An almost full super moon

I'm happy to report that I slept well last night. I even "slept in" so that is great, but I still have time to get this blog posted in the right time frame. 

I know I say it all the time when I'm at retreat, but this is truly the place to strengthen friendships. While I'm a Zoom person and happy with Zoom, there is nothing like an in-person event to make me very happy. You can't go for a walk with someone on Zoom! But you can in person. While I'm also a get-in-and-out shopper, it's fun to shop with others. We were four yesterday, which is almost unheard of in my world! But the laughs, the shared meals -- you can't beat that. And at one point, something happened at retreat that hasn't happened before, or if it did, it is rare. At one point, the house was empty as everyone left to go shopping!!! 

For those on my retreat list, I'll be sending an email to give you the lay of the land for 2026 and 2027, so you can plan your schedules accordingly. There will be fewer in the future, so they will be even more precious than this year. 

OK -- enough about that! What got done? 

I managed to get 120 six-inch blocks for one flannel quilt in the "blue" theme. So that was good. And as I mentioned yesterday, it got bagged but will not be sewn until I investigate the rest of the scrap piles. There are eight more flannel quilts to quilt with bright flannel backs. Then I'll evaluate the other colors and see if it makes sense to make this quilt. Actually, this might be a good task for my SIL? It's flannel, so a bit tricky, but I'll see. 

120 six-inch blocks for a flannel quilt

Then I worked on the five-inch blocks. I needed more of those - 168 to get a decent-sized quilt. That was an easy job, but it still took all day, and I didn't have 168 blocks until the evening. Well, actually, I found some snowman panels in the flannel pile and decided to add a frame to them to make them the size of FOUR of the five-inch blocks. So that worked, and sped up the progress.  

Blocks for the second flannel quilt

Most of the flannel in this one is winter themed, so technically this one would be good to sew together now.

But by then, I was getting bored with working with the flannel scraps, and it took a while to complete all those blocks. Time to move to something else. 

I still have this much flannel to deal with. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but it filled a bag. I estimate there are at least TWO more decent-sized quilts here. That's obscene!!! But I'm doing something with it. I must leave this out when I'm home and make a few blocks each day! I'll see how that goes -- there aren't many "free" moments in my days. At least not this coming week!

Flannel scraps still to deal with

I brought a couple of "new" projects, ones that aren't scrap-related, so I dug one of them out. AHA—it's a set of placemats. Good grief—I vaguely remember buying this as a kit. How many years ago would that have been? No idea. And will I use them? Nope -- they will go in the placemat donation pile. I've said this before, I'm not so much about the finished item - I'm more about the making! I would sew anything, like scraps, and enjoy it as much as if it were brand-new. 

A set of placemats

Some of the pieces have been cut, but I just didn't want to start this last night, so that's on the agenda for today. Four placemats! 

I also finished that one bag of half-square triangles from my Barn Star Sampler quilt. This pile is all the ones I sewn and trimmed here. No sense sewing them and not trimming. That's a new rule I have, and it really doesn't take long to deal with them! 

The half-square triangles

So I'll keep these together in a bag, and one day I'll dig them out and figure something out for them. 

The collection of half-square triangles from Barn Star Sampler

Don't worry -- I have another bag with me, so that is sitting by the sewing machine and ready to deal with. What's crazy is that half the bag is sewn and trimmed, while the other half isn't. So why do I leave half-finished projects everywhere? Well, that's a problem for all quilters, and we need to stop that!! Do it now!!!! And here's another turned photo! I can't fix it, but you get the idea. 

The next bag of half-square triangles

And if I happen to finish that, there are more bags of them. This is NOT a great photo, but at the bottom of my retreat bag, there are two more bags of half-square triangles to sew. These are the cutoffs from flying-geese units left from specific quilts. That will keep me busy for a while, and I'm OK with leaving them in the retreat bag and working on them while I'm away. Trust me, I have more at home. The ones at home are the random ones. These bags are "collections" from specific quilts. The bottom line is that I have a plan for them, and that makes me happy. 

More bags of half-square triangles

I kind of got obsessed with the puzzle, and as it got dark last night, I needed to move a light in to work on it!! 

Burning the midnight oil!

By the time I left it alone last night, I had this much done. 

Close to the finish

YES -- I am almost done. Yeah!!!! Hey—it's our retreat, and we are allowed to do whatever we want! Don't worry -- I have another puzzle of mine that I want to finish here so it can go home with someone else. 

Did I mention I've been watching this girl with the most annoying voice who talks about assembling puzzles? Always with a stopwatch. That would not be fun! But one of the things she does, and I know other people do it as well, is to sort the pieces into colors. So I broke down and bought a set of puzzle sorting trays, which is also in the picture above. I'll break that out when I work on the small puzzle that I have next. 

I also had company during the day when I worked on the puzzle. This cardinal was pretty persistent and kept hanging out on the windowsill. I don't know if there is a bird feeder, but Mrs. Cardinal was looking for food!!! 

HEY -- is this a fly-through window?

Someone is making a "few" of those children's fabric books, and there are cutoffs - the instructions. I've asked for them as I have plans. So if anyone has instructions from any project that looks like this, I'd be happy to take them off your hands instead of them going into the garbage. I should check whether I have enough to get started on a project. 

Instructions from fabric books

I noticed this morning that the two people on the other side of the room have totally crossed the middle line of the table!! I'll have to bug them this morning!!! I have packed up the stuff that I had spread on the table on the other side of the room and put it in a bag under the cutting table. 

Ooops - retreat spread!

I've already got one bag of stuff to put back in the car. It's so much easier to pack one bag at a time when you're finished with it than to wait until the end of the retreat when everyone is trying to leave at the same time. When it's time to pack up, I usually have one bag of projects, my sewing machine, and whatever food is left. The rest is already done! Efficient!!!! I'm also a neat freak (don't laugh), so it makes sense that I do that. 

Helen Anne and I went for two walks yesterday. It was a glorious day -- not cold, but brisk-- and we soon warmed up with the walking, and at one point we stopped to look at the moon. I spotted this cornfield and hadn't paid it any attention. But it never got harvested!! And it was interesting to see that all the cobs were at the same level on the stalk. I've never noticed that before!!!! 

The cornfield in the winter

I didn't have my phone with me, so Helen Anne took these pictures at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Yep -- that's the moon!!!! It was super visible and quite large. The full COLD MOON is on December 4th, so let's hope we have clear skies tomorrow. 

The almost full super moon

Did you know there are three or four super moons in a year? A super moon occurs when the full moon is at the point in the moon's orbit where the moon is closest to the Earth. And there you go -- another fun fact. Did you know there are FOUR supermoons in 2026? I think there were only three this year. 

Well, it's time to get myself organized. I have a puzzle to finish, I have knitting to explore, four placemats to sew, a couple of videos to watch, and some paperwork to deal with!! Mostly emails. 

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!!