Last week Gail, Marg, Becky, Patti and I went on another getaway to Retreat at the Farm in Shelburne, Ontario. As usual, four days of uninterrupted camaraderie and sewing with my quilt buds was great for our mental health, but not for our waistlines! We always tend to have snacks on hand that we normally don’t eat and, of course, along with that is sitting on our butts too much sewing and doing very minimal exercise.

As I said in my last email, Gail and I were going to start working on the Wanderer’s Wife pattern at this retreat…me with my usual funky colours and Gail with her large stash of Kaffe Fassett fabrics. We both got a great start on the filler blocks. Because Gail was using a lot of patterned fabrics in her blocks, the units kept getting lost on her table, but you can see some of them on the small design board against the window. In the photo below you can see the mess of our tables…Gail was on the right and I was on the left.

Marg was working on the most adorable alpaca/llama quilt by Sew Fresh Quilts. Marg is very organized and likes to be prepared…this quilt is not meant for anyone specific…she likes to have things on hand “just in case”. She managed to get quite a few done while there (don’t you just love the eyelashes?!), and Becky liked them so much that she cut the pattern measurements in half and made small ones for placemats to gift to some friends. Some of the pattern pieces were so small around the muzzle that she probably would have been better off doing it with the foundation paper piecing method, but she persevered and they turned out awesome. Whoever the happy recipients are…they’re going to love them!

Patti had tried foundation paper piecing once before and wasn’t sure she’d ever want to do it again until she saw the sample I made for one of my classes using the “pineapple” log cabin design papers by It’s Sew Emma. I used a beautiful scrappy blue and white colour scheme for mine, but Patti thought her favourite colour combination of black, white and red would work really well…and she was so right! She caught on to this technique so quickly this time, made 4 quilt blocks while at retreat, since then has already completed all 16, sewn the blocks together and even removed the papers from the back. Aren’t they wonderful?! I think she’s hooked.

At the last retreat I also started on the Ultimate Travel Bag 2.0 by ByAnnie. All the components were done separately…I just had to put them together. I worked on it again at this retreat, almost got it done, but it’s still not quite there yet so I’ll share it with you another time. It matches my A Place For Everything 2.0 also by ByAnnie. The fabric is g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s!

It’s truly amazing how much we can accomplish while we’re away with no interruptions from our everyday lives. The next one is in May at a new location for us, and we’ll be joined by a few more of our fellow guild members…I’ll keep you posted on that one too. No doubt there will be lots to share!