Spring House Retreat - celebrations!

Here's an interesting question from the comments: If you could be any age, what would it be and why? I think that should be under 10. Of course, the lives of today's children are so different from our childhood. What age would I want to be? I think 5. I would be old enough to be semi-independent but young enough to be in total wonder of the world! 

One of the most significant issues with growing up is maintaining that sense of wonder? Hopefully, you have the choice to be yourself and have parents, teachers, and friends who do not squash those dreams, creativity, and curiosity! 

While technology is here to stay, we must get those crayons out with our children or grandchildren. We must take them to the park and roll in the dandelions, looking for bees and bugs. We need to converse with them on car trips, asking why and having them ask us why. 

Luckily, that happened in my life, and I'll go to my end thinking, "Wow, I always wanted to know how the crematorium worked!" 

We have been behaving ourselves! In case you were wondering. 

So here's what's been happening. I'm happy to report that I have completed all the blocks for the 365 challenge until the end of April. That makes me one-third of the way through the blocks! Yes, I know there are still many more blocks, but at the end of every month, it is time to have a mini-celebration. 

April is now complete for the 365-day quilt

While we can be pessimistic, there's no need for that! It's all good news. I must start sewing the blocks together to see what it looks like! And I hope to plan a day or two at home to cut the next month's blocks. Then they will be ready to go, or I could use them as enders and leaders. I can DO THIS!!!!

I had thrown five partial spools of thread in my sewing box—thank goodness I did. Two days ago, I put the fourth one on the machine. When I went to wind a bobbbon yesterday, guess what? 

My fourth spool of thread

Yep—another empty spool! I'm on my last one, but thankfully, it has a fair amount of thread, so all is good! 

And it's empty!

I don't know what is happening to me, but I get easily distracted and am not at the end of a seam. I don't know how often I returned to my sewing machine to find I was partway through a seam, but I don't think I ever do that at home. 

A distraction!

I managed to get my Oh Canada Quilts of Valour quilt top together. I had to do some creative piecing to get pieces long enough for some outer logs, but it's together. That leaves two Ziploc bags of Canada-themed scraps, and I'll bring at least one of them back to the next retreat to figure out what to do. So all is good. It's all about progress! I wish I had MORE progress days in that area, but you do what you can and don't dwell on the entire picture. 

Quilts of Valour top done! 

I had to go out and get our dinner yesterday, so Dede and I also stopped at one of the local quilt shops to pick up something for one of the other ladies. I wasn't going to buy anything, and we even thought about having the store owner wing the package out the door to us. However, we thought that was a bit tacky! 

I bought some white fabric—you can never have too much white! I was interested in these bright rolls of strapping for bags. Now, I could rant about this because I think it's ridiculous. But if the designer can do it and people are willing to buy, then spend your money. 

I took two rolls of designer webbing to the cash to inquire about the price, as it was NOT marked on them. It was $10.75 a meter. WHAT??? Did I hear correctly? Yes, she said it was $10.75 a meter. But if I wanted "regular" webbing, I could buy the other stuff, which was $2.00 a meter. 

Regular and designer webbing

I bought a little bit of both and brought them back to the house to ask which people preferred. It was about equal. Wow --- that's insane, and people will buy that $10.75 because it belongs to a well-known designer. People --- where is your head? I would NEVER pay a premium (OK - except for yesterday) just because it has someone's brand on it. 

I don't care who the designer is - if the same product is available without your brand and is much cheaper - I'll buy the cheaper one. This same designer now has rulers - we didn't check their price. And there are scissors and many other notions, in addition to many fabric collections. OK -- if you want to pay that price, you go ahead. I'll use my old stuff. Or buy the cheap stuff! 

However, when I was at the store, I spotted something I had to buy, and I'm picking it up on my way home later today. You'll have to wait until tomorrow, but I was so excited! 

It's hard to see, but the sun was shining on the ice in the trees, which was so pretty. This house is ideally situated for the sun. The sewing room faces south, so we have blazing sun all day from sunup to sundown. I'm going to miss that as I move back to studio B. 

The late afternoon sun

We all come to retreat with different ways of organizing our projects. Look at this - I think this one beats them all. 

She has cut and marked all her little squares for stitch and flip corners. They are laid out in specific groups of ten. 

How is this for being organized? 

Here are two more mini design boards, and everything is laid out and labeled, with the corresponding fabrics on the second design board! 

More organization

And all those boards stack up neatly and get tied together with a ribbon!!!

The stack of mini-design boards

One of the ladies was running out of things to sew, so I told her I had a community project quilt with me and offered it to her to sew. This is the result—I'm glad one more top is done! Thank you so much for the help! You know who you are!

Community project quilt top - done

And that brings another day to an end! 

I packed most of my stuff in the car yesterday. I'm not taking forever to put it all in today, so I'm packing it a bit at a time. The sewing machines are still in the house. I pulled three projects to keep me going this morning. I finished one of them last night—the Quilts of Valour quilt. Will I have enough to keep me going this morning? Oh yes, the one I pulled is a doozy!!! Just wait until tomorrow to see that! 

Yesterday, we celebrated a birthday and had cake for dinner—wait—we didn't have cake for dinner; we had cake for dessert! 

Don't forget to be curious about something today! Ask questions - don't just accept things at face value. I want to hear what you learned! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!