The Virtual Retreat - Day Four

What can I say? It was another AMAZING day of fun and frivolity at the Virtual Sewing Retreat. As much as I LOVE going to the real retreat, the Virtual one has a totally different flavor, and we have people dropping in from all over. Nina from Germany was back, and we had Daphne join us from Vancouver Island. And then a lot of others joined in and out throughout the day. I finally had to "kick" them off the call way past the initially planned closing time! But that was OK -- it was loads of fun.

If you get a chance to pop in today to say hi, the link for today's meeting is at the bottom of this post.

I have a couple of pictures to share with you from the group before we get started. And there'll be more pictures to come. We saw some GREAT ideas for sewing rooms and storage, and I asked for photos to share.

Here's a picture of Nina's house. This is actually her weekend home. NOW before you go crazy with envy, the house, which HUNDREDS of years old, is split into 10 small apartments. So if you think you have a little cottage in cottage country here in Canada - think again! The apartment is basically one room with a small kitchen area and a tiny bathroom.

Nina's weekend house

So if you live in a tiny place like that and your husband comes home from a run and wants to change, and you're participating in a Zoom meeting. Hmmm - and we think we have challenges. NO - we were not flashed, but it was pretty funny! Did you notice how steep the hill is that the house is sitting on? It's just so different from where we live! I love Germany and would like to go back. Perhaps now is the time! But social distancing, of course!  Thanks for sharing Nina!!!!


Here are the other two quilts that Fran sent me. I LOVE the string quilt. You can never go wrong with a string quilt, and the color choices and combinations are endless.

Fran's string quilt

And look at this one. It's stunning. I bet there's a lot of embellishment on this one - either with thread or markers. But those birch trees are gorgeous.

Fran's birch tree quilt

Thanks for sharing those photos, Fran. Your work is GORGEOUS.


What did I work on? I was going to start my totally prepped yoga bag, but instead, I decided to get those bindings on the stack of quilts that have been waiting to be finished.

I started with something small. This is a table topper that I taught as part of our quilting series a couple of years ago. The top had been quilted but not bound. Now it's finished. It was quilted entirely with free-motion, but some of the seam lines between the green and white didn't lie as flat as I would like, so I stitched in the ditch around all the green. Using the Stitch in the Ditch foot on the PFAFF creative icon with the built-in walking foot was so easy!!!!

Table topper - DONE

Then it was onto the next quilt, which was that small doggie print quilt.

Binding is completed on the doggie quilt 

Hey - this is working out great, even though I had to change threads in the top and bobbin for each project.

The next one was the donation quilt for Quilts of Valour. I was carefully watching the amount of thread left in the bobbin as the sensor had alerted me that I was almost out of thread. Did I notice that the top thread was nearly finished as well? Nope - not until it ran out!! I didn't have more of the same color, but that was OK. I found something similar, and I was back in business.

Empty spool!

So that quilt got bound and is tucked away to be dropped off, hopefully, next week.  I have a couple more quilts to get quilted for Quilts of Valour before that drop off happens! It would appear that I slacked off this past month! Oh well - not worried in the least.

Quilts of Valour quilt - DONE

 Back to one of my quilts. This is a small Christmas wall hanging I quilted a while back. The binding is now on that one as well.

Christmas quilt - DONE 

Since it's a wall hanging, it needs a sleeve. It's hard to see in the photo, but I added two separate sleeves to the back. This project would have been a perfect candidate for those corner triangles to create the hanging mechanism, but well, the binding was already partially on when I thought of it. Too late. I had already made a label for it, which I believe I shared a while back. The date on the label???? Only 2009!!!   It doesn't matter - this is ONE more project that is done!

The label and the sleeve are done!

I have two more projects that need the binding sewn in place. I was going to work on something else today, but I think I might just tackle those two projects first. Get them out of the way.

I did take a break from binding, and early in the morning, I had dug out the little tote bags that someone had made using that Crafty Bear fabric. Remember my tote bags from the previous day? There's a whole story behind this fabric, and once I get the remainder of the pictures, I'll share the story. Anyway, this bag had a pink zipper. NO big deal, but not my thing.

A pink zipper?

This was the inside of the bag. It was tough to take a picture of the bag, but it was called the Humbug bag, and it was a weird shape. It was the way the two side seams were stitched. One seam was sewn with the zipper at the top end of the seam, and the other seam was sewn with the zipper in the center of the side seam, so it looked like a 3-D triangle. I never liked them. Well, I guess I did at one point, but not anymore. They are just too weird to use. 

As I searched for that link, I happened upon a FIFTEEN-minute tutorial to make that bag. This was and perhaps still is a "for purchase" pattern. With all these tutorials, why would I want to buy the pattern? That's something to think about. While I'm all about free stuff, perhaps there's too much free???

The inside of the zippered pouch

So I ripped, and I ripped, and I ripped TWO of those bags apart. I found some more effective interlinings last night to use, and my intention is to remake the bags as ordinary zippered pouches.

A lot of ripping occurred to create this pile of threads

That's one of the reasons why I don't get a lot done - well, I do, but you know what I mean. If I'm not happy with something, I'll take it apart. But we won't go there. I find it so therapeutic to rip apart, especially if it wasn't my mistake that I'm ripping out! NO - I'm not for hire! It's a great way to spend time while chatting, and the Zoom meetings are perfect for that!!!  So they could give me a seam ripper and some stuff to rip out when I'm in the nursing home. OH - don't give me a seam ripper. I'll be like a little kid with scissors. I'll be going around to all the other people's rooms and ripping out the quilts I don't like! Better not give me that seam ripper after all!!!!

For all of us who were in and out of Zoom all day, the internet connection was pretty darn good. I'm working out of Studio B, and the internet hub is on the main floor, so a wee bit of trouble with my audio at certain times. What I need is to be hardwired into that hub. Do I have any cables? Not likely as during one of my clean up sessions, I decided that we had no use for that kind of stuff, and it likely went to the e-waste dump. I did find one cable, but I think it's too short!!!

A cable, but a bit too short to run downstairs

It'll be very inconvenient to run a cable down the stairs, so I think I'll call my internet provider and see what they can do for me so I can hardwire into the service from Studio B. I'd like to hardwire from upstairs as well. I wonder how busy they are these days???

I want to share with you the perfect reason why we have design walls. I ran out of the blue fabric on the outer two sides of this block. I briefly rifled through the blue fabric bin and found the small piece on the right. Looking at it on the table, it appeared to be a good match. But putting it up on the wall, it's a bit too light.

The fabric on the left is too light

I found another fabric and put that on the design wall. Oh - this one is much better. Not perfect, but better.

Not perfect, but better

And then I found this third fabric. OK - that's way too dark. It wasn't easy to see these contrasts in value when they were sitting right in front of me. Put them on a design wall? Oh yes - totally easy to decipher. So when in doubt - hang it up and step back. That's how you'll see it in your quilt.

The fabric on the right is too dark!

So we started this post in Germany, and we're ending it in Saskatchewan. Here's my daily picture. I'm just east of Maymont now. And yes, there are trees in Saskatchewan. Not big ones and not many, but there are trees!!!

East of Maymont on Highway 16

This is the last time I'll see the reference to my tiny little hamlet. I don't have a picture to share with you, but I'm going to try and find one looking towards the river but from the other side of the river. It's spectacular, and every time I was at the farm, I took the same photo. But from our house, we would look east, and we could see the town of Maymont. There was a LARGE grain elevator as the reference point. Those elevators are all long gone, or maybe one is still there. But on the horizon, you knew where Maymont was because of the elevator. Ah, such great memories. I'm so glad, I could arrange my Cross Canada walk through this area and get to see it on Google maps. You can't beat technology!!!!

My position on the map 

What better way to finish off a Virtual Retreat Day, but to share a glass of wine with friends!!! It was such fun!!!  So as mentioned, if you want to join in the fun today - and today is the LAST day, log into the Zoom meeting and at least say HI!!!

Raise a glass of cheer to friends!!!

Here's the link to today's meeting.   Sunday, May 31st Meeting   From 9 AM EST to 8 PM EST

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86129923754?pwd=R0pzZThwQzBqUzJCem5aNTdiOFJRdz09 Meeting ID: 861 2992 3754 Password: 628655



We have had so much fun with the Virtual Retreat that - guess what? Yep - this is going to become an ongoing thing. It'll be only ONE day per month, and I need to schedule out those dates. But we got to meet so many great people that we would never have met if we were at our real retreat, and we've been able to catch up and stay in touch. It's - well, I just LOVE IT!!!!  Thanks to everyone who joined in yesterday. I don't even know how many there were because they popped in and out all day long!!!

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!!