Quilt Retreat Part 2

Meet my new friends:
   
Kathy spent most of her time making a jean quilt.
  

  

It was huge!

  

  

Gail also spent time working on a jean quilt and a postage stamp quilt. Hard to believe that I did not get pictures of her projects. I apologize for that.

  

Becky made a beautiful table runner. 
  

I'm so glad that she ignored the pattern when it said to make the runner shorter.
  

  
Leona was working on a holiday project.
  

I think she called the red part of the second star shadowing. I loved the effect!

It was pretty detailed work.

Betsy worked on a number of projects.

Aren't these mats pretty?

And the wool pumpkins were adorable.

Saundra was working on a large square quilt.

It is gorgeous with very precise piecing.

Now check on my 'old friends":

Barb and Sandy each worked on a few different projects.

I only got a picture of Barb's pumpkins in the early stages. They looked so cute with the hand-stitching and the quilting when she finished them.

I'm not sure how many projects Sandy finished or almost finished. She was really busy and seemed to do many things. This is a small tree hanging. Really nice!

Krista had machine problems but she still managed to get some things done.

We all loved her small quilt. 

Of course, I was there. 

I pieced a very simple quilt to practice my free-motion quilting on one of these days.

The rest of the time I spent paper-piecing. Each of these pieces is 3" square.

Oh, it was a fun time. We laughed, we sewed, we ate, we shared stories, and we all look forward to doing it again next spring! I am blessed to have been a part of this wonderful group.

Quilt Retreat at LOMC

I just spent the last three days quilting at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Center, Oregon, Illinois. What a wonderful place for a retreat! And I got to spent the time with some wonderful new friends as well as three 'old' ones! Lucky 2B Quilting organized the retreat for us.


The group:

We stayed at the Dody House:

I didn't get a picture of the front of the Dody House - guess I was too busy having fun!

Above and below are photos of our common living space.

We quilted and ate at Hawkins Hospitality Center:

What a beautiful, spacious facility.

This is just inside the entrance:

A photo of our sewing space. We each had our own large table, plenty of room and lots of natural light (during the day)! It was so nice!

Turning 90 degrees, you can see the dining area. Yes those are table cloths and cloth napkins that you see over there!

The next post will have more photos of the people and some of the projects...

Christmas Tree Skirt - done!

I bought a pattern for a Christmas tree skirt at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo a year ago. I purchased the fabric while we were traveling further north, began cutting pieces when we got home, and then life got in the way. One day about three months ago, I wondered out loud what project I should be working on and Ray suggested the tree skirt. 

  

All of the pieces are machine-appliqued onto a black background.

  

Then each wedge is machine quilted - yes, I had to learn something about free-motion quilting to finish this! I'm not very good at it yet! I'll always love hand-quilting - no surprise!
  

  
The pattern instructions aren't the best. If I were to make this again (which I'm not going to do!), it would be so much better! Oh, the wedges are about 24" long so the skirt is about 4' 6" in diameter. And Ray loves it!

A couple of short trips and an exciting night!

October 9-11 we were in Champaign because Ray had a meeting. We had a wonderful meal at The Ribeye, I'd definitely recommend that place! 


October 15 we were at Buck's Barn in Thomson at the Northwest Illinois Sports Hall of Fame dinner. It was exciting to be reunited with the 1999 Warren High School Volleyball team that went to the State. The team was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Ray was an assistant coach.

I think four girls were missing. This is quite an accomplished  group of young women!


October 17-19 we were in LaCrosse. We were celebrating my birthday and  also working on my traveling (I'm doing better.) We stayed at the Stoney Creek Inn and our king room was upgraded to this - a king with a bunk bed and a sofa bed! 

We stopped at quilt shops! No surprise! 

The White Rose Quilt & Stitch in Dodgeville was nice. It is also a florist shop and had neat little gifts. 

Quilt Basket N Creations in Viroqua is a wonderful shop with a nice variety of fabrics. The ladies are very friendly and helpful. 

Olive Juice Quilts in Onalaska was a pleasant surprise! This used to be called A Stitch In Time and was undergoing some renovation the last time we were there. The addition is done and the place is VERY nice. Their classroom is incredible. The shop is spacious now and the staff very friendly and helpful. 

On Tuesday we stopped at the River Road Quilt Shop in LaCrosse. This neat little shop is also a flag and gift shop with a great staff. 

Today on the way home we stopped in Prairie du Chein. Front Porch Quilts is only open Thursday - Sunday. The Pickett Fence was open and the ladies were really nice and helpful. This is a nice little shop that also sells candy!

We also spent some time on the campus of UW-LaCrosse, our Alma Mater. There have been many changes since we were last there. The weather was quite cool and windy so our walk about was rather short.

And we ate... One of the ladies at the River Road Quilt Shop suggested Rosie's Cafe for lunch yesterday. Oh yeah - everything is prepared from scratch and it is good! 

We went back for breakfast this morning!


Last night we ate at Grizzly's - wonderful shrimp grilled over a wood fire.


And now we are home - think I'll take a long walk tomorrow! 

Sweet!

We had flowers in the house for weeks after my surgery. 

(Ray thought I needed a bright spot.)

 During the summer, there were plenty of flowers in the yard. 

And today, I have beautiful roses.

Sweet!

People Pillows

Grandchildren are so much fun. One day during the "big visit", the Dads (our two sons) and the six older children (ages 22 months - 7 years) spent the day at our house. I had planned a project that I thought would be fun.


I called the project People Pillows. I got the idea from a blog that referenced here. I made the pillows a little smaller and put a zipper pocket on the back. One side of the pillow is flannel. By using felt shapes, the flannel side becomes a flannel board. The felt face pieces can be stored in the pocket on the back of the pillow. Lots of faces were made! For the two little guys, I appliqued a face on the flannel.

We started by stuffing the pillows.

  Some were VERY serious.

Some questioned what we were doing.

And some were silly!

The second step was to cut out felt pieces for the faces - the Dads helped draw but the kids did ALL of the cutting.

 Hard to believe that every piece of felt I own has something cut out of the middle!

I think if you carefully remove these sunglasses, there are blue eyes underneath! 

Lots of detail in this one.

A pirate with a pig nose!

I'm sorry we didn't get photos of all of the pillows ~ we were all busy having fun!