Thursday, March 27, 2014

And Going and Going to Quilt Retreat

You know like the Energizer Bunny that keeps on going and going... Well right now that's me. I'm still on the move........

On Saturday the 15th I took off for a quilt retreat. The car was filled with projects, fabric, my sewing machine, food and whatever I thought I might need while at the retreat. Me and 11 others all met up at Las Fuentas Mexican restaurant in LaGrange for a quick early dinner and maybe a margarita. This is the 2nd retreat I have organized. The first one went off so well that everyone wanted another so I put together a 4 day 3 night retreat at Retreats by Margie in LaGrange. The place is clean, nicely decorated with lots of quilts, great views off the porch, great food and the owner Margie is an awesome person.

We arrived at the Retreat just after 5pm. Everyone started setting up and got right to sewing, laughing and talking. Some of the girls went to bed by 9 or 10 but there was a few of us up till 2am and back up by 9. Okay Okay so the first day I slept until 10:30. Sunday we had a full day of sewing and lots of sharing with laughs. Warning I may over load you with photos of retreat. 
This retreat we had 5 retreat virgins, 3 Donna's and 2 sets of sisters. What are the odds of having 3 Donna's in a group of 12 women. It became rather comical every time someone yelled Donna. Then it got to the point that none of them would answer until you put a last name to Donna. And there was no sibling rivalry between the sisters. LOL
Janet will love me I caught her under the table trying get things all plugged in.  






Caught the following pictures after I got my space all set up. Like I said beautiful views



 Caught the moon over the red house down the lane.






Okay now the sharing begins and the quilt tops start forming and get completed. I had such a hard time trying to decide which pictures to share on the blog so if you want to see all the pictures you can click Here but I have shared plenty in this blog post so beware.


Here's the first set of sisters Mildred and Mary Jane as they tackle their first quilt top.






Denise shares her completed pillow top. She completed 3 more before the week was over. 
 Denise brought her Mom Dolores to help with all her UFO's(unfinished objects for you non quilters).
 For some reason I didn't get a picture of the first prize winner Ellen for being the first to complete a project. But I snapped this one of our 2nd prize winner. This is one of our Donna's. Her prize was a gift certificate to Quilter Works and Charm for her scissors or whatever to identify it from every one elses.


Here's a up close picture of what the charms look like. My friend Cathy Going makes and sells the FOB/Charms
 Part of the picture is of the sisters quilt but the Dresden top beginnings belongs to Sandy. 

Lots of talent under one roof.








Ellen brought a bottle of Kinky to share with the group. We each had a shot. 
From Left to Right: Donna V., Ellen, Jane, Donna M and Denise.

I completed my 2nd quilt top for one of the quadruplets of our friends the Bells. I thought a bottle of wine was called for. I promised that any imperfections were not a result of the wine but purely a result of me.  





Here's the blocks Janet completed and will be using around some red work she has yet to do.













Monday little leprechauns popped in to decorated the kitchen and provided brunch for every one for St Patty's Day.


 
 Since I caught them in action shouldn't I get their pot of gold. hmmpf no Gold to be found but did find some yummy food and most of it was green. 

 Meet our leprechauns 
Jane, Ellen and our 3rd Donna C.

Jane and Donna are the 2nd set of sisters.
 Mary Jane and her sister Mildred completed the first top they were working on. Done with all scraps! Cool.








Here's a close up of my quilt. If you look closely you can see the little bumble bees that Donna M from 
Donna's Lavender Nest.  This quilt is for Trystan.
Donna took home quilt top #3 after I finished piecing it and prepped the backing. ahhh. One more quilt to go for the Bell quadruplets.

I call them baby quilts but they are more the size of  lap quilt or a twin size. The quads will be able to use these quilts for a long time. Or at least that's my intention. 
 Quilt top #2 for these sisters. They were unstoppable. This is called the disappearing 4 patch which they shared how to make. Can't wait to try it myself.
 


Donna M. finished a baby quilt. 

Meet the owner of the Retreat..... Margie. She came over and did a show of her Round Robin Quilts. This first one is adorable. What's a Round Robin you ask... Well Margie created the center medallion and each row after that was completed by a different quilter. She provided the center and all the fabric to the first quilter in a suitcase, box, basket whatever. When the first quilter is down with her row she passes it on to the next quilter on her Round Robin Team. I believe she said she had 5 on her team. 
Actually each quilter on the team creates a medallion and passes it to the next. They won't see their medallion again until the completed quilt is revealed. Sounds really cool but most of us at the retreat weren't sure we were ready for a Round Robin yet but maybe soon we can form a team with Margie. Don't give up on us Margie we feel more confident one day. 
I love the label on the back of this quilt. How cute! 
Here's our sisters Donna C and Jane.

Donna V with her completed top 
 This top is not complete but Donna M. will have it done soon. She couldn't complete while at retreat ...... She forgot some of the fabric. Oops but what she has is really pretty.


We decided to take a field trip to Giddings which was about 20 miles away to visit All Around the Block and Gerline's Quilt Shops.  Such fun. There was a couple of the girls who practiced self control and bought nothing but the did enjoy looking and touching all the pretty fabric.

Here's part of the group. Donna C. actually had to leave for part of the day for a Choir practice back in Temple and Denise was getting a massage. 
Yep we even had massages and facials available for any one who wanted to partake.
Left to right back row: Me(Carla), Sandy, Ellen, Janet

Front row Jane, Donna V., Donna M., Mary Jane and Mildred
 


Donna M. had completed the quilting and I did the binding technique during the retreat.  This quilt is for my step Mom in Missouri. I hope she likes it.



Here's a close up of the quilting and you can barely see the binding technique I used on it.  It's a fake piping technique that Donna V found on Pinterest.
Heres a somewhat closer look at the binding. You can just barely see the light green fabric peeking through creating the look of piping with the floral binding.
Here's the 3rd quilt that Mary Jane and Mildred put together. Wow.         WHOOP!     Gig'em Aggies. Yes I'm partial to maroon. All our money went there for 5 years. ;o)
 


Here's part of the group having our last lunch together.
Donna V, Ellen, Denise, Dolores, Jane, Janet and Donna C. We're now missing Mildred, Mary Jane, Donna M and Sandy who left early Wednesday to get back home. The rest of us stuck around till 2:30. And after that a few of us went into town and did some exploring at the gormet shop, museum and the fabric shop.

Before we left the retreat 3 of us surprised Margie with our ATC creations. We pinned them to the design board for her to find.


None of us wanted to leave. We were having too much fun and being sew productive at the same time.

So I have already booked another retreat for November. 

This Energizer Bunny is winding down. I may need some new batteries.

Until next Blog Adventure.....Quilting with a friend(s) will keep you in stitches.















Friday, March 21, 2014

Engergizer Bunny still going

Not sure that I'm an energizer bunny but I keep on going.  At least for a while longer. So last I wrote was going to see my daughter for her birthday on March 2 so the celebration continues. On Tuesday the 4th I go to my quilt guild meeting and of course see all kinds of pretty quilts. Our guest speaker that night was Peggy Baldwin. 
She had some really cool story quilts she shared with us.  If you went to the Houston Quilt Festival you would have seen all the quilts with cows. They were really cute with a play on words.
We'd been having pleasant weather then it turned cold. Icy cold on Tuesday. Our garage was frozen shut as was David's truck.
Plus we had no power. And they didn't call school off this time. The roads were clear but it wasn't so operational around my place. I waited until closer to 10 and David was able to get the garage and his truck open but the power didn't come on until closer to 1 or 2 I was told.
Then Wednesday was my birthday and I was crowned for the day. I work with a great group of people. My office cubicle was decorated and there was food, cake and cards. 


Oh and maybe a present or two.





My friend Samara bought me flowers. Aren't they gorgeous? 
When I got home David had cooked Chili for supper. It was Yummy and warm.

As part of mine and Pamela's birthday present David buys us tickets to Ladies Night Out at the
Rodeo. 

It's a fun Thursday night of all the food drinks, and other fun activities you can partake. One of my favorite drinks there is the Milk Punch. Sounds Yucky, well let me tell you it's not.
A Milk Punch consists of Milk and Brandy (Crown can be substitutes) and maybe some chocolate syrup.  Normally we get a hotel room and stay the night near the rodeo but this year we just came home because we were going to take off for the hill country on Friday.
We took pictures with my sorority sisters. 
and

we got tatoo's. The closest I'll ever get to getting a tatoo. They were suppose to last 5 days. Mine lasted almost 9 days but I scrubbed it off one night in the shower. Then I had a red blotch for 2 days from rubbing so hard. 
 



Friday morning we got up grabbed our bags and Pamela and I were off to the Hill Country but first we had to grab my Mom. This was going to be a Girls Weekend of fun, winery hopping, shopping and seeing the sights. It rained on us most of the way there off and on but we still managed to have fun being silly in the car.
We stayed at the Fredericksburg Inn which is pretty nice except that this time they had checked us out of our room Saturday and upgraded us supposedly to a suite. Funny we didn't know that. We found this out when we called for towels since the maid never came. Got that straightened out Thank Goodness.
We leisurely shopped on Saturday and had lunch at Hondo's. Mine and Pamela's food was pretty tasty but they over cooked my mom's.
Check out this chicken sandwich Pamela ordered...  She cut that in two and had enough chicken for a 2nd sandwich. It was huge!  After lunch we headed to a couple of wineries for wine tasting. Pamela and I tasted the wine while my mom shopped around at the various items around the winery.  It was a cold and windy day so we couldn't just go sit out on the patio, drink wine and enjoy the view..
Pamela had never been to Luckenbach so after a couple of wineries we drove to Luckenbach.

Gigi you're not allow alone.... Pamela was not fond of the rooster and chickens. LOL
 She didn't get to see them climb the trees though.  



After this we headed to Sisterdale for our last winery stop. On the way we hit the rain. Heavy rain and lightning. That lightning seemed really close. Those 20 miles seemed like 50 but we made it. 
That evening Pamela and I went to the Navajo Grill for a bite to eat. My mom can't eat after 2 or 3 unless she wants to deal with severe re-flux. I think the prices went up since David, I and the Taco Bell Gang went there but we were disappointed in the flavor or quantity.
Sunday Morning our girls week end was coming to an end. We got up and had  breakfast then headed back home. 
David ended our week long celebration by taking Pamela and I to the Taste of Texas for dinner. OMG soooo Yummy. Our dessert was apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. Put a folk in us and we'd pop.
Pamela had to head back home on Tuesday so she could go back to work.
David and I were suppose to go to Puffabelly's to see Mike Blakley but he was tired and to be honest so was I but we did make it to Main Street Crossing the next night to see Radney Foster. Our Friends the Harper's joined us. Great evening of music and friends. 

Well that covers the first 13 days of March. LOL and two days later I'm off again for 4 days of quilting and laughter. I'll save that for my next post.

Until next Blog post....Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my what a Wonderful Day(s)