Stuff I Have Been Doing

In early October I had two quilts hanging in a local show. I took pictures, but then I got a new phone and managed to lose a whole ton of pictures in the process. Boo hoo. This is one of the quilts I hung (and that you have seen before). I wish I could show you some of the other beauties that were in the show.

In mid-October I helped with a "vacation Bible school" type event at our church. It took place during two traditional school days off when parents sometimes have trouble finding places for their kids on two work days. There were several fun activities and meals/snacks.

I have been sewing as I can fit it in, as usual. Two baby quilts and an unquilted top:

Lotto blocks for Sunshine:

My cousin started a new quilting group at her church, and I attended. I think I will be a regular participant; we'll see. Here are some pictures from Show and Tell at our first meeting.

Last week I was on a retreat with friends. I got a lot of tops put together; most had been prepped but never completely sewn together. It felt good to get them done.

And I have been reading! I had to do some marathon reading this weekend, to start and finish the book that my book club will discuss this week. I finished it today. Whew!

That's all for now, folks!

Quilting and Coughing

I had two super busy weeks in June: first the retreat, then a conference. After that I was exhausted, and I knew I was coming down with something. Dang. I have been sick ever since. Coughing, coughing, feeling miserable, but in between naps I sometimes found a bit of energy to do some machine quilting. So I managed to get these five tops done. Three of these quilts have backings made from free fabrics I got from Darci at Field Trip Quilting. She gave me some big pieces of yardage. They made many, many backs which came in very handy for those 142 tops we made at the retreat. VERY helpful; thank you, Darci. All of these quilts, and the ones we made at the retreat, will be donated to kids gets oral cleft surgeries and to kids in orphanages in underserved areas around the world.

Those last two were made at the retreat and are already done! That feels good. We divvied up the tops and sent some to other volunteers, so almost all the tops were spoken for. Team work! It was amazing. I still have several from the retreat but will be mailing some of them out, so my pile of tops is not that daunting. Yay!

Because I was still sick through all this, my life was just a series of naps, coughing attacks, and sewing, followed by more naps. I finally went to the doctor and found that I had pink eye along with some allergic reactions, which I have NEVER had this late into the season, but I guess it's that kind of a year. The doctor gave me four different medications!

I'm slowly crawling out of the hole and feeling better. Now, some energy is creeping back in, so I think I'll go finish another top.

Sunshine On My Shoulders Makes Me Happy

Sunshine Quilt Guild held another retreat (our third, we do them every couple of years).. this one was in my neighborhood. BH and I were the organizers. Fifteen people came from Maine, Texas, Nebraska, Oregon, California, and of course, Minnesota. We had a blast!

BH and I wanted to make sure they had fun, so we didn't expect them to put their noses to the grindstone, doing nothing but sewing. We intentionally included some fun outings in our plans. This included a couple of quilt shop visits. They had a blast at this first one where the fabrics are always 50% off.

We visited the biggest candy store in Minnesota. This is some of us outside the store:

We had a nice dinner at BL's house (it was chilly, but the company warmed us from the inside out):

We did manage to get a lot of sewing done, despite having many fun outings. Our final total was 142 tops made (Wed. through Sat.)!

Another outing, on the most perfect weather day one could ask for! This is Minnehaha Falls. We ate lunch outside under the shade of some beautiful, green oak trees under the most gorgeous blue sky with puffy white clouds. Minnesota was showing off that day! Sadly, my phone stopped taking pictures so I had to be content with just memories and no visual proof.

Other activities and outings included teaching them to ice dye, teaching how to make an improv house block, and visiting an original Dairy Queen built in 1947 which happens to be a half block from one of the best quilt shops in Minnesota. We also went to the Mall of America and ate dinner at the Rainforest Café. My sister discovered a great shop there called Lotus Jewelry and Gifts. It carries 100% Minnesota-made art items, thereby supporting local artists. I love that.

And, of course, we put in many hours sewing our tops. The blocks had been made by many volunteers over the last year, and this retreat was for the purpose of assembling the blocks. The quilts turned out great and so cheerful. I think it was our best quilts of the three retreats so far.

We packed up a bunch of the quilt tops to send off to volunteers who will finish them for us. We had the system pretty well honed this year. It worked out great so that we have very few to still dole out to future volunteers.

There is some talk of where the next retreat will be in a couple more years...I'm not spilling the beans just yet.