Wedding Gift and Retreat

In mid June we had a lot of family here for my niece's wedding.  We had a great time and it was a busy several days.  I had wanted to make my niece and husband a quilt but struggled and struggled with what to make.  I had a couple of false starts with fabric pulls.  I looked in my cupboard of unquilted tops (about 45 of them now!) and found this block robin from.... oh dear .....  2003!!!!  Yes, it has been languishing in my stash unquilted for 14 years!  It wasn't quite big enough so I found fabrics in the same colors in my stash and added a piano key border and quilted it.  It was done with a few days to spare!  She LOVES it and so does her mother.  It was also fun to see her dad, my brother, all dressed up! I added a few closeups.  A lot of the blocks were hand appliqued.  The friend who made the center Santa on yellow background passed away many years ago and I lost contact with everyone else.

Santa block robin from 2003, finally finished!

This past weekend I went to a quilt retreat in Leavenworth, WA, a Bavarian inspired tourist town.  It's about a 5 1/2 hour drive and I left a day early and took a scenic tour through central Washington collecting rows for the Row by Row Experience.  I have done it the last two years and wasn't going to this year, but I caved and I found some wonderful shops in the middle of nowhere in very small towns.  I had booked a hotel in a neighboring town for the first night as the retreat started Thursday.

The retreat was held at Mrs. Anderson's Boarding House/Dee's Country Accents quilt shop. We rented the whole building and they take all the beds out of the largest room that is separate for our sewing area.  There were 13 of us from various places in Washington and then me, the only Idaho person!  My friends and I went to Leavenworth Quilt Company to pick up their row.  Thankfully we worked on them together as one of the kits had a larger chunk of background and two of us needed more.  Others didn't work on theirs yet.  It needs a few buttons for embellishment.  My friend Mary also blogged about it.

I took two machines with me, my Pfaff Grand quilter and my regular machine.  I machine quilted two throws and took pics on the deck outside my room with the gorgeous mountains in the background.  I still need to bind them both.

This quilt was made from leftovers from two twin size quilts I made (and still don't have quilted!).  I didn't have space to do large quilts but this size worked out.  This one is quilted with mostly allover swirls.

 This one is also made from leftovers from a larger quilt (that is also not quilted, are we seeing a theme yet?).  My friend Melissa helped me figure out just to do "pseudo" straight lines.  They look a while but I could go edge to edge easily!

closeup

I also made this new Barbados Bag by Pink Sand Designs.  I made one two years ago and it's worn out!  I had a hard time selecting fabrics from my stash, but I am a purple fanatic and this is what I chose.  I have had the prints for several years.  I love all the pockets on the bag and it is a cross body bag, which I love.  The hardware is really silver.  The photo was taken at retreat on someone's cutting mat!  I bought two fobs from the quilt shop for the zippers.

 I also worked on blocks for another quilt, but they aren't together yet.

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

New Sew Along and an Old Project

School starts next week so that will be the end of my summer vacation. Officially it ended today as I had an all district meeting to attend and tomorrow I have a day long math training.  Even though I am considered a paraprofessional, aka aide, I teach Kindergarten and First Grade.  Per district requirements we are adding all day Kindergarten and now my hours will be extended.  Not sure how that is going to work out as I am used to most afternoons off, so we shall see.

I spent two days last week cleaning and reorganizing my sewing room. I didn't have time for a full gut job of getting rid of stuff, although I did get rid of a few things and some "yucky" feeling fabric.  I need to sort through my vast collection of books as I know there are some I will never ever use.  I am working on the tree skirt I need to get done, overwhelmed by it's sheer size, but I am doing it in panels.  Hopefully I will have some of it to show by next week.

One project I found was in a pizza box and had belonged to one of my best friends who passed away in 2010.  I acquired a lot of her stuff including a sewing machine, quilts and fabric.  She had shown me this project on a visit and I knew her intention.  The blue and white print in the cornerstones belonged to her grandmother.  There was a chunk in the box for backing and it said General Fabrics.  The weave is nice but the feel of the fabric is coarse.  I looked at it during my clean out and thought wow, only three dimensional flowers need appliqued down and the strips were all cut for a piano key border.  So I did that.  There wasn't anything for flower centers, so I added some buttons I had on hand.  Now it's a 22" wallhanging ready for quilting!  

Deb's Flower Basket with Memories of Grandma

I joined another sew along.  In a post in March I mentioned purchasing Fabric for Tula Pink's Modern City Sampler.  A sew along started on the 17th and I thought wow, I can do this!  The blocks are being sewn in order and you can follow along on Instagram at #100blocks100days or check out the directions.  I am julie.huffman on Instagram.  Catchy I know!

First Six blocks from Modern City Sampler 100 blocks in 100 days SAL

I am in a small group swap of 6" 9 patch blocks with 6" friendship star blocks.  I made a few extra, but will be sending one of each block to the other swappers.  I have LOTS of Christmas scraps!

Check out other fun projects at Patchwork Times.