Quilting with friends will keep you in stitches Part 2

 Are you still with me on the quilt retreat adventure? Hope so. I love sharing all the talent amongst our group. Over 50% of these girls have been with me since my first retreat I organized in October of 2013. And the rest is history.

I'll start this post with the many faces and talent of Bekki aka BB. Sometimes creativity takes some math and sketching.

  

 From happy to "You say What?!".
She started this quilt a year ago at retreat and finished at this retreat. Yahoo! Sew pretty.

At the very end of the retreat Anna gave her 24 layer cake blocks and a pattern. Bekki completed that pattern in 2 hours.

She made those 24 blocks go from this....

To this.....   What?! and in 2hours at that. Crazy cool.

Pretty cool trick.

This girl had us laughing so hard as she chased this huge flying bug around the work area one night. We were laughing so much that we forgot to video the chase.  Score..... Bekki 1  Bug 0

Have you ever seen a quilt shop on wheels? Me Either until October 12th.

Well meet Wanda and her Quilt Shop on wheels. What a cool idea.

She travels all over within limitations. Her brick and mortar base Calico Crossing is in Lockhart, TX. If you're interested in her bringing her bus to your bee or retreat click on the highlighted name and give her a call to see if you're in her travel range..  No charge to you except when you buy fabric, notions, gifts etc. LOL 

We decided we wanted to take a picture in front of the bus. As we all headed back out to do so Bekki goes wait I need to put on earrings. We all gave her a bad time.  We had taken a couple of pictures before we realized Bekki hadn't made it out yet. So we did retake the pictures with her in them. Did you like her earrings? She won't live this down. Love you Bekki.

Okay I'm sure you didn't but I took a close up of the earrings. They were really adorable. Her business name is Busy Bee.

The turquoise honeycomb and the little bee are perfect.

Connie finish this quilt top and says she'll never do that again. LOL

It turned out beautiful. It's going on her bed. Everyone keeps hiding behind there quilts. 

Now she didn't get to hide when she won the jackpot when we played L*R*C.  

Normally we bring 5 fat quarters each to play with but we decided at last retreat we'd play with 5 $1 bills then the winner could buy the fabric or fat quarters of her choice.

I would vary the theme for the fat quarters but sometimes they weren't everyones favorite but we decided everyone liked dollar bills. Of course her significant other might wonder what strip bar she went to.  LOl  I don't think she made it home with the money. She bought fabric from the bus and at the on-site quilt shop. 

   

One of the girls even got creative with her money.. Vicki did origami. Too cute. A heart, house, fish, ring, and a teepee. 

She worked on a rag quilt and she made a basket to store all the play picnic food, dishes, drinks etc for her Friend Jane's grandchildren. Don't have to worry about breakage. Sew darn cute. 

Our friend Ellen couldn't join us this retreat do to work so she sewed in the evening at her home. She was with us in spirit she said. We missed Elly's energy and smiling face.                 

Here's one of my many bloopers... Do you see the problem? I'm sure you do...  The crazy part is I didn't multi task well that evening. I ripped it out and re-sewed it.  mmm exactly the same way. Good grief Denise got a good laugh out of that. Jack the ripper was my friend. I did do it right the 2nd time.

Sandy started and finished this cute Christmas topper.

 

Judy was working on a strip quilt that had to be cut and laid out in a certain order.  She had her strips sewn and numbered on each side of the window. Hopefully she'll bring it back to next retreat in the Spring so we can see the finished project.  

Jane completed this top and was working on a couple more before retreat was over.  Donna Marie took these charm pack squares and turned them into cute little mug rug bunnies and coasters. 

Before retreat is over we always take a group picture. But again we didn't count. We realized Judy was missing when she walked out the sliding door. I guess we need to count heads from now on. LOL  Retake!

I tried to put as many pictures in here as possible but didn't put all of them.  I need to start noting all the funny things that happen at retreat because once I get home, load the pictures and get read to write I forget things. Go figure.

I will mention that Thursday morning we got the poop scared out of us. At about 6:15 am when we were all sound asleep a weather alert went off through out the house on all our phones. Yoakum where we were got about 6 inches of rain but some surrounding areas got 10-12 inches and were flooded. We were safe and dry, and sewed the day away with no problem.

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up but we had a visitor from the owners puppy. There was about 5 of us left and in comes this ball of fluff. A 12 week old Aussie. He was adorable and actually very well behaved. Lots of hugs were given.

And before we knew it our cars were packed and it was time to head out. I said Good Bye to Three Oaks Retreat in my side mirror. Until next October. Can't wait.

The end.

Until next blog.... We love quilting and have plenty of material witnesses

It's all about Friends and Quilts Part 1

 Monday (10/11) arrived and I was for a quilt retreat with 13 of my favorite quilty friends. Actually I love all my quilty friends. We're on the seamy side of the tracks. LOL 

I had packed my car Sunday night with everything except my suitcase so I could throw last minute things in it.  I was on the road by 8:40am and headed to Three Oaks Quilt Retreat in Yoakum.  Siri map took me a slightly different way and one turn actually took me in the opposite direction from the Retreat. Goofy thing.  I had to re-enter the address and Siri finally got me to the right address and the fun was about to begin. Some of the gals wasted no time of getting their projects started and on the design wall. Or they were sewing and cutting away...

Without all these ladies there would be no retreat or fun memories. I can't thank the ladies for my cute gifts.  Trick or Trick bag, cup, puzzle, jelly, notebook and my phone sling. It kept me from misplacing my phone most of the week.  And thanks to all who brought snacks and homemade cookies and cake.

Also thank you Donna Marie for making our cute room assignment chart.

If you've ever organized a retreat you know it's work but  it's the ladies who attend that make a difference between a successful or sucky retreat.

This quilt made by Joy Wall in March 2019 at retreat started a snowball effect.  The vintage Santa fabric was a hit.

The next person to make one was Diana and I'll be darn if I can find the picture of her quilt. I decided I needed to make one for my vintage guest room. I search on-line and found the fabric at Joann's and bought it. I'm making my Vintage Log Cabin Santa semi scrappy and on the back wall you'll see 3 blocks of the vintage Santa started by Pat. She also fell in love with the Santa fabric and found it on-line.

We all fell in love with this fabric and had to have it. I knew I'd have to scrappy cut the Santa's but oh what a pain, and I did it 72 times. Way more than I needed. Oops.

Pat completed her Gnome banner and her tree wall hanging. 

Too Cute.            

At some point during the week it was 5 o'clock somewhere.   Oh did I mention this blog may be on Photo over load. I can't share all the pictures but  I'll a lot of them.  

This is Becky with a Y or Brenda or Lisa our newest retreater.  I chamged her name to Brenda. It started with a B. The name Lisa is another story another time. LOL. That's Anna in the corner left taking the selfie.

Donna Marie finished the beauty. It turned out great. Her borders are using grunge fabrics.  And the sail boat quilt she completed before retreat was over came out darling.  There's a tiny flag at the top of the sail and it's 3D. Too cool.

Next is Kim. She took the pictures her brother took and printed them on fabric to make a quilt for him. The photos were awesome and her fabrics really set the pictures. Great job Kim. No panels this retreat. You're going to town. 

This another quilt Kim started and finished while at retreat. 

This is my bluebonnet quilt for m Texas guest room. About to sew on first border of blue but had to order the bluebonnet fabric for the 2nd border and backing. I got the call it was in so I'll have to go to Lone Star Quiltworks to pick it up after I get back home. I found as many different fabrics as I could out there in fabric land to avoid duplicating too many of them in the quilt.

Anna was my over achiever this trip. Her tree wall hanging, her peacock panel quilt and her Mary Poppin's bag. The colors in the Peacock don't come through on the picture but they are dark rich colors.

        

 She wasn't able to finish the bottom of the bag because she forgot it at home. It won't take her long to finish once she gets back home I'm sure.

Becky with a Y finished up her Carpenters Star and was working on this colorful top. Love the colors. The bright colorful creation next to the Carpenter's Star is something Bekki "BB" is working on. It's almost all Tula Pink Fabric.

Many thanks to my long time friend and sorority sister Sheryl for inviting her Aunt Diana to a retreat. She's been coming ever since and I'm glad. She makes these wonder works of art.

 
And she completed this quilt top.  Wow.

Denise was working on a top for her dad. She had all but one block and needed more fabric that she left at home so she started on another project.

    

Well this post is getting really long so I'll stop for now but I will post more on another post.

There was a lot of creativity going on along with laughter.

Until my next post.....§  Our friendship is a tapestry/ Woven through the years/ With threads of joy and laughter/ Happiness and tears