Fireside Retreat - Day Two

It was another very successful day at Fireside Retreat. I may not be getting loads done in terms of quantity, but it's the mindset that's important.

Actually, I didn't even turn my sewing machine on until AFTER lunch. Shocking! I went for a bike ride in the morning. I was going to wait because it was only 11 degrees Celcius in the morning. But then Ronda was out on her bike and well - if she can be out, then so can I!

It was a glorious ride. I decided to try out the rail trail (Uhthoff Trail) that runs very close to the house. Ronda had taken it into Orillia, and so I did as well, but I added a few KM to the other end. It's a beautiful trail.

There were a couple of new bridges over some gorgeous creeks and lots of different kinds of trees along the trail.

 A bridge on the rail trail

In all the time I've come to Orillia, I've never been to the waterfront. GASP!!!!  The trail leads right to the waterfront park. So I went all the way down. I thought this was an excellent opportunity for a photo. On the road to nowhere!

At the dock in downtown Orillia

A couple of kids were getting ready to fish when I was there.

Last time we were here, Claudette wanted to go down to the waterfront and just walk. That will be $50 to park!! Regardless of how long you stay. And there are signs EVERYWHERE - you need a RESIDENT permit to park, or you cough up the $50 IF you can find a non-resident parking spot.

Resident parking required

No BBQs are allowed, and there were signs everywhere about what you can and cannot do. I suggested to Claudette that she bring her bike next time and park somewhere along the bike path and then take her bike to the waterfront. She didn't bring her bike this time, but next time!!

I'll go out again this morning, but I might take the rail trail the other way. It's going to be boring, as I'll see nothing but trees, but it's kind of nice to not have to worry about the traffic.

Back at the retreat house and Lynn was working on an Everyday Market Bag. Look at how neat her work station is. Nothing else on there but her bag. Oh - how I wish!! I have stuff everywhere!

Lynn working on her tote bag

Here's a fancy stitch that she used on the top of the pocket. Hey - if you have decorative stitches, there are lots of places that you can use them.

Using decorative stitches on a pocket

Here's the finished bag. I love that fabric.

Lynn's tote bag

When I finally got back to the sewing machine (I was on lunch duty), I decided to continue working on my string pieced equilateral triangles. As I finished each one, I trimmed it as well using my 60-degree equilateral ruler.

Trimming the string pieced triangles

I hate to admit this, but I LOVE string piecing. I love getting down to the last few pieces and finding the right one for the ends of the points, whether you're working on triangles or squares or whatever shape. The idea is that as you trim off the ends of the strips you've sewn on, you keep these bits and use them for the shorter parts. This is the concept of string piecing that people don't get. But it's the best part! Ah - that's the pioneer spirit in me!

Using the bits for the points

 These are all the bits that were left over when I finished. Now that's efficient string piecing.

All the leftover small bits

 Did I save them? Of course, I did! I still have this many strings left. Honestly looks like I didn't touch the pile that I brought with me. I have a couple of string pieced green quilts that are in the community project bin. These strings will get added to those, and I'll work on the blocks at home or at a future retreat.

The bin of green strings left

 This is what I had leftover from the trimming. NONE of that got saved. But it did go into a pet mat.

The trimmings

 Then I had this huge stack of triangles that needed the paper removed. I started to sew them together with the paper still in the block. Oh no - that's a waste of time. It's way more efficient to remove the paper before they get sewn together. There are 180 triangles. I just have to be careful as those edges along two sides are on the bias.

180 finished triangles

I laid them out, trying to find a pattern that I liked. I know that many of those fabrics are totally hideous, but when you see the blocks laid out, I really like it. But I wasn't convinced that this is what I wanted it to look like.

The first iteration of the string quilt

So I switched the blocks around. Do you see what I did???

The new layout of the blocks

I LOVE it, and it's going to look amazing!! I sat and watched the hockey game on the big screen TV and ripped the paper out. I'm far from being finished. So I decided this would be an excellent job to do on a Zoom call. So I've put it away for the moment and going to work on something else today.

The hockey game on the big screen

The meals were a bit different for the first couple of days. We had takeout from Boston Pizza last night. It was great.

Take out from Boston Pizza

After dinner, I went for a walk and went to the Grants Conversation property. It was a bit late, but I decided it wasn't enough to just walk there, so I hiked the Trillium Trail, which is 1 KM in the woods. I was a bit worried about mosquitos, but there weren't any.

There are lots of little bridges in this area. But all beautifully maintained.

Bridge along my walk

And I noticed this twisted tree. I wonder what happened to it that caused it to grow like that.

A twisted tree in the forest

 Tish joined us yesterday, so we are now five. I still had a room to myself last night, and I'm happy to report that I slept like a log. Yeah!!!!

Today, someone is celebrating their birthday, and we all got invitations to their party. I can hardly wait to go!!! You have to wait for tomorrow to see what that's all about.

Invitation to a birthday party

And that's it for today. I've got to get myself ready and off for my bike ride. I can't have Ronda showing me up!!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!

Fireside Retreat - Day Five

I had a load of fun at the retreat. But I have to admit that it is great to be home! The girls, of course, was quite excited to see me and now time to get back to my routine. I have a load of things that have to be done this week, so it's going to be all hands on deck. Well - just my two hands, but I think you knew that!

Ooops -- I didn't find my flower photo this morning, but here are some fungi that I saw on my morning walk. I took a trip down to the small conservation area near the retreat house.

Fungi on a dead tree

 I thought I was doing great at following the WHITE markers on the trail, and then all of a sudden, I was on a different trail. I had looked at the map the previous time I was there, so I had an idea of how all the trails were laid out. I did get a nice long walk through the trees. I didn't stop to dally long at any spot since the mosquitos were out in the forest.

I did stop to grab this photo. Who lives there? It makes me want to make a fairy door for this opening. 

A beautiful spot for a fairy door

You're not sure what a fairy door is? I stole this picture off the internet. They are the cutest things.

A fairy door

I don't really have any trees in my backyard where I could install a fairy door, but I love it. I love little things, and the other thing that I saw that is adorable is the mouse houses for inside your home. I want one -- I wonder if you have to make them or you can buy them? I've seen miniature doors installed along the baseboards - it's just a super cute idea!

Baseboard mini house

Someone I follow on IG had her husband make one that they installed at their house to entertain their grandchildren. How fun!!!!


Time for a bit of show and tell from the retreat. Laura finished quite a few things, including TWO of the Everyday Basket. They are sure easy to make. The pattern used to be on the Northcott website. I really, really need to find a home for all those freebies that I wrote, now that my patterns are being replaced.

Everyday Basket - number one 

EVeryday Basket - number two

Once I got past the yoga bag and the backpack, I was into making up some zippered pouches. Usually, when I make a zippered pouch, I make them with a lining. That way, the seams can get hidden inside. I had some leftover bits from the yoga bag that were already quilted with the lining attached. This is the one zippered pouch that I made.

Zippered pouch

I decided to bind all the seams on the inside. At one point, I was wondering how to attach all the binding bits and still turn the pouch inside out. Hmm - then I realized that it didn't have a lining and I could EASILY turn it inside out through the zipper. That was a hilarious moment when I came to that realization!  We get so caught up in the "normal" way of doing something, and when you change it up a bit, well, it takes a moment for the brain to catch up!

The seams are finished with binding

I've decided that I do NOT like this method. For those pouches that are made with leftover quilted bits, that I'll add a lining so I can hide all the seams inside. Or, I'll make a flat pouch where it doesn't matter.


This is Ronda's road trip tote bag.

Ronda's road trip tote bag

She embroidered Quilt Posse (our little group's name) and all of our names on both sides of the bag. I had to laugh as I said, she put our names on the bag, the same way that we sit in the car. She's in the driver's seat, Laura in the other front seat and Shelly and I in the back. Although I usually sit behind Ronda, so she got that wrong! I think she should make the bag over!!!

The embroidery on Ronda's bag

There was a whole lot of mask making going on. Katheleen spent a good part of the time making masks. She was making masks with pleats and using strips of t-shirts for the ties instead of elastic.

Can you believe what she found on one of her masks???

A GOLD Thread

Yes - that is the same gold thread that has been hanging out at my house!! I was using some of the fabric that the gold thread had been in. It just won't go away!!!

I had been admiring the style of mask that they had at Thimbles and Things. Katheleen gave it a try, and she ended up using that pattern for the remainder of the retreat. Here's the link if you want to try it. It's called Jen's 3-D mask. Katheleen modified the pattern slightly so that she could insert the t-shirt ties along the sides. I made one, and I'll share it tomorrow.

I didn't get a picture of what Katheleen had done, but she was making 100 of them and got a good part of them completed on the weekend. They will be donated to a local charity near her. Way to go, Kathleen!!! I did help a wee bit (pressing) as a thank you for her providing me with the directions to make mine.

This is one that Claudette was making for her son.

A mask

Then I was back to making more zippered pouches. These were made from leftover bits, and now they are made into a pouch. There was a lining, so no raw edges on the inside.

The front of the pouch

 I didn't have enough of the same fabric, so it has a different front and back. Both are from the same fabric collection. That's perfectly fine!!!

The back of the pouch

 Then I made a bigger one. This one has the same fabric on the front and the back. That uses up MOST of that Crafty Bear fabric. I have enough leftover to make another small project. Not sure what yet.

One last zippered pouch

Ronda got one more sports quilt done. This is her specialty, for sure! I have a feeling that I'm going to see a few of these in the next couple of days that will need to be quilted.

Ronda's sports quilt

I always take a group picture before we leave. This is my test photo. I had forgotten to take the tripod, so the angle is a bit weird. But that's OK.

Testing the camera angle

This was my laundry basket when I came home. Not bad!! That big bag is a string quilt, which is going to take two days to make. I MUST work on that at the next retreat. I'm working on the bag on the right, and I pulled the bag of tumbling blocks so I can do a few a day.

The laundry basket at the end of the retreat

All the finished stuff or stuff that needs to have some more prep done got put into another bag for the trip home. 

And I've started to pack for the next retreat! I did have a bag of enders and leaders in the laundry basket, but I wasn't doing anything that required enders and leaders. So it got left in the basket for next time.

Staring to pack for the next retreat

I had an uneventful trip home and got everything unpacked. Studio B is going to need a wee bit of tidying, but ONLY after this week is over. There's so much to do that tidying up is NOT on the agenda.

I decided it was too nice in the evening to sit in the house and it was threatening rain, so I didn't go for a walk. I sat in the backyard (and in the gazebo when it rained) and read a book that I started a while ago. No time for reading at the retreat, and so far, the book had been slow. I managed to plow through quite a bit yesterday, and now it's getting exciting, and I don't have time!

At one point, Murphy charged to the fence because something was RIGHT on the other side. Oh - it's those damn coyotes again. Sure enough, the one was running right along the fence. Was it trying to get in? It sure seemed like it, and it certainly isn't shy. I grabbed my camera and went to the spot on the fence that I can look over.

The coyote outside our fence

He just stood there - trying to think of what to do. And at this time of the evening, there was a LOT of cyclists and people walking on that trail, which you can see in the background. Unfortunately, there was this stupid tree right in the way.

The coyote

Then he moved a bit or did I? and I got this shot of him. He's about the size of my dogs and very bold.

The coyote

Well, eventually, he went away, but in the meantime, my girls freak out when he's behind the yard.

I see I'm running out of time.

Have a super day, and it's great to be back home!!!!


Ciao!!!!

Fireside Retreat - Day Four

Sadly, today is the last day here at Fireside Retreat. But who cares about that - it's what happened yesterday that counts.

There was no bike ride and minimal walking as we had a rainy day. No one complained about the rain. Everything has been so hot and dry around here that it was a pleasure to get the rain. I did go for a short walk after dinner, and it was nice to get out and stretch the legs. I did NOT make my 10K steps for the day, and I'm OK with that.

I do have another flower photo, but I didn't download it, so you get a snail instead.

Snail on the road

The moment I stepped close to take his picture, he retreated to the safety of his shell.

I did get a few pictures of what some of the others were working on. Here are a few of them.

Ronda seemed to be in bag making mode the entire weekend, although she's now working on some machine embroidery, and I think I saw that she completed another sports quilt.

The Crafty Tote

You can check out the FREE pattern at AllPeopleQuilt. And if you want the exact same panel that I used in the original, you can find that at Lens Mills in Cambridge.

Then onto a couple of A Little Duff'll Do It. Hmm - with that fabric, I wonder who these are for?

Little duffle bags

And lastly, a couple of zippered pouches.

Zippered pouches

Laura also finished off a Crafty Tote. This one had been sitting around for more than three years. It doesn't matter - it's done, and that's all that counts!! 

Laura's Crafty Tote

Claudette was hard at work on her Professional Tote. However, that bag, as I mentioned yesterday, is loaded with detail - pockets, trims, snaps, and who knows what else. This is one of the sides of the bag.

One side of the Professional Tote

One of the hardest, NOT the hardest, but one of the challenging feats of making this kind of a bag is getting all the supplies assembled, cutting and prepping the pieces. And don't forget to label them all, or you are in BIG trouble.

Pieces of the Professional Tote

Time for me to get something done! I pulled out the yoga bag so I could at least get that done. I wasn't going to be able to finish the backpack, so that went back in the laundry basket.

After I sewed the straps onto the yoga bag, they needed to be secured. I was going to turn this giant piece of fabric to create an X and then remembered that I had an 8-way stitch on my Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2. I used that stitch and stitched, left, right, backward and forward, and diagonally from left to right and right to left. It was super easy.

The 8-way stitch on the Designer EPIC 2

I had to deal with a LOT of thicknesses.

Stitching out the 8-way stitch

This is the reinforcement that I stitched on the handle. I love it. The stitches are a wee bit small, but I have a feeling that's due to the MANY layers of fabric. I'll have to practice that a bit. Using the 8-way stitch was way easier than rotating that large piece of the bag.

The reinforced handle

 The zipper got put in, but not without a wee bit of difficulty. It's a long zipper, and between Ronda and me, we had no issue putting the zipper pull on. It was the topstitching along the LONG tube of the bag that became a problem, but I got it done.

I had to laugh at one point - each of the clips on my sewing machine skirt represents a piece of bag part that got sewn into a bag. Thankfully, I had those clips with me as they became very handy when sewing the rest of the yoga bag together.

Clips attached on the sewing machine skirt

I'm chatting about the photos in the order they appear today. I'm too lazy to move them around. We've been talking about our Junque journals and what we could put in them. We NEEDED a date stamp. So a couple of us were off to Michael's to see what we could find. The store is small here and did not have date stamps, so we popped over to Staples, which was next door.

We found this display of Crayola crayons. Buy the tin and fill with 24 of your favorite colors - what a great idea.

Fill your tin with your favorite Crayola crayons

And these were the colors you got to choose from. I didn't buy any as I have several boxes of 96 crayons at home that are brand new—no need to add to the supplies when I don't need them.

Crayons to fill the box

It started to pour rain when we were in the store, so we had to make a dash to the car.  Then we were back at the retreat house and ready to get to work.

While most of us have been somewhat productive, we've also been very relaxed. Coffee (or tea) and chatting on the deck in the afternoon, although we didn't get a chance to do that yesterday with the rain.

I decided to take a break and work on something else. I pulled out those tumbling blocks. Yikes - all those Y seams - it sure does take a long time to work on these. But that's OK. The retreat is the perfect place.

14 tumbling blocks - DONE

The bad news about these blocks is that even though the blocks might be together, sewing them to each other is still a royal pain! But I want to get it done, and if I do a little bit each retreat or each day at home, it'll happen.

I see that I'm going to have some cutting to do as I have quite a few more dark diamonds than I do of the light and medium. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The pile of diamonds still to sew together

Then it was time to tackle the yoga bag once more. The ends had to be stitched into the bag. I tried this way with the bottom next to the needle. That wasn't fun at all.

Sewing the ends in the yoga bag

I flipped it (and I should know this by now) so that the end of the bag was on the bottom, and I was stitching on the side pieces. That worked much better, but still, it was NOT a fun seam to sew. While the corners of the bag were rounded, it was challenging to get the bag to match to the ends. I would NOT recommend this pattern to anyone unless you are a very experienced sewist.

Sewing with the end of the bag on the bottom

I can see Shelly rolling her eyes right now, saying - everyone should know that this is the way to go. And it makes sense, and I teach it all the time in any class with curved seams. The fuller side of any curved seam should always be UP so you can control the excess fabric. I don't care - the seams are done! However, I do have to finish off those seams with bias binding, which I don't have with me.

See how handy those clips were. I can't imagine pinning those two pieces together, and the bag is very long (tall), and that made it cumbersome to sew.

Using clips to secure the two pieces

And here is the yoga bag!!!  I need to add a tab at both ends of the long zipper. There were none in the pattern, and I didn't think to add them. The moment I went to close the zipper, I thought - OH shoot - no zipper tabs. I'll do that when I get home, along with the seam binding.

I used batting in the bag and was a bit concerned that it would be limp and not keep its shape. However, with the pockets down one side and the squarish ends, it has loads of shape. I'm happy with it, but not ready to cross it off the UFO list yet. Close, but not yet.

The side of the yoga bag with all the pockets

The other side of the yoga bag with one pocket.

The other side of the yoga bag

Now that I think of it, I have a couple of projects on those Task Master UFO lists that are almost done. I really need to focus and get those crossed off the list. It would be great to create a new list for next year and have the other lists completely done. That's not going to happen, but I'm making good progress, and that's all I care about.

However, for the next retreat, I think I'm going to bring quilt blocks - super easy quilt blocks!!!! I don't think complicated bag projects are the right projects to bring to the retreat.

I snapped a photo of the rain pouring off the roof during the afternoon, right about the time that we would be out for our afternoon tea. As I mentioned, we did NOT complain as it was so refreshing to get the rain.

The afternoon downpour

 We needed to watch the rest of the movie we had started the night before. We decided to bring our movie screen into the sewing room as it was still raining, and the rain on the tin roof was going to drown out the sound. A couple of books to hold the sheet in place on the ceiling beam, and we were good to go.

Movie night

After that movie was done, another movie got put on, but it was past my bedtime, and so I went to bed as did a couple of the others.

So here's the thing about the food. We've done very well over the past couple of years to reduce the number of treats that we bring. We eat enough at the meals that we technically don't need treats. However, there seemed to be lots of treats, and we narrowed down the source. Hmmm - next time, those treats need to be hidden - well hidden within that person's private sewing space.

They sat on the table during movie time last night, and I did NOT touch one treat. The previous night was a totally different story. Too much is too much!!!!

On that note, that's it for today. I'm not riding my bike today. I never do on the last day. I'm going to finish up a zipper pouch, a mask, and I have a couple of other small projects to work on. I touched almost everything in the laundry basket. That system works!!!! But you must have your projects well-prepped - or at least not forget any of the supplies at home. I did very well this time.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!