Springhouse Retreat - Day Three

It's an interesting retreat. Heck, all retreats are interesting, but they are always different. It's never the exact same group of people who attend. It's funny, as when I first started going to retreats almost 20 years ago, we were a set group of nine people, and we went together for years. Then things happened, and that group fell apart. Now, we have a larger group of people; it's never the same mix each time. That makes it interesting! 

How am I feeling? I'm pretty good. I'm realizing that I can't sit well or for long on a hard chair. That puts loads of pressure on my nerves/muscles, and I'm unhappy. But these soft sewing chairs are quite comfy, and I'm pretty good. Getting into and out of bed is a challenge, but otherwise, I'm OK. At least the pain is manageable, and I'm taking muscle relaxants to keep on top of things; even if it isn't a muscle issue, I'm sure it's helping. 

But I have other issues! My neck is really sore! Why? Because of that fall! It's almost like I got whiplash, and my neck muscles got strained as my head flew back. The front and one side, and it's not from sewing too much. Anyway, I'll survive. 

But speaking of walking, I did not walk yesterday. Why? Have a look. Yes, snow is on the bottom because I had to get something from my car. That's when I looked at the bottom. OH!!!

No treads left on my shoes

These running shoes needed to be tossed three months ago, and I was too lazy to order a new pair. There is NO GRIP on the sole, so no wonder I fell. I decided to take it easy this week, and I either go where there is no snow and ice or I don't walk. It's a hassle because I must make up those KMs before the end of the year, and time is running out. But I'm sure I'll be OK. Let's just say that I ordered THREE more pairs yesterday. I found them on sale, and now I'll have a supply for most of next year. 

This is our sewing room, which is an amazing space. Notice there is no one in the room. It was very empty for a good part of the day as everyone paired up and went shopping. I chose to stay behind. I do not need anything. The one thing I needed (small rotary blades) I asked someone else to buy for me, and that saved me loads of money and time!! 

Our sewing space

It's time to get serious about my MANY blocks project, which, in my case, is the 365-Day challenge quilt that I started in 2016. I had sewn the blocks up to April 1. I brought 22 blocks pre-cut and ready to sew. But I didn't get a good start when I attempted to sew the first one and did not cut enough squares. I sewed what I could. Then, onto block two. CRAP! Same issue, except this time it was rectangles. Onto the next block, and the same thing happened. I missed a whole section of the pieces required. So, it wasn't a good start to the session. 

But then, I got on a roll and actually finished some blocks. I will only share one block with you, as I'll share them with my MANY blocks group on the weekend first. But here is ONE block. 

One block from the 365-day challenge

Let's just say that I'm thrilled with the progress, and I must keep going. It's so much easier to do a bunch of cutting and then have it ready to sew. I shall endeavor to be more careful about cutting in the future!

Then, I got to work on the border for that Christmas quilt I inherited. The blocks were pieced, and the border is now on the quilt. 

The Christmas quilt top

The person who gave up these projects liked to buy kits, and the binding was included. So this one just needs backing and is ready to be quilted. 

The quilt top and binding

I've got a new project to work on today, and I'm doing great going through my projects. Will I touch them all? I don't know, but I should be on the second (and last) bag of projects by the end of the day! As I finish with stuff, I take it to the car! There's no sense in cluttering the place, and it saves so much time during pack-up. 

Five of us arrived at the same time, and it was crazy to unpack. I like things to be calm! 

Calm? Last night, we played a game that involved a massive ball of stuff wrapped in cellophane and a pair of cheap tongs that were hard to hold. We each had 30 seconds to unwrap the ball with the tongs and were rewarded with goodies—candies, gift cards, and other odds and ends! What fun!!!

The great ball of cellophane

Well, it's time for me to get back to the sewing machine. I'm not talking today. My throat is sore—not a sore throat but sore from talking! So I'm taking a break. I'll talk if I need to. Seriously? How long will that last? 

But I do so much work in the morning when no one is around! I need to sew more and talk less! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Springhouse Retreat Day Two

Late—I'm going to be late this morning. No, not because I was sleeping. Oh no—chatting! I accomplished stuff yesterday and actually accomplished what I planned. However, I did my fair share of chatting, and well, isn't that what a quilt retreat is all about? So I'm good with that!!!

I am still thrilled with what I'm accomplishing, and that's all that counts. So what did I get done? Have a look. 

I got all the flannel I brought sewn into squares. There are 107 squares measuring 6 1/2", so that's a nice-sized quilt top. And there are plenty more flannel scraps in that laundry basket!!!

My flannel squares from scraps

Then I pulled out a quilt top that was part of that donation from a few months ago. Guess what the project was? A FLANNEL quilt that was partially together. 

I decided to make the top larger by one row and one column. There were enough pieced blocks and fabric in the bag. This person was very organized; she had just run out of steam on some projects. 

Then, I added two borders, which took hours to complete. Not because there were any problems—I just was very easily distracted. But at last, it was done!!!

The flannel quilt top

It was a kit from The Hobby Horse many years ago. It was easy to finish, and the binding fabric was in the bag. The binding and the top are now done. 

A quilt top for community projects

When I'm home, I'll put it in the community project pile for 2025 - it's FLANNEL!!! And then I'll add the scraps to the laundry basket!!! 

But wait—there's more!!! I should hope so! I had a bag of half-square triangles that needed to be pressed and then trimmed, so I got all of them pressed!!!

Half-square triangles to trim

Most of them are trimmed, and that makes me very happy!!!

Trimming the HSTs

Speaking of flannel, here are my Christmas flannel sheets. They are so cozy!!!

Flannel sheets

And here's a clapper! I've never found a need for a clapper, but some people swear by them. 

A clapper

The ladies made pizza for dinner last night, which was pretty amazing!!! And we each got a small gift: a Christmas-themed mug rug! Thanks, Ronda! 

Christmas-themed mug rug

So, the other thing I finished or went as far as I could with what I brought was my LegitKits project. I snapped this picture this morning as I was working alone and had no distractions! 

Piecing the Legit kits

Here is the top right corner of the piece. I have three more sections of the same size to complete, but I have to do the paper piecing first. 

1/4 of the project

And here's the picture with my section, 

Looking good

I'm pretty pleased with my fabric choices, which saved me a lot of money from buying the expensive fabric kit. Besides, I think the patterned fabric adds some texture!! The bits all came from my scrap boxes.

Now, I've pulled out a new project for today. Let's see how far I can get with it!

I went for a walk yesterday, and while the road was fine, the driveway to get to the road was slippery, and yes - I fell. It wasn't a good fall, but I'm OK. Nothing broke, and no concussion from smacking the back of my head on the side of the road. I'm not sure I'll go for a walk today, which would be out of character. If I do, I might drive to the end of the driveway and walk on the road. I'll see how the day goes. I would like to get out for the fresh air. 

Anyway, that's it for today. I must get to the sewing machine, as I have 18 FIDDLY blocks awaiting me. 

Oops -- I forgot to mention the online shopping expedition that the machine embroidered amongst us went on. But I won't go there!! Today -- it's all about WORK!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Springhouse Retreat - Day One

Well, this is my first blog on the new computer. All is good—I'm connected to the Wi-Fi at the retreat house. What is impressive—well, not really—is that everything is FAST!!! My goal will be to keep the crap out of the memory and the storage to keep it fast! 

By the way, we are at the Springhouse Retreat in New Hamburg. It's a great place to sew! I got a chuckle when I went to bed. Some people have mentioned that my bedroom is cold, so imagine my surprise when I saw winter-themed flannel sheets on the bed! With my fleece PJs, I was toasty warm all night long! 

Here's an update on the package. When walking Murphy, I stopped to check the address. OK, so it was on the right street, but it was still sitting there. After packing all the stuff in the car for the retreat, I decided to stop, pick up the package, and deliver it. The house number was four digits, but the first one was hard to read, however the last three were very clear. 

So I put the box in the car. Wow, I wonder what was in it, as it was pretty heavy. Then I got to the STOP and realized there were only FOUR houses on this street. I thought it was the same street after the STOP, but it was not. I looked at the house numbers, and there was the house with the last three digits. It was literally 50 feet from where the package had been sitting. 

I pulled into the driveway and dropped the box at the end of their step. How hard was that? This box had been sitting so close to its destination, but the driver obviously didn't care and just dumped it by the mailboxes on the street when he couldn't read the entire house number. Two seconds of thought, and it was at the correct house. My good deed of the day!

Then, I was off to the retreat. 

Packed for the retreat

Oh gosh—how much stuff does one person need to bring? It's crazy! But as I mentioned yesterday, my intent is that 1/3 of that will not come home. And I think that's going to work out just fine. A few more things to drop off or be picked up, and all is good! At least I could see out the back window, and there was still room at the back of the car—NOTHING on the passenger seat! 

And yes, I packed too many projects, but as someone mentioned yesterday, they are mood sewists. They need variety if they don't want to work on a specific project! I'm going to try to do something from each project I brought. HA—let's see how that goes. 

If I were home, DH and I would have cracked open the EXIT Game Advent Calendar for 2024. But alas, I'm here, not there. So the advent calendar has to wait—except that Ronda showed up with it. I politely declined to work on it because I'm part of a team, and I'm not going to let my team down. 

However, Ronda also brought this book, which I'd never seen. 

An Advent Calendar EXIT GAME BOOK!!!

It's an advent calendar in a book. How cool is that? Last night, after dinner, we got to work. Of course, everyone crowds around to see what we're doing. But these things can't be rushed. There's logic to follow and rules to figure out, as each game type is slightly different when determining if your answer is correct. 

A couple of wrong answers. Hmm - now what? Soon, I was by myself. Peace and quiet are what's required to figure these things out. Read carefully and OBSERVE. After some concentration, I shouted, "I'm a rock star!" because I had figured it out. Yeah!!! This is rated three dots out of five, and while I won't say that the puzzle was challenging, if you're not good at following directions, you wouldn't have got it!!!

Retreats are always so much fun; I met two new people this time and then caught up with long-time friends. It was a glorious start to the retreat, although some people had long and harrowing trips through the snow. Most of us arrived during the day when the ground was still clear. Then it started to snow in the evening. However, we all arrived safely. One more person is coming today, but hopefully, the roads will be fine. I don't think we got too much snow here, but the ground is covered. 

What was my first project? I had grabbed a handful of flannel scraps before I left. Why wait for 2025 when I can start working on them now? This is mindless sewing, which is perfect for a retreat. I had grabbed the leftovers from the backings of the flannel kids' quilts I'd recently quilted. 

Can you believe that I made EIGHTY squares!!! 

Eighty flannel squares from scraps

That's enough to make another quilt of the size that I've been quilting! This is BARELY scratching the surface of that laundry basket of scraps. So Elle was right again - dozens of quilt tops in those flannel bits!!! I would hate to have thrown that away; it's an entire quilt top! But I absolutely love rescuing this stuff, and it makes me feel good, and it's totally mindless, so it's right up my alley. That's why I will NOT give or throw this stuff away. I find it relaxing to work on. I certainly do NOT need another quilt for myself. 

I have one more bundle of flannel to deal with this morning, and then I'll be working on another project. OH - and I took the leftovers from each color and pieced them together. I might get a multi-colored block. 

The last bundle of flannel 

I have four Zoom classes in the middle of December, and I knew it would be tough to get all four prepped for the week when I return. I decided to bring some of them along with me. Two are presentations only, and I did some prep work before I left. I have the presentations on my external hard drive to work on those. And this morning, before anyone else was up, I finished some sewing homework for one of the classes. I'll be in good shape to prep everything on time. This is good because I still have some writing assignments to work on. I also brought those, and I'll have time to work on them. 

Yes - you can do anything with a portable office! 

Getting used to this keyboard is OK. The pictures on the screen are so brilliantly colored compared to my old laptop! I'm in love and will slowly work through the little changes I need to make, like changing the background to white, not black. But maybe I'll leave it black. It seems to be OK. 

On that note, I'm up and excited to get sewing today!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Personal trainer approved!

WOW—I'm surprised at the response about the personal trainer! Thanks for reminding me that this is an excellent idea! 

I've worked with personal trainers in the past but just got out of the habit. I think we got stale, and it was time to find someone new, which I did NOT do. I'm anxious to see how it works out. Brooke was recommended to me by another trainer I've known for a long time. Maria is stepping back as she wants to enjoy more free time and has no time to pick up a new client.  

The gym is "sneaky" in that it gives you a complimentary meeting with your chosen trainer. But all you have to go on is their background. I hadn't even seen a picture of Brooke, so I had no idea what to expect. I didn't feel a connection the last time I met with a trainer a few years ago, so I didn't go back. 

But this time, even though Brooke and I are very different, I think we can work together. And although she's younger, she totally gets the aging body. So I must get myself organized and do those exercises at home and the gym. I am now ACCOUNTABLE to two people! I was flat on my back—well, not exactly, as I had the foam roller with me, and I was doing my thing! Murphy soon got bored and left me! It's no longer a novelty!

This will be short this morning as I'm prepping to leave for the retreat, and there is MUCH to do. OK - that's a lie. All I have left is to pack the food and throw everything into the car. That might take a bit. While a lot is going out, I hope that about 1/3 of it will not come home with me! The Pony Express is alive and well!

I had a couple of twin-sized duvets that became clumpy after several washings (I don't remember how many). Hmmm—do they need a good shake? We hadn't used them in a long time, and it was time to deal with them. So I cut them in half and serged the ends closed. I'm donating them to an animal shelter.

It appears that a layer of polyester batting was sewn between the two layers of the duvet. Over the washings, the batting broke down, becoming lumpy and clumpy. 

Clumpy batting

Wow, I wonder if that will happen with some of the batting we use. The answer is YES! But what I suspect happened is that the batting they used was not graded for the density of stitching. The squares in the duvet were about 12" square, which was all the stitching on the duvet. Much more dense stitching was required to hold that particular quality of batting together. 

The batting broke down

So let that be a lesson. If you are unsure what batting to use, check how dense you want the quilting and buy the batting appropriately. If your quilts are quilted by a long arm, that's probably not an issue since the quilting is dense. But for those who quilt on their domestic machines and try to get away with minimal quilting, it's IMPORTANT to check the label of the batting. 

I think this next story started at a retreat this past year. If not, it may have been the year before. One of the ladies came back to the house from a shopping trip, all excited about this new way of paper piecing. I could not make heads or tails of what she was saying, so I looked it up online. I was intrigued, but it still made no sense at all. 

So I went to the store and purchased a couple of patterns (I know—shame on me). Each package contained a ton of paper, and they were not cheap. 

After perusing the pattern, I was going to write a letter to the company saying that half of the paper in that package was waste! Thankfully, I never did. 

This fall, I asked Paula at Thimbles and Things if I could teach a Legit Kit pattern, as she had just started stocking them. Only a few people signed up, but we went ahead with the class. 

WOW -- I'm hooked! I LOVE these patterns, and the result is fantastic! And those extra papers that I thought were wasteful? Oh no --- They are the most IMPORTANT part of the pattern! It's all about understanding what you don't know. 

I taught this pattern in the class. It is only 15" by 20" and was an excellent first pattern. We did NOT use a kit but fabrics from our stash. The kits are costly, and using my stash worked just fine. 

Orchid Mini pattern

I've accomplished this so far and only started paper piecing the other day. I got all the pieces for the remainder of that section sewn and threw them in my retreat bag so I could finish piecing this section! That will be 1/4 of the pattern together. When I get home, I plan to continue paper piecing. I'm in love with them. 

My progress so far

Yes, they take a bit of time to set up with all the colors, but I found a great system, and I'm on a roll. So, if ever you wonder if the Legit Kits are good patterns, yes, they are. Now, perhaps I can start one of the other two I have!

On that note, I'm off to finish packing, grab a quick shower, walk the dogs, and load the car! I tested my new laptop for Zoom yesterday, and all seems to be good. So, I'm taking only that laptop with me, and let's hope for the best. 

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!