Quilt Retreat - Day Three - Some progress is made

 Here it is - -the morning of the 4th day of our retreat, and I'm making significant progress. I can't believe how quickly these days are passing. WOW!!!  We're settling comfortably into our "new" retreat house. It's close to us, and as we become more familiar with it, we're learning to like it as much as the old one. If you want to check it out -- it's called retreat at the Farm. Please note that our five days here are very unusual and were granted because of COVID and a few other minor details. Usually, you can book Monday to Thursday or Friday to Sunday. 

Thankfully, I was very reasonable when I packed my projects as I'm still working on that double wedding ring quilt, and I suspect that unless the pace picks up today, I'll still be sewing on it tomorrow. I love the results. Perhaps when I come to the next sewing retreat, I should bring that last double wedding ring quilt (the second one that belonged to Paula) and just get it done. It's pretty boring to do the same thing over and over for days, but I'm getting it done. 

Oh my -- I'm just looking in my UFO book, and I have a list of all the current projects I put on that table back home. I'm afraid to really look at the list because I bet many of them are still there. OH OH! I do see that some of them are gone, but I would suspect a few more got added!

A quick peek at the UFO list. I started this in 2017 and made a list of 12 substantial UFOs that have been around for a while. All the quilts in 2017 are done. Although there were only 12 projects on that first list, it resulted in 22 quilts!!

Regarding the 2018 list, there is ONE project on it: Enchanted Autumn, which I'm working on at home and am making excellent progress. 

Let's move to 2019. There are still six projects on that list, and one of them is this double wedding ring quilt. And there's one other one that I've advanced a lot, and I might be able to get done before the end of the year. That's my goal anyway. 

We won't chat about the 2020 or the 2021 lists as they are not in good shape, but once I put myself in gear, a lot of them would be easy enough to finish up. Let's see how it goes. 

I seem to be slow in making the double wedding ring quilt blocks, and it's very confusing to layout each section. This is what it looked like last night before bed. That is all sewn together in ONE piece. 

The double wedding ring quilt last night

When I got up this morning, I laid out the next section -- it's pieced on the diagonal. 

The next section is laid out and ready to sew

Yes, one block is missing because it's sitting at the sewing machine waiting to be pieced. Laying out the pieces went a lot smoother this morning, so hopefully, the sewing will as well. You cannot sew this together without laying it out. 

I still have a lot of components. In total, I have to make 42 blocks, and I'm almost half done. 

More components to sew together

I decided to leave this part of the paper on, and I'll remove it when I watch a baking show at home. But the rest of the paper has to be removed to sew it together. 

Paper to be removed later

Speaking of sewing, I'm going to be very sad to go home. This is my view at the moment, and I LOVE all the natural light. Yes  - my back is to everyone, but I'm in the same room, and we can chat no problem. 

Sewing with a view

I'm making good progress on the enders and leaders for Katheleen. I can't believe I didn't bring any of my own! But no worries -- it's all good. 

Katheleen's enders and leaders

It's the season of advent calendars. And I know two people participating in the Missouri Star Quilting Co advent calendar. Gwen sent me a couple of pictures from the first couple of days. Here is a charm pack that was in one of the packages. 

Charm pack from the MSQC advent calendar

Laura is into INK, and she is opening her Inkvent Calendar. Good grief -- there's an advent calendar for every interest. And Gwen made one for her husband, so they each have something to open every day. That's so thoughtful!!!

The Inkvent CAlendar

Each day, she gets a new color of ink!

Mini ink bottles

Back out for my walk. I didn't quite make my goal of 11.5 KM, as I was short by .3 KM, and I wasn't going to walk around the house or go down the driveway in the dark! The weather was brisk but beautiful. It may have been cool to stand around, but for walking, it was perfect. I wore my running shoes as the roads were pretty much dry. 

Running shoes for the walk

And there is virtually no traffic on this particular road, but when I go on the highways, there are many cars. But the shoulders are significant, and I walk right on the edge of the ditch, so I'm OK. 

The roads are dry

OK -- so we are going to have to cave. The trend of quilted clothing is back!! I wonder if I kept the gorgeous quilted duster coat I made years ago?? It was blues, purples, and black. 

I saw this on Instagram last night. Oh yes -- we must get out our coat patterns and get to work!! 

Quilted coat

Actually, I have two quilted coats and one I wear and the other I haven't. I should dig that out. It's probably gigantic on me, but it's nice, just the same. It can't be that big???? I'll check it out when I get home. 

On that note, many of the gang is now up. They are quietly chatting in the living room. I'm in the kitchen and going back to the sewing room to try and get that darn quilt done. It would be nice to work on one other project while I'm here. But my goal now is to finish this top. 

OH -- our entertainment director (Ronda) set up a movie for us last night - Red Notice. A comedy, and we all managed to stay awake. The quiet room is now also known as the movie theatre as it had the best place to put up the screen. So I got to watch the movie from my bed!!

Watching a movie from bed

The last presentation for the week got done. All that remains is next week - I have one a day. Three of them are the same presentation in the same language - English, and the other two are the same, and they are in French. How did that happen? 

So all is good in that area, and then I have a massive project to do with a steep learning curve. It's more the learning curve that makes it huge, and the deadline just got moved up by one week! ACK!!! 

OK -- I'm off to enjoy the day and keep on sewing!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!