How to have fun at a retreat- part three

Gobble, gobble, gobble......hope you are not sick of turkey yet. Today is going to be the last installment of how to have fun at a retreat and it bring us to one of the key decisions for a retreat......What to bring!!!!!!

I always like to bring too much stuff for two reasons. First, I under some delusion that I will actually be able to get it all done. Maybe if I did not spend so much time on the socializing and eating parts of the retreat, I would get more done but where is the fun in that! The second reason is in case I get bored working on one thing, I can switch to doing something else.

Following my usual plans, I packed LOTS of stuff!!!!!! And I even got some things done!!!!

I pieced these house blocks together last winter for Bumble Beans. She was collecting blocks to make into quilts for the homeless shelters.I missed the deadline for turning in the blocks, darn. BUT I still could turn in a quilt for the project. So I finally got it all pieced, quilted and bound! It is going to ship out this week. I am going to send two other quilts along that I finished up. Hopefully they will be keeping people warm soon.

 

Another view but you can see my new orange Crocs too!

Then I finished up the snowball quilt......you saw that before but here it is again.

And that took care of my tops. Then it was time to finish up some piecing on projects that have been sitting around a while.

I started these blocks about a year ago, made a few, and then pushed the whole project aside until now.

Now I love the blocks in this quilt and the colors so I really have no idea why I kept putting it aside. One of the mysteries of life I guess. But I sewed away at the retreat.......

And finished up all the blocks. They came out smashing!!!! See the one block in this picture, so much fun!!

No time to sew them all together at the retreat BUT when I got home, I laid them all out and finished the top.

You'll have to wait for a photo though, too rainy today for taking one.

And yes, those are stickers on my sewing machine. I added some bling......

Then I tried some of Bonnie Hunter's tricks. I had read in her book about using "enders and leaders" to start and end your stitching. You start and end your project with pieces from a different project. Alot less thread waste and long ends to deal with using this technique.

 I thought I would give it a try......and I had a really good project to do it with.

I have 300 plus of these things to sew together. It is veryyyyyyy boring to do these at once so doing them little by little while working on something else at the same time has worked out great. I have about 50 of them done so far.

Near the end of the retreat, I was getting tired of sewing so I spend a few hours cutting up all my batiks scraps into the sizes of blocks that Bonnie uses in her Enders and Leaders book. She has a new one coming out soon and showed some of the quilts from that book at the recent Flying Geese guild meeting.

They were fabulous!!!!! And now I got my scraps ready to roll when the book comes out.

Now when I was done cutting all these up I had a pile of little bits and pieces left......

Pretty!!!!!!!

Toooooooo pretty to just toss. So I asked people for ideas.....and one gal suggested using the strings to fill those hollow ornaments you see at Christmas time.

Great idea!!!!!

So I chopped them up a little more......like confetti!!!

And mixed it in with some strings......

Ta dah!!!!! Fabric salad!!!!!

Now to find those hollow ornaments!!!

Before I head off, let's have a show of hands.....how many of you are Black Friday shoppers?????

I am!!!!!

And this year I found out a quilt shop got in on the fun!!!!!

And that's a tale for next time.....

Have a great day!

kathy