retreat report card

I feel the need to share my accomplishments from my 4 1/2 days of sewing with friends, Nancy and Leisl.  We stayed in a condo at Christmas Mountain Village in the Wisconsin Dells area.  It's a timeshare unit that I was able to use, and it was a 3 bedroom which was a real treat because usually I can only find a 2 bedroom for us.  This was great, we had a whole spare kitchen and living area for stacking all our stuff!

I'll try to follow the order that I posted on my previous blogpost.

First was the Village.  I did sew together all the houses that I had planned and cut fabrics for.  So now with the few I already had done, I'm starting to get a little neighborhood!

Next was the Scrap Hap quilt but it didn't even come out of the box.  I felt kind of bad for it, but it just wasn't meant to be worked on this time!

After that, I showed you the Alphabet Soup book that I wanted to try.  I did get the 3 letters done, which was my goal.  Each still needs to be framed up and finished into a pillow top.  It took some concentration to use the 2 rulers correctly.

I didn't take a picture of my zigzag triangle blocks.  I sewed some more together, and I'm realizing that they are bigger than I envisioned somehow.  I may have more than I need!

The little Travel Case is nearly done, I did get the ribbons all sewn in place and just have a few seams left to finish.  I also wanted to change the closure from velcro (called for in the pattern) to invisible magnetic closure so that took some figuring for placement, etc.

I did make the little Quiltsmart crossbody clutch, and used a purchased handle instead of the cord that the pattern called for.  Nancy modeled it for a picture, but I'm not sharing that one because she may not appreciate sharing her bathrobe fashion statement!

Here's the Alligator Alley quilt top all finished, I like it!  It really went together well.  As I said before, this will be given to my littlest grandson, Leo.  He's 10 months old, and I just got done visiting the family in North Carolina.  He's on the brink of crawling, and we did some work to get the house childproofed again.  Probably the biggest challenge now is the fact that his 2 older brothers need constant reminders to put away the legos and tiny toys and bunchems when Leo is in the room.

I skipped working on Bridget's Bagettes, but I did make the Hang Ons from the Lazy Girl pattern.  They would hook on a doorknob for keys, by an outlet for charging phones, from a Command hook for storing any little thing.

I also finished this Sew Together zipper bag to give to my mom.  In fact, I just wrapped it up for mailing tonight.  Posed in front of the bag is my very handy new travel wine glass!  It's the Corkcicle Unicorn Magic stemless metal beverage container.  It's sparkly!  If you go to their website, they are out of stock.  But if you check on Amazon or elsewhere, they can be found.  Dan gave it to me for Christmas specifically for retreats.  How thoughtful is that!  I think he knows that there has been a spill incident that resulted in wine in the bobbin area, which isn't easy to clean out!  It's now quilter approved!

Here are a couple of things that I did do on retreat but weren't listed on my preparation list.

I made 2 little "busy bags" for grandsons to try out.  There is an assortment of little objects surrounded by plastic pellets.  Through the vinyl window, they can find things.  Might be good for travel, I hope.

 And below are parts of 2 different quilts.  On the left is Nancy's start on an Edyta Star pattern.  On the right are blocks I made for a quilt but can't remember the name.  I'll look it up.  It uses a jelly roll (2 1/2" strips) which is a timesaver for cutting.

I had to leave Nancy and Leisl at the condo so I could drive home and catch our flight the next morning to Charleston, SC.  I hated leaving early, but I loved getting to see Brita, Ben, Ian, Jack and Leo!  I also hated the drive back home because there was new snow and bad road conditions on I-94 most of the way.  It took forever to get home, speeds on the interstate were only 40-45 in some areas.  I was so glad to pull into our driveway!