retreating

I am feeling like a lucky girl right now!  Comfortably settled in with friends at Beaver Lake Landing in Cumberland, WI, for a week!  

We drove over yesterday morning, with a rest stop in St. Croix Falls at Pins and Needles in case there was anything irresistible across the border.  Nice ladies there, and we even got a tour of their upstairs retreat center.  A quick stop in Turtle Lake for a sandwich at Subway with a lovely view of the casino (not)!  And then a quick hop up to Cumberland and quilter's nirvana.  After a workout of unloading the trailer and carrying everything up a flight of stairs, we settled down for some quality time with our sewing machines.  Part of my plan for projects this week is to deal with some of the well-aged things that have accumulated in my storage bins waiting for me to complete them.  First out of the box was an ironing board cover from a pattern by Hemma--it's the Karin Laundry Room pattern.  I taught this for a class at Bear Patch and needed a teaching example, so this was mostly constructed already.  But now it's finished and ready to brighten up an ironing board!

Then I moved to a little baby project, making some more little shoes from patterns by Curby's Closet.  Still looking for real shoelaces instead of cording, but I might end up just ordering online to get 14".

 Then I opened up a bag of leftovers from a Block of the Month that I taught at the store.  Here is a photo of the quilt as I made it for class.  Each of the 12 blocks was made twice for this pattern that was from the Quilter's Coop and no longer available.  I had pieces all cut for each block for demonstration of how to construct them.  All tucked into their own little baggie and labeled.

I used a different group of fabrics for these demo blocks, and some of them are already partially sewn, so putting them together goes pretty quickly.  But I will have to come up with another setting for them because there will be 12, not 24.  So far I have these 6 done.  But I'm setting them aside for a bit, perhaps to finish the other 6 tomorrow.  There are many more fun things to work on in my boxes so I need to move along!

 We have observed beavers, loons and wood ducks in the lake, and we are planning on some warmer temps over the next few days so we will enjoy getting outside a bit.  At least long enough to let our machines cool down now and then!  I'll try to keep you informed!