Annual Quilt Retreat in Pawley's Island-Day 1

Again, we are down here in Pawley's for our retreat and if I remember right, it's supposed to be a Quilt retreat...but we seem to be doing a lot of other things as well!  This year, instead of having a week long project, I only planned fun little projects for each day.  They make cute gifts, so gave a lot of the ladies ideas for Christmas gifts.  I'll share what we have been doing all week...warning...it's not all about quilting  :)

Project of the Day: Shell Collector Bags

Shell Collector Bag
--of course we had to make these being at the beach!  Made with screen door mesh, they are a quick project to make for kids..even the big kids at heart.

Dinner of the Day: Lasagna

no picture--but I bet you can image it in your mind :)

Adventure of the Day:

Alligator Hunting! 

There is a huge pond near our condo here that always have several alligators in them. It's right behind my parents house and this past spring, a 10 footer ate the neighbor's dog!  So, at night, we went and stood on the bridge and shined a huge spotlight over the water to look for their eyes. If you catch them at the right angle, they were a spooky red!  We saw 3 that night. Unfortunately, the big ones were far away and not having a night camera, the only picture we took was of a baby alligator. See the little, itty bitty white dot?  That is his eye. It appeared to be about 3-4 foot gator.  Just a baby.  Of course, we were really brave.....standing on the bridge......looking over at them!

Other Memories:

Gotcha Elizabeth!

Visiting Ladies

We had several surprise visits from 'friends' in low places....need I say more?  LOL

This is going to be wild and crazy week. 

the 'girls' learn how fun it is to quilt in pj's!

On our recent retreat, I warned them all that I only get dressed if I'm going somewhere (other than the pool) and I RARELY go anywhere! LOL I live in PJ's and swimsuits while in Pawley's. How much better can it get? Quilting and sunning...my idea of an ideal vacation. And they all got in the spirit of it all and learned that pj's are okay to where, even at 3:00 in the afternoon! It's so fun getting away with other quilting friends. And boy, do you learn a lot when you get them away from home! Whooo--eeee!! Did we learn about the 'other' side of everyone and decided that some things are just better left among just us! So, my lips are sealed. But let me tell you, we sure did some hootin' and hollerin' and lots of laughing when some 'secrets' were revealed. Don't ask, cuz we won't tell.

We had daily classes on learning/perfecting quilt techniques and by the week's end, they all had their quilt tops done. A couple of them had only to fuse on the lettering, but they decided to do that at home because they were leaving early to stop at yet another quilt store on the way home and wanted to leave time to shop! But other than that, they all got them done along with a few UFO's.

More finished photos to come.......

Life is Good!

3 months ago I was diagnosed with Diabetes and it's been an emotional roller coaster since then, add in a HUGE change in our household with our youngest daughter's (with Down's) moving out into her own apartment and it explains my absence. I was in a bit of a depression, but I just kept plugging away and now I feel a TON better.

First..health wise--got a GREAT report from the Dr. yesterday. My blood sugar numbers were well below where they needed to be, so she is keeping me off meds! WOO HOO! I've lost 27 lbs. so far and have a bit to go, but it's nice to be able to fit into some clothes of the past. :) The numbers aren't completely under control, but well on it's way. Thank God for allowing me to perservere through all this. And thanks to Kirt, being my biggest supporter. He said that my diagnosis was a good thing for both of us...a huge incentive to get back into eating healthy and exercising. So, he's been going right along with me and has lost 42 lbs! Go figure, it just drops off men, doesn't it? Well, I guess that and the fact he works out 1 1/2 hours a day! LOL

Second...Sheleah's big move! She was ready for it...acting like a rebellious teenager, you know--the ones who hit adulthood and decide that they can make their own decisions? Well, she was there, a bit late perhaps, but was ready. We moved her into her own apartment and she has care takers with her from the time she gets off work through the night until she goes back to work in the morning. We pick her up on Sunday mornings to go to church with us and then spend the day with us. I never thought this day would come actually. It was always a dream, the kind of dream like winning the lottery--you'd like it to happen, but it probably won't. I wasn't sure how I'd be with all of this and solved the problem by going out of town with some friends! And it worked! I missed her, but there wasn't a huge hole at night when she didn't come home.

We had an impromptu housewarming shower for her and she was SO excited. Well, after we had to explain that it wasn't a birthday party and they would be bringing kitchen related stuff rather than CD's and DVD's! She did request pink, she loves pink. And she got a lot of pink stuff! She loved the whole shower and was really pleased when they spelled her name right. LOL--she hates it when people misspell her name or say it wrong. And unfortunately there were a few that didn't know how to spell her name, but she waited patiently while they had to get up and change it right away--per her request!

I went away for two weeks, the first week was back to Lake Anna, VA with some friends. What a nice getaway, I caught up on sleep, laughs and a bit of sewing. It went by way too fast, as girlfriend getaways do! Then I headed down to my home in Pawley's Island, SC where I was having a retreat for my students. Some were so anxious to be there, they beat me! We had another fun week of mini lessons in the mornings (I had a retreat quilt that they all worked on, a bit each day), sunning at the pool/beach/Lazy River in the afternoons and then more sewing at night. Man, if you ever want to get to know people, go on a retreat with them! LOL We learned some good stuff--but we promised not to share it! Spent a lot of time laughing, tag team sewing to get someone (no names will be mentioned--LOL) caught up so she wouldn't have to stay up all night sewing. I presented the next step for the quilt in the mornings and then they all had to have their homework done by the next morning. Let's just say there were some wee hours sewing going on! I threatened to ground them from the pool if they didnt' get it done. But they all did and all went home with finished quilt tops! And lots of quilty things learned and a whole lot more. here's a little preview of our retreat quilt.........more to come.........

Being gone and being preoccupied has pushed me way back in my postings, but hopefully I can slowly get caught up. I'm back into the groove of sewing again--I KNEW it would come back! But more in the next post!

OH--there was a third thing I wanted to share---we have a new resident at our place..........more to come! heehee

Retreat Report

We had a great time at our retreat last weekend..geez, has it been a whole week ago already? Busy week, but wanted to report on our weekend. After a tense few days when our electric was out for 2 days RIGHT before our retreat had me a bit worried. But it came back on in time to carry on. We have 8 in our small group and we divide up in pairs to do retreats, block exchanges, etc. It was my turn with my friend and we decided to do a cupcake themed retreat. Here's what we placed at everyone's seats. We made cupcake pincushions for everyone. We used those silicone cupcake liners and stuffed a fabric square with batting and then hot glued it in the liner. We put colored pins in them to resemble sprinkles. Then we made kits for everyone to make a sewing machine mat. We got this darling cupcake fabric (Robert Kaufman) and then I embroidered their names on the pocket piece and Cheryl fused cupcakes (leftover from the fabric) on. We cut everything out for everyone and all they had to do that night was do some simple quilting and then bind it. We also made the hugest cupcake pincushion EVER and I forgot to take a picture of them! I'll do it later. Actually I did take a picture of one of our buddies and she was holding 2 of them in a very provocative manner and didn't think she'd want it made public! LOL You owe me Mishelle! We played Bingo, using words that pertained to our group, and played a word scramble and had quite some lively conversations--one was what constituted a compound word. We had little cups with colored M&M's--quilter's pills good for energy for just about everything...seam ripping...decision making, like what color to use....winding bobbins. And we all had mannequin heads and we were to post thoughts about our fellow quilters on them...all good of course!

Evil twin Kathy made an appearance and took over the machine quilting on a tablerunner. She did a very poor job--it was like she had never quilted before! She blames it on doing so much on Zoe that she's out of practice on a regular machine. I say phooey--and SHE is getting the credit for quilting that, not me! I was pretty mad at her for doing so bad and she got back at me and ate all my M&M's! This was one of the Quilt 24 Challenge quilts and will be great in a 'hang 'em high and keep 'em moving' exhibit only! LOL

Home again and Stained Glass DONE!!

Ahhh, it's nice to go away but it's also nice to come back home. I've been gone for almost 5 weeks with a brief visit after 1 1/2 weeks, so a lot of catching up to do. I only turned the computer once while in SC--too much to do. I'll just recap some of the highlights over the past weeks...

Quilt Group retreat--

At the end of the week---lots of projects done (well for some--I made a vow that my Stained Glass quilt WOULD be done--at least I have another week to work on it when they go home.),

lots of pool/beach/sun time and a couple of visits to a local quilt shop, Quilter's Cottage in Murrell's Inlet who was having a GREAT sale--50% off a lot of newer fabric. Caused this gal to jump off the no buying wagon a little bit. Well...to be fair I had store credit for doing some sewing for her, and I HAD to spend it, right? LOL

What you do when you are too tuckered to even sew anymore, you lay on your quilt, lest someone takes it! and the flip flops? well, the pile just kept growing during the week!

And this darn quilt has been a on-going (slow) project since 2002. I thought I would make a block each time I went their. Well, I only had 8 blocks done and I thought, at this rate it will never get done! I had too much invested in it, especially those fusible bias tapes--11 packages of them! I vowed that this summer would be the year I got this done. Not terribly hard to do, but VERY time consuming, especially the prep time. Then I chose to do it QAYG (Quilt As You GO) and had to make a few adjustments to accomodate that and had to be creative when my center block ended up 1/2" short because of the quilting. I spent the week after my quilt group left (one did stay with me--so it was nice to have company while doing the tedious work) and I got it done!! AND as soon as hubby arrived with the kids, I had him hang it. Wow--what a HUGE UFO done!