Last year I was the secretary for our region. For several years I had a desire to get involved on the state level but it just was out of reach with working two or more jobs. Now I am working just one job and keeping busy with it but when the opportunity came last fall to run for a seat on the board I decided it was just as good a time as any. I was elected to the board last October and we had a short meeting after the retreat. This past weekend was the first quarterly meeting for 2012. We gathered at the Days Inn in Grayling on Friday afternoon. After dinner we met for a couple of hours to discuss the retreat to be held in October. I am a member of the retreat committee and am in charge of instructors. Our meeting continued on Saturday morning and ended around noon. I had no idea what all was involved in running a state wide organization. I had a real eye opener and I have to tell you that by the time we left my head was spinning. I really enjoyed meeting the other board members and I look forward to getting to know all of them and working together for the Michigan Quilt Network. This pictures shows all of the board members except one who wasn't able to attend the meeting. The quilt is the raffle quilt that will be raffled at the retreat in October for a fundraiser. I will have tickets if anyone is interested. The pattern is Dresdan Stars by Edyta Sitar.

Some Random Pictures

Our desk top computer was "out of order" then in the "fix it" shop for a week. We now have it back and it seems to be working very well. I was able to use the lap top but didn't want to deal with posting pictures from the lap top. These are just some random pictures.

This is the only Arnold Line boat running between St. Ignace and Mackinac Island right now. Steve and I rode the boat over to the Island on December 14 to attend Allie's first school Christmas program. Her pre-school class sang "Hark the Herald" and they did a great job. All of the school kids on the Island participated in the program and we really enjoyed it. We were able to make a second trip over a couple of weekends ago. The boat is still running as of today but as the temperatures stay cold and the ice forms the boat will be shut down before too long.

Allie, our 4 year old grand daughter loves to put on plays and dances. She is quite a performer and as you can see she is also quite a "ham".

The kids bought me a docking station for my I-Pod. I won this I-Pod at a conference along with an I-Tunes gift card in June of 2010. In December Rachel came over and showed me how to down load songs. She helped me download 5 songs and I have worked with it and now have 13 songs down loaded. The docking station changes colors and works perfect in my sewing room.

When we celebrated Christmas at my parents house (41 of the 43 family members were in attendance) a sister and my brother hired a friend to bring out his team of horses and wagon. Quite a few of us went for a wagon ride. It was very cold that day, alth0ugh there wasn't any snow to speak of. We had lots of blankets and did some snuggling.

Both Steve and I love Christmas and we love to decorate. This year we did a little bit different with our decorating as we have four 1 year old grandsons right now. The nativity set was set up high and the Christmas village stayed in the boxes this year. We always keep our tree up as long as possible and we just took it down last Sunday. We would have left it up longer but it was that day or some time in February.

Just a little update

Still using the lap top so I don't have any pictures to share yet. I finished machine quilting the first UFO last week and even have the binding finished. I found out that it was a Guild project from 2010 so I will get a label made for it. I have been machine quilting a second UFO and have that about 3/4's done. Last night I started hand quilting on a Raggedy Annie hand embroidered BOM from last year. Yesterday several of us met at the LQS for a day of sewing. I am working on some scrappy blocks with my featherweight and got a couple more done. It is a slow project as I am using it as a travel project. Darned work is getting in the way today. I have to take a break from sewing and go to the office. I need to get all of the W-2's and 1099's printed up and mailed up. And I received notification that the absent voter ballots for the Presidential Primary are supposed to be here this week so that will keep me busy too. And I have a meeting tonight but I am hoping for an hour or so at my machine sometime today. Oh wait, I have some home work to get done for a class I am teaching at Guild next week.

Still Alive and Doing Some Quilting

Well, we survived the beautiful Christmas holiday season and a nasty bug that seemed to go through most of our family. Some how even our desk top computer was affected. We have been using our lap top for a couple of weeks now and I sure miss the desk top. Our computer repair guy has been very busy becoming a daddy for the first time, congratulations Brian! I have managed to get some sewing done and will share pictures once we get our computer back. I managed to get myself caught up on the Wildflower Rhapsody Block of the Month. Yesterday while at the Quilt Shop I picked up the December and January blocks and was happy to learn that I just have one more month to go. This BOM has been a bit different than any I have ever done. Not only do you get the blocks each month but you also get additional components of the quilt. It is a very beautiful quilt and thanks to Sandy D's Quilt Shop all of the block pieces are pre-cut. During the New Years weekend Idid some major cleaning and organizing in my sewing room, moving some storage shelving and throwing out some stuff that I haver no intenton of using. I am also going through a huge pile of magazines and sharing the ones that I will never use. One thing that I learned in the process is that I do not need to purchase any fabric, patterns, magazines, books, gidgets, gadgets or kits for at least ten years. And I definitely do not need to start any new projects for a very long time. Ya right, I went to my LQS yesterday and started a new BOM quilt with some family members and friends. But I am serious, I need to finish up some projects before starting anything new. I found a really cute panel that was sandwiched and waiting to be hand quilted. I finished quilting it this week (it is small) and am anxious to get the binding on it. I can't remember that last time I did any hand quilting. And I have a UFO on my sewing machine that I started quilting yesterday. Once that one is done I have another one ready to go. I love this time of year when there isn't much to do outside and I can do lots of sewing. How about you?