Better late than never, right? I love retreats but they always wear me out. I don't sleep well in a strange bed and after two nights, it usually shows. As I mentioned in my last post - I forgot my camera!
If the camera had been around I would have taken pictures of our meals - yummy! First, I should tell you where we were. We went to the
St. Louis Star Inn owned by designer
Toby Lischko. It is a great house with quilts everywhere. Her studio is big, but no too big, and has lots of windows.
Toby cooked all the meals - she obviously does
not own one of these aprons that hangs in my kitchen.
With several of our meals there were FQs under our napkins! Quilty friend Joyce gave me a couple of hers, too! I found a new book that Joyce might like....
Toby was also doing some de-stashing. I picked up some Valdani thread, an orphan block, a few strips of fabric, larger pieces of Civil War fabrics, and some scraps of Christmas fabric that I used in the setting kit of my Be Merry BOM, which is now ready to be put together [yeah, in between all this quilting that's on my list ;-)].
If you missed my last post, here's the top that I cut Friday evening and completed on Saturday. It's a retirement gift for my former boss, who is an archivist, and an aging hippie. It's based on the
Spinning coins tutorial at Quilt Story. As soon as I saw it I knew it would work with a gray background, which is the color that my boss painted every room in his first house.
I had no real plans to do anything special with the backing until I saw
Etchings by 3 Sisters for Moda. As soon as I saw these 3 prints, I knew I had to use them on this quilt. He will probably use the back more than the front - I would, it's an archivist thing - LOL!
Monday morning, after retreat,
Lesley of Sew Happy Me emailed that I was the winner of her latest giveaway sponsored by the
Fat Quarter Shop! A gift certificate to the FQS and 2 of her adorable patterns: a
lovely stitched pillow and a
wine waiter. You know how I love little projects! How is that for timing?!
Lesley is currently doing a Christmas stitch along - the blocks are adorable. She leaves them up for a week - here is
block 4.
Sew, 1 yard each of the 3 "must have" prints arrived Friday from the FQS - I ordered them on Wednesday afternoon (
how is that for service?). I like the whole line so I threw in a couple half yard cuts for me, Just love the reds and couldn't leave the paisley behind.
The architectural drawings look just like the turn of the century drawings that I worked with in my other life - that my former boss hired me to care for. The Paris map is amazing, too. The detail is fantastic and legible, just like going to the archives. Now all I have to do is get it together and quilt it by next month.
Quilty friend Charla brought me some polka dot fabrics to use in my hexies. This time, however, I restrained myself. I only cut a few strips and a charm from each fabric. Aren't they pretty? I may have to sew one up this week.
Speaking of hexies. Here's one I did this week. I completed two more for the Inchy Hexagon Swap and they are currently en route to Australia. I'll show you those after they reach their destination.
I finally started on my last two blocks for the
Clover & Violet QAL. At retreat I put the final strips on the blocks to make them 17.5" squares.
I did get in some quilting but I didn't get anything finished. Now for the hard part - figuring all these additional numbers and seeing my "added" column increase some more. It's not over....but that's for next week.
Used this Week: 0
Used year to Date: 49.42
Added this Week: 4 + 2 = 6
Added Year to Date: 106.82
Net Used for 2011: -57.4
