Our 21st Quilt Retreat at Hidden Treasures was Great.

 10 years of planning quilting retreats for myself and friends. Wow.  This is our 21st retreat. Over half of the ladies that joined me at this retreat have been with me the entire 10 years. 

Warning PHOTO OVERLOAD...

As I said Donna Marie organized gathering gifts to put in the tote pictured here that she made. It had 10 of various items. Even 10 dollar bills x 3. Had a hard time capturing everything but you get the idea. Plus several of the girls gave everyone a welcoming gift.   Thank you Sheryl, Connie, Sandy, Kathy, Denise, Donna Lynn, Vicki, Jane, Anita and I know I'm forgetting someone but thank you all for everyone's welcome gifts.  

This little guy was already on my entry table so he didn't get pictured with the rest of our welcome gifts. I can't kill this one. LOL

Last thank you for now.  Thank you's go out to Vicki, Pat and Donna Lynn. They donated items for me to put in the door prize bags. I buy things throughout the year when I see them but their contribution helped fill the bags.

Moving on to the good stuff.... The fun and the finishes or just the starts of our many quilty projects.

I had to go back and look this quilt up and found that Donna Lynn started this quilt in 2019 and she finished it this retreat and started another quilt

       

This quilt had the sweetest vintage fabric and she put this one together pretty fast. With all this quilting going on Donna Lynn must have forgotten her passenger in the car.  Oops.... I believe she's been there a while.

LOL 

Pat pulled out a twister block quilt that she started well lets say a few days ago. mmmm That's her story and she's sticking to it.

And she brought a quilt for show n tell that she finished at a retreat she went to a week ago. Wow. Lots of work went into it. Beautiful.

Plus she completed a couple other cute projects.

    

Sandy has always been my overachiever when it comes to completely quilt tops when at retreat. She comes with them cut and ready to piece but this year she came ready to do some Diamond Painting. I have seen the kits on some sites but never knew what or how it's done.  She made this coaster for me.

She continued to drop those little beads where they belonged. I want to say she finished 3 different projects at least. It's kinda like painting by numbers but instead you're using little beads.

This is Donna Marie. She finished making the bag for me and then worked on a paper piecing project.

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This crazy woman was on a roll. She finished up a quilt top, donation blankets, pillow cases and shared her cute dolls she made.  Ellen is the life of the retreat.

 And she started another quilt top. 

This is my long time friend and sorority sister Sheryl. She doesn't quilt but she does wool punching. She takes a ball of wool and it becomes in this case a gnome wine bottle topper. She's also been my co-pilot for last several years to retreat. No gnomes were injured during this process. 

We love playing the dice game of Left Right Center. We all hope to win that money.

I love how Kathy gets into the game. She has a special dice throw trying to win. Didn't work at this retreat. It worked in April though. LOL

The big winner was Jane. It was the first time she has ever won the money

A bunch of folks went outside to catch this beautiful sunset one evening. Denise, Anita and I were the last to go back in.

Denise worked on this quilt and completed the top. Love it.  The retreat owner came in and was talking with us and I caught her on camera. Christi has an awesome retreat and she's the hostess with the mostest. The craft room was well light and the food was great. She provided us a nice variety of food. 

Christi was so easy to get a long with and very helpful. We will be going back to Hidden Treasures!

I better stop for now. I hope you've enjoyed the retreat as much as we did! I'll try to share a bit more in my next blog post.

Until then...What happens at quilting retreats, stays at quilting retreat unless your BPO has a blog. LOL

Wedding planning and Quilt Retreat time! Oh Boy!

  

 With all this wedding stuff going on I found pictures of Pamela from 1991. She was 4 years old and she wanted to be a bride for Halloween. So I hit the thrift stores and found a size 4 wedding dress. I trimmed it up and hemmed it up for our little bride to be.  Just a glimpse into the future....                    

Daddy might have gotten a little teary eyed that day after she left the room when he realized one day he would be walking her down the aisle for real one day.  

Pamela and Kaleb went to a work function for Baylor Scott & White where she was recognized for her 10 years of service. She started before the building was even finished. She helped set up the postpartum unit. They're so cute. 

Jumping to present day... October 7th we went wedding dress shopping, not expecting to find anything. We had made appointments at a couple shops in the Houston area for November. Coreena's Bridal Boutique in South College Station were ready for us with a welcome sign and special adult beverages.  Makes one feel pretty special for sure. The owner and the consultant were awesome and I'm sorry I don't remember names. Pamela had picked out several dresses to try on but after the 3rd one the girls said let's try something different. They picked out a dress that Pamela nor I would have picked out but Wow! It was beautiful and so flattering. So when you know you know. And when everyone there that Saturday had tears rolling down their checks it was all over except pulling out the checkbook. At first we didn't understand the sign about her 2nd Yes. We're thinking no this will be the first time she's said Yes to a dress, but our consultant goes.... Your first Yes was to Kaleb, are you saying your 2nd Yes to the dress.  She said yes with tears.

Sorry you'll have to till January 2025 before seeing the full dress. It takes 10 months for these dresses to come in and another 2 or 3 for any alterations. Crazy.  She has to go cancel the other appointments now but that's okay.

It was an emotional yet fun day. Those present L to R was Leslie a long time high school friend; Hailey a fellow nurse and friend, and her future Mother-in-law Tori. Tori is gonna be a pro at this wedding stuff since her daughter will be getting married in November of 2024. Thank you Lesley V. for taking pictures that day. All 300+ of them. LOL. Love it. 

Pamela face timed her friend Marlaina who couldn't be there that day. We knew she wanted to be there but her little guys came first and they had soccer games but we made sure she was part of it even though she wasn't physically there.

Afterwards Leslie, Tori(MIL to be), Pamela and I went to Marfa Kitchen for a celebration luncheon.  Hailey had to work later so she had to leave us.  The food was really good.  After lunch Tori had to head home to work on her daughter's wedding stuff. Weddings are keeping her busy. Leslie, Pamela and I headed to the what was supposed to be the 2nd wedding dress appointment and instead looked at bridesmaid and mother's of the bride options. This search will continue.

My friend Sheryl came down that evening to spend the night because Sunday morning we were heading out at 8:45am to our Quilt Retreat with 12 other of our quilty/crafty friends! Let the fun begin.

I'm in the process of making big bags that will hold our 24" rulers, pressing mats, and extension tables for our machines. I gave one already to Donna Lynn in April and this retreat Connie received hers. Most of the fabrics are sewing related and I'm embroidering their names on the bags. Now I started this project to use up fabric and to make one for myself to carry equipment but get this, I haven't finished my own bag.  I will have one for myself by next retreat. LOL

This is The Material Girls retreaters at Hidden Treasures Retreat. Without this gang there wouldn't be retreat full of fun, lots of laughter, and beautiful projects. Couldn't do it without these ladies.

And apparently it has been 10 years since I started hosting these retreats. Donna Marie made sure everyone knew it and started collecting 10 items of anything... Dollars, Fat Quarters, Row Pins, buttons, clips, pens, thread, blank envelopes with the emergency med forms, marking pens, etc and Donna Marie made me a tote, a very special tote that held all the items to represent 10 years. These ladies surprised me and are sew wonderful.  Thank you Thank you Thank you.

I'm gonna stop for now but be prepared there will be lots of pictures shared in my next post from the retreat. 

Until my next post...May your days always MEASURE up.

Life does Continue On

 So Life must continue and Pamela and I had made plans to go to the 1st Annual Wedding Walk in Navasota. I think Mom would have wanted us to. I only lost it once when Pamela was talking about putting charms on her boutique of her grandparents that were gone. That's when I lost it. Even though I knew Mom wouldn't have been able to attend having dementia, the thought of her truly being gone hit. I know they'll all be looking down from Heaven watching Pamela and Kaleb on their special day.

I'm glad we went because we found some vendors we liked and want to research further and we got ideas. The organizers need to tweak a few areas. It was great how they highlighted a different vendor that would supposedly be present but they never told the visitors where we could or should start, if there was a cost or where we could or should park. And yes I messaged them asking those very questions but they came back that all vendor spots were full and maybe I could be a vendor next year. Huh?  I didn't ask about being a vendor. Person replying didn't apparently pay attention to the questions.  Now this next issue isn't necessarily their fault but they advertised several food and bartender trucks that would be present to provide catering for your wedding.  Imagine our surprise when we went to check them out and there was only 1 truck present. Yep only 1. Where was everyone?! That was disappointing to say the least. And the final problem I had with this walk was that by the time we got to the last 3-4 vendors most them were closing or closed and it was only 4pm. This was supposed to last until 6. Again disappointing. 

The one we did get to was a florist and they allowed each of the Brides to Be create a floral arrangement with how ever many flowers or greenery they wanted and even provided a vase to carry it in.  Here's what Pamela created. She did an awesome job.

Her wedding colors are going to be Navy and Burgundy with varying greenery and some other natural additions.

It was bed time and Sadie was already sound asleep in her kennel. How does she get in this position in her kennel but I guess she's comfy.   I wish I could to sleep as fast.

The other night after dinner David got up from the table and was looking out the window at the pasture when he suddenly goes "Damn". I'm like what's the matter? And he goes a snake just came up on the lower step of our back porch. That needs to go away.  He had to get out the door without the dogs. The snake was taken care of and went to the back pasture.  I'm thinking it was a harmless water snake but he was too close to our back door. 

Pamela's friend Chelsie came over to hang out. I love her new hair color.  She used have blonde hair. That's her behind Pamela. This new hair color looks great. 

Anyway She and Kaleb were comparing to see whose hair is longer. 

She won I think.  LOL

Our friends the Kennedy's from another mother gave us a present. Kelli came by to pick me up for the gym and lunch and gave me this awesome lazy susan.

Oh you remember from my last post when talking about my Mom and how she might flip you off.... Well I think Pamela takes after her Mimi.  I didn't even notice it until she I went back to look at the pictures on my phone and she started laughing. And the smile should have given it away but I didn't have my glasses on. I need a bigger phone screen. The little brat.

Tomorrow 10/7 we begin the wedding dress shopping. Wish us luck. We have a couple of different places to go look at between tomorrow and our next appointment in November. 

Then on Sunday I'm off to quilt retreat with 13 of my quilty friends. We're going to a new retreat and it should be great.  It's spacious and bright.  David will be at home on his own with our two loveable lap dogs. LOL  

So That's It for now.

Until next blog...“In three words I can sum up what I’ve learned about life: It goes on” ~ Robert Frost