Retreating

I had my bi-annual girlfriends quilting retreat the first weekend of November up at Evergreen Retreat in Janesville, Wisconsin. We all had such a good time, we probably each gained about 5 lbs in 3 days!  Evergreen is really a fantastic retreat location. It's reasonable priced, not that far from where we live, they provide all the 'stuff' for quilting (irons/big boards, tall cutting tables, rulers, ott lights, design walls, comfy chairs.....) and they have 3 nearby quilt shops to explore! I felt that I got quite a bit done, so that was a bonus.
I made pillowcases out of Riley Blake's "Colorful Christmas" line  for DiscoJen's kids for Christmas.

I finished sewing on the binding on the 'Plaid About You' quilt out of Lakehouse's 'Fun Flowers' black colorway. And since Binding Guru Karen was at the retreat, I even got it hand tacked down in record time. I tell you, the woman is a binding genius!

I used my water-soluble interfacing technique to mark my quilting.

I quilted the big flowers free-hand. Just to be clear, this is a panel. I did not applique these fabulous flowers.

And since this is for a baby, I used bright, lime green minky on the back. This photo doesn't portray the color accurately, it's really a lime green, like the gingham in the flower above. I love how the quilting shows up on minky.

I designed and tried to figure out how to make a commissioned tree skirt from my extremely crudely drawn design. I specifically save this to do at the retreat since I would have others to help me figure out how the heck to put this thing together. My friend Carol is especially helpful with these types of things because she's an engineer.
I started with this pile of batiks and fairy frost:

I made a circle out of the beyond fantastic red diamond Hoffman Batik. I found a ton of tutorials online on how to do this. I then used my beloved 1/4" fusible web tape and ironed under the edge.

Then I pieced together the greens into large strip sets and interspersed some thin. white fairy frost strips here and there and used one of those 9degree rulers to make wedges. I had the idea that if I could get the angles right on a quarter of the circle, then I could just do 4 of those and connect them, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I had to make some wider angled strips, some smaller wedged strips and so on. I'm not done with it yet, but I have a good start at least. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out too.

And last, but certainly not least, I FINALLY finished the last of my Hydrangea commissioned "You Go Girl" bags!!!! It feels soooooo good to get this thing done. It wouldn't be that bad, but I quilted the crap out of the material. It took me 10-12 hours just to quilt the material, and this is the 3rd bag I've made like this! I'm really over quilting the hydrangea material!



Seriously, what was I thinking when I started to quilt it this way?!?!?!

I have photos of what everyone else made, but I can't locate the SD card with them on it, so that will have to be another post!

Where did October go?

Anyone? I'm not sure where the whole month went to! I've been so crazy busy that I forgot to post anything. Here's a snapshot of what I did in October:








I actually did this mini as a challange swap over the summer. I was given the house w/the number 5 door and fat quarters of the polka dotted fabric, some Rural Jardin (French reproduction fabric) and the numbers and newsprint/dictionary print from the Authentic line by Moda. This is what I came up with. The newsprint is on the back.



I added the Heather Ross gnome and mushrooms first and then it grew from there. Michelle suggested the clothes line, and then I felt the tree needed balance, so I made the tire swing. Then the tree was bare, so it needed a bird...... It's kind of like that book 'If you give a mouse a cookie'.

I named it 'No. 5 Privet Drive' at the time I was thinking that was the address given to Harry Potter, but then I double checked and he lived at #4 Privet Drive, so the gnome lives across the street from Harry.

Yum

We had a group meeting at work over the summer where our people form around the world came to Chicago for meetings. I work on a floor that's known for it's mass quantities of food available on any given day, so I don't bring things to work too often,  but when I do, I pull out all the stops! I get all Martha Stewart in my set up, and people really appreciate it. People that I didn't even know resided on our floor show up.

To have a proper display for my treats, I used one to the vintage table cloths that I got at the sale at the beginning of the summer. The fruit salad blue Tupperware bowl doesn't really go, but everything was already so heavy I just couldn't do a ceramic bowl for that too.

I was only going to make one coffee cake, but you know, once you pull out all the stuff to make one, you might as well make 3! (This is kind of my theory of quilting and bag making as well. Although part of that is because I can't do math and usually end up accidentally cutting out enough pieces for 2 quilts.) All of the recipes are from Williams Sonoma. I've said it hundreds of times before, and will say it hundreds more, I have NEVER had a WS recipe not turn out or taste anything less than fabulous.

The Peach Streusel Coffee Cake.

The Blackberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

The recipe was for raspberries, but I used fresh blackberries from my vine.

The Brown Sugar Macadamia Nut Coffee Cake.

I toasted the macadamias first for a nuttier flavor.

And this was exciting! Did anyone get the latest Restoration Hardware catalog? They have repros of the vintage lights I bought at the garage sale last month! Only mine are white and cost at a minimum $252 less, each!!!

Theirs:

Mine:

Yeah garage sale find!!!