Retreat Recap & Some Big News!

Finally recovered from a weekend of quilting insanity with my guild! What a stinkin blast. Tucked in a cozy little mountain retreat center, snow sparkling and fireplaces glowing…we giggled, we gabbed, we stuffed our faces with popcorn & taco-flavored chips, and sewed til our eyes bled…well at least mine. Not bled, really, but I did come down with a lovely case of pink eye (hi, welcome to 4th grade).

And what a crazy I am for staying up the first night til 2:30AM, when I’ve been pretty much going to bed with my kids every night…yes, hard to keep my eyes open past 8pm when I’m busy growing another human! That’s right! Baby # 3 is officially on the way, and we couldn’t be more thrilled!

Due in October, and I’m thinking WHY IN THE WORLD didn’t I take a quick minute to consider the Sewing Summit?? I know, priorities, right? Won’t be able to fly, and I’m certainly not driving 8-10 hours in any direction away from home, 2 weeks before the baby’s due! Aw, nuts.

Anyway, my weekend involved LOTS of cutting…all the fabric for my punky rad chevron quilt AND my first Swoon.

Cutting, cutting, cutting, meanwhile everyone around me seems to have pieced an entire quilt top.

Chrystal’s V&Co houndstooth baby quilt in white & navy….so ridiculously awesome I wanted to just hijack it, and let her finish cutting 924 more squares for my Swoon.

Amanda seemed to piece her last granny square block, and have this entire top sashed before the rest of us had taken the covers off our machine. She went on to finish ANOTHER top after that. Seriously, we have a quilting machine on our hands here.

Chris’ lovely French General cross quilt…came together like magic before our eyes.

SUSHI! Want some, but of course I can’t have it now. This is Audrey’s pattern-test version of “I Love Sushi”, by the mind-bogglingly talented Sonja of Artisania. I saw this quilt on Sonja’s blog last month, and am SO bummed I couldn’t volunteer to be one of her pattern testers for it (WAY to much going on for me last month!), but what a treat to see Audrey’s at our guild retreat. Isn’t it unbelievable?? Check Sonja’s blog next month to see this quilt pattern become available for purchase in March!

Beth got her quilt completely quilted, and prepped for binding. I’m totally new to the idea of serging your edge before binding! Would try it, but don’t have a serger. Do you guys serge your raw quilt edge?? Is it worth the extra time?

And Angela came up with this wonky cross quilt design, I think inspired by our slashed BOM blocks from January- how cool!!!! She stitched the entire thing up in just an afternoon or so. Didn’t it turn out awesome!?!