Sewing Retreat - Day Five

It's great to be back home and to be able to PROPERLY cook my oatmeal. No bananas in the house so I had to use a nectarine. Not quite the same thing! The girls were happy to see me - of course - they went crazy. But then they are just crazy all the time.

In all the retreats that I've been to (and there have been a lot - this was number 12 at this retreat house and prior to that, I organized 23 or something like that at the one in Bracebridge and we've had one at Midland). That's a LOT of sewing retreats.

Anyway - yesterday was the first time I think that NO ONE was in a rush to leave on the last day. It was very nice as most of us stayed for lunch and it was a great leisurely morning. I went for another bike ride - a short one at 27KM. Thank god for the bike rides or I would have been dead with all the food. So next time, I'm going to REFUSE to eat all that sugary stuff that comes in. I didn't enjoy it like I used to and I certainly do not need it!!!

I made great progress on those Double Wedding Ring quilts and I'll provide more updates and pictures later.

Since this retreat was in July, I knew the traffic might be bad on the way home with everyone coming home from the cottage. At one point, I turned off the main highway, onto a secondary highway. Then I thought - I might just be able to catch another bookstore that had been recommended to me (in Orangeville). A quick check on the phone (pulled over of course) told me that the store closed at 4 PM. Yikes - OK - I'm not far so I plugged the address into the GPS and I was off. I had FIFTEEN minutes in the store. So not enough time to really give a review. The stacks of books were daunting and I enlisted the help of the person working in the shop. They were extremely accommodating and went up and down the aisle looking for the titles/authors as I called them off. I managed to find one book for Ronda and one for me and a craft book. The deal was "buy two, get one free". It would be worth it to go back to check it out with a bit more time.

After I got home and reviewed my "next to read list", I've decided that I DO NOT need to go hunting for any more books for a long time. I was going to check out another bookstore, but seriously - I do NOT need to do that. Now I need to update my list and reprint it and I'll be good for months.

If you remember before I left, the cutting table was a wee bit of a disaster as I piled up various things that needed to be addressed (sorted and put away).

Cutting table to be cleaned up!

I tackled it this morning and it's looking much better. I'll share some of that with you over this coming week.

Here's one box that I brought home from the retreat. What's in the box???  BTW - don't worry - you have NOT missed what's in the crate. I was told that I need to have a Facebook LIVE event to unveil what's in the crate. I hope to get it unpacked this week.

So in this box is something that I had seen when I was at Quilt Market in November. It was super cute and I had shown Ronda a picture. She wanted one as well. After much research, she found it at a good price in the US and we finally were able to purchase it - it took a while to be produced.
When we were filling out the order, it was going to cost $45 US to ship to Canada. NO WAY - we didn't want to pay that. A friend of hers was going to the US to visit friends so we had the package shipped to their house FOR FREE. And then the friend carried the boxes home for us. They drove which was a good thing as the box is fairly heavy.

Ronda's item is already removed, but they were identical.

Nice packaging

 Those are wee skinny strips of fabric that they used as filler.  And then there were a number of larger fabric strips as well. OH - the skinny strips are being donated to Diane who will put them in a pet mat. But don't they look festive???

The larger strips are in my string piecing box.

Larger strips for string piecing

And here it is - A Christmas kit. It's so cute.

Santa kit

 Here's the picture on the back. It's essentially a log cabin quilt with a Santa appliqued on one corner. Very cute. And different.

Santa kit

The collection is called Swell Christmas by Urban Chicks (Moda).  I think you might have to search really hard to find one - the kits went FAST.

Oh - they threw in a couple of small freebies as well. I'll take a picture of those and show you. Cute little items. Not necessary, but a nice little touch.

Someone mentioned to me that I should consider designing fabric. As a matter of fact, I've already done that! Years ago when I was at Sheridan College, we had to design fabric all the time. This is one of the pieces that I designed and hand screen printed myself. It's a bit wild on the eyes.

Fabric designed by ME

 Here's a close-up - pretty wild!!!!

Close up of MY fabric

I'm very much a graphic type of designer. I love the print but you can see that it was a challenge to get lined up properly. However, it will make an excellent backing for my pixelated apple quilt. I was going to buy something special for that quilt, but this will do and it uses up some fabric from the stash. Perfect!!!!  I still haven't decided what to use for binding on that quilt - black, green or red??? Or I might just use black and white to blend in with the background. I'll get it quilted first and then decide.

And as usual, it's going to be a very busy week. While I was away, I received a few more assignments to work on and some are a VERY high priority so when I'm home tonight I must get working on that. It's Monday sewing today and I'm looking forward to that.

On the way home, I chatted with my Mom for a while and she asked about those two darn wall hangings that she wants. Now, where is the pattern???  I have a feeling that I put it on my desk so I'll be rooting through all that paper today as well trying to find those pattern. Why or why did I put it in a safe place????

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!