Fireside Retreat - Day One

Before I get to the retreat stuff - here's the rest of our road trip. The last shop we went to was Quilting by Design in New Hamburg. A modern store with lots of Tula Pink, Libs Elliott, and Guicy Guice if you're into those collections. They did have other fabrics as well.

Quilting by Design

It was a super day, and I had a lot of fun. It was just nice to get out and sort of back to normal. However, after hearing on the radio that mandatory masks might be a thing of the future - this is our new normal. I'm all for expanding my bubble or at least not being afraid to be out in public as long as we're practicing our social distancing, washing hands, etc. I mean - I think we are all much healthier because of it. But if we don't start to get out a bit more? People are going to become hermits, and WON'T be able to get out.

On our way home, we saw a BRIGHT PINK sports car. We immediately thought of Shelly. By the time, I thought to get a picture, it was already a ways ahead of us.

A sportscar for Shelly - NOT

Here was my big fabric purchase of the day. I saw this orange flannel with tricycles on it. It was made for me. My first ever memory and it's not a good one is of me on a tricycle at the top of a small hill, and they let me go!!  Not good. But I've since learned to ride a bike the right way! Anyway, I did get enough of this fabric for a backing.

Orange flannel for a backing

I went to look for my CherryWood challenge books when I got home. BUT do you think I could find them? They got put haphazardly onto the bookcases. After much scouring, I managed to find four of them. But NOT the one that I was looking for—the purple one for Prince. I'll have to go back when I get home and see if it's in the second half of the bookcases. Now how they get separated?? The books are filled with all the quilts that went on display. There are so many amazing quilts - it's great eye candy.

My CherryWood Challenge book collection

I was up at ridiculous o'clock yesterday so I could get m myself organized for the retreat. The car got packed, the dogs got walked, and I was off. We all arrived at Fireside Retreat at the exact same time, and there was a line of cars in the driveway so we could unpack.

For a couple of days, there will only four of us. So the meals are a bit different for a while. For the first time ever - the entire group (of four) went out for lunch. There's a small restaurant not far from the house (Captain's Grill), and so we went there. We decided to eat outsides even though it looked like rain. We managed to eat most of our lunch outside and then had to hustle inside when it started to rain. Thankfully there was room inside for us. BUT new protocols - you MUST be wearing your mask in a restaurant except when you're eating.

Having lunch

I should mention that even though we were all here at 9 AM on the dot, I don't think anyone started to sew until 11. We sat and chatted and chatted and chatted some more. That's what these retreats are all about. Getting together, sharing our stories, and well - I want to buy a new car! I've spent a lot of time talking about car shopping in the last two days, and I want a new car! I don't need a new car, but I want one. I don't that would fly at home, so I'm going to have to pass on that. I hate to say that my car buying experiences have always been haphazard.

Then it was time to get to work. I grabbed this bag of scraps that someone had given me years ago. I forgot to take a picture before I started. But essentially, there were a lot of those long skinny triangles. They were cut offs from using the X block ruler. So I laid them out and matched up the left with a right and sewed them together.

My new scrappy block

 Then I trimmed them down to the largest size that I could which was 2  3/4" by 5 1/2". Since there was no one else using the cutting mat, I had the luxury of leaving them there while I worked on something else. But by dinner time, they were trimmed.

The units are trimmed

I ended up with 74 of the units, and I found 2 of the original X blocks in the bag. So, if I add a frame to each of the pink/green pieces to make an 8-inch block, then I can get a decent sized lap quilt from those scraps. I know - sounds silly, but I love doing this kind of thing, and those scraps didn't go to the waste bin.

I found a beautiful green batik that will be used to frame each block. It's going to be a GREEN quilt. But I think it'll be nice. Trust me, I tried a huge variety of colors, and this was the best one. That's OK - it'll be a modern quilt with pops of pink throughout.

The background fabric for the blocks

I was going to start cutting and piecing, but then I thought this is going to be perfect for Diane to work on. I'll give her the dimensions, and she can make the blocks and assemble the quilt. It's going into the community projects pile, so why not. I've done what I wanted to do with the scraps.


Then it was onto my string pieced quilt with the equilateral triangles. I needed to make thirty-one blocks. I got three strips sewn onto each of the papers, and it won't take long to finish that off this morning.

String pieced equilateral triangles

I still have loads of green strips in the box. These will go into the green string bag when I get home.

Lots of fabric strings

I want to keep this quilt so I may start sewing the blocks together here. There's going to be a lot of ripping out of paper when it's together, so that might be good on one of our chatting moments.

Dinner was a very casual affair, but good. Then we watched a movie on our portable screen. Great fun.

Despite all the distractions yesterday, I'm still happy with the progress that I made. ANY progress would be better than what I've been doing at home with my own stuff in the last couple of weeks.

For the first time ever, I had to sleep in the room by myself. It was bizarre!

A few others are coming later in the week, so we'll have to pull ourselves together because the four of us have literally spread out over the entire house! Hey - take advantage of the space while we have it.

Oh, and we had a porch dropoff from Diane and Lizzy who were out and about yesterday.

I went for a long walk after dinner. The temperature here is somewhat chilly this morning compared to what we've had in the last couple of weeks. This morning it's 11 degrees Celcius. Yikes - I'd better wear my jacket this morning when I go for a bike ride.

Speaking of which, I should get myself organized and get on the road.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!