Guild Retreat Report

 This past weekend, my friend Christine and I went to the semi-annual Oxford Guild Quilt Retreat in Stratford.  We both were very productive at the retreat--sewing morning, noon and night with breaks for meals and sleeping only! This is why there was no blogpost here this past weekend.   I brought lots of projects with me--heaven forbid I run out of things to sew!  

I made a couple of Christmas gifts, one of which I can show here now.  This little wall hanging is for my MIL for her room in the nursing home where she lives.  She loves Christmas and having her room decorated for the season. 

I quilted this wall hanging and added a hanging sleeve and label before sewing the binding on. I used my new Hurty 1 ruler for making the HRT's.  The outer border is quilted with fuchsia thread.  The pieced section is quilted in the ditch with light blue thread. 

The backing was in my stash!

I wanted to use the HRT ruler to make an I Spy baby quilt next.  I brought lots of I Spy fabrics with me as well as this green background fabric.  I ended up using only fabrics with light backgrounds for this quilt.  There are lots of fun things to look for in this quilt.  I will quilt this one myself with my walking foot.  I found some backing fabric for it in my stash. I like to have a few baby quilts on hand, ready for gifting so this one will go in that pile. 

I put the blocks together for this modern sampler a few weeks ago.  I had to do some quilt math to get the width of the navy borders right so that the border with the squares would fit properly.  The top and bottom borders are slightly narrower than the side borders for this reason. There will be another navy border added.  I found some co-ordinating fabrics in my stash for a pieced back for this quilt.  I will take this one to the long armer for quilting. 

The church Christmas bazaar is quickly approaching.  I made these hot pads out of rope for our table and this week, we all made Christmas tree decorations to sell. 

I have figured out how to do the Trinity stitch for my hat and I am well on my way to finishing this part before the decreases for the crown of the hat. 

With all my knitting and sewing, I have not worked on my cross stitch as much this past week or so. 

The weather has changed and Finn likes to get out for a brisk walk with our daughter.  

Curling up for a nap on his cozy blanket is one of his favourite things to do after a busy day. 

I will link up with Kathy and the slow stitchers on Sunday morning. 

There will be another flurry of sewing at a second retreat at the end of the month...I still have lots of projects to work on.  I don't think there is any danger of running out of things to do.