Retreat

I just spent four whole days on retreat and it was awesome!  The DMQG hosted their first annual retreat at the Compass Centre.  If you haven't been there, it's really a great retreat center.  Melissa is an amazing host that has thought of everything.  The meals were great (not to mention it was so nice to just sit and sew and have no meals to worry about or dishes to wash), the beds were comfortable, the sewing area fully equipped and a shop right on site!  It is down in Mt. Calm (just east of West as a friend of mine delights in saying!)  And look what sits right out front:

He looks like he is saying...."What??" or maybe "Hey, what was that?"  I love him and wish he sat in my front yard!  The weather was perfect all weekend, but I never poked my nose outside!  I sewed and sewed and sewed some more.  I worked on a quilt that was a kit I bought over five years ago.  And I spent almost a full day on this little item:

Long story, but this was a little kit that I also bought about five years ago had never taken out of the package.  I pulled it out to bring on this retreat and worked most of Thursday evening on the little log cabins.  But, they were not these little log cabins.  The fabric in the kit was awful!  It was some thirty repros, which I usually adore, but these were terrible choices.  They were ugly, but even worse, they were all medium value and the wrong scale for such little pieces.  But still, I pushed on making each of the four miniature log cabins.  When I was finished, they didn't even look like log cabins!  I just couldn't bring myself to spend any more time on them, but now I was obsessed with completing this kit!  I have a challenge to win!  Like any good retreater (word?), I had packed plenty of fabric to take with me.  So, I used a little tiny "baby" charm pack of It's a Hoot.  I just love how this came out.  It made me happy every time I looked over at it sitting there so cute on my sewing table.

Several months ago, I bought a fat quarter bundle of the entire line of Nicey Jane because I loved it so much.  LOVED it.  And then I spend all of those months trying to find the perfect project to use the fabric.  Every time I would think I had found the ideal quilt, I just couldn't bring myself to cut into the fabrics.  Ever do that?  I was at a Saturday Sew with Lisa and she was hand quilting a quilt that I suddenly knew would be perfect done in Nicey Jane.  It is an American Jane pattern called Popsicle Posies.  It calls for three charm packs, so I pre-cut my charms before retreat.  I laid out the blocks on the fabulous design wall on Friday night and they looked like this:

I worked on this quilt most of the day Saturday and it looked like this:

I love the way it's turning out!  I am probably more excited about this quilt than any I have worked on in the last year.  Today, I added borders and then it was time to pack up and go home.  In my rush, I cut the borders too short and had to come up with a work around.  More about that in the days to come.

As I sat there last night feeling a little sad that the weekend was almost over, I looked around the room at the groups of women clustered together chatting, sewing, sharing ideas and snacking on foods they normally don't allow themselves to eat, I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the new friends I have made over the last nine months or so.  I love the sound of women's voices laughing, and sharing their passions.  I got to know all of these women a little more over the last three days and let them know a little more about me.  We shared ideas and inspiration, we cried on one another shoulders, we laughed til we cried.  It's a wonderful thing......