Quilting in the woods

We had a lovely time at our fall girl's quilting retreat in November. The trees were lovely and the weather yucky, perfect for staying inside and quilting!

We always have good food too. Everyone signs up with a partner to cook a meal and I must say, the food is always great! This is Dori's french toast casserole. I need the recipe for this one! And look at how she used her scraps from her quilting project as little napkin rings! Isn't that a fun touch? Retreats are always so inspirational. All those creative people getting together, helping each other out! I forgot to take pictures until the end of the weekend, so I didn't get some of the ladies' projects. We made aprons, bags, quilts, it was a fabric frenzy!

I accomplished quite a bit. I finished a Tammy Tadd Designs "Girly Girl" purse made with Ava Rose fabric by Tanya Whelan, accented with a gorgeous Lakehouse stripe. I finished two of my grocery bags for Jennie.

I also got all of the strips pieced together for a quilt that I've been commissioned to make. That was no small feat. It's a 100 block quilt, made of split nine patches, with an extra row of 2.5" blocks at the top and bottom to make it a rectangle. That means 220 half squares, and something like 750 squares! Whew, it didn't seem like that many when I was putting them together! I'll post about it after the holidays, when it's safely in the hands of it's recipient.

Barb made these lovely bags out of charm squares. I don't recall the pattern, but it had a couple of different options in the one pattern. Aren't they cute?

Karen worked on this fabulous "Yellow Brick Road" by Terry Atkinson, set on-point. This my favorite pattern. It's also Jennie and Karen's favorite as well. We've made dozens of them between the three of us. Jennie and I were at the Madison quilt show when we saw it set on-point. We were blown away! How did it never occur to us to set it that way?!?! The fabric is the "Ginko" line by Lonni Rossi, I think. It's a few years old. This quilt is gorgeous!

I had to share DiscoJen's green polyester jogging suit that she was wearing when she was dubbed DiscoJen at our first retreat. It was like 2am and she put on her disco cd and started shaking her booty to "YMCA" thus earning her the name DiscoJen. It will live in infamy.