Saturday - Retreat Day 2

Friday overnight was a bit rough. I was sleeping on a top bunk and we had been able to open the window during the evening because the room was pretty warm, but the ladies on the lower bunks didn't shut the window before they went to bed. While it was nice to have the window open, the shades were also open and it was quite bright on my bed. That coupled with the excitement of the weekend, and I didn't get much sleep. I laid in bed until 6:45 and figured that it was late enough and I tried to quietly get up and head to the potty. Jen heard me and jumped out of bed and off we went to sew, sew, sew!

The first thing that I started working on was adding the binding to my spools quilt that Jen quilted for me. As I worked on that, Jen and I waited for Maddy to wake up and find her present on her chair. See, I had made the Crab pillowcase especially for her and I folded it up and left only the cuff showing and placed it on her chair before we went to bed on Friday night. She finally came downstairs and saw her present and was so excited to be getting a surprise... and then she opened it up. She immediately turned around and said, "Where is she? I'm gonna get her!" and then came over to me and Jen to show it off.



Here is my spools quilt with the binding attached to the front. Now, I have handwork to do at our Guild and small group meetings! I think that the black binding is really going to set the rest of the quilt off nicely!



As soon as Shirley and I were both awake and coherent, we started selling raffle tickets for the Chinese raffle that we had. Within a fairly short amount of time, we emptied one roll of raffle tickets! We were pretty happy about that. We decided that we would wait until after lunch to pull for any of the prizes. Also, before lunch, there was a class on making a cute little fabric purse, but I didn't get any pictures of the finished purses or the class.

Shirley was very excited about finishing up a star block! She had wanted to bring all of her pieces cut and ready to sew to the retreat, but ran out of time. (Gee, I wonder what that's like! :) ) Then, she wanted to have everything cut Friday before she went to bed. When she got her first block put together on Saturday, she was very excited!



I know that this has been shown before, but here is my notions caddy for my machine, Bubba. I might have to name her and say that she's Bubba's girlfriend.... Nah, that could be pushing it a bit! I really like the fabric and the stippling makes it look like the design is in motion.



While Jen was making the caddy for me and her, she made one for her neighbor, Mary. When the ladies from the other tables saw, they thought that they were just too cute. I even told Patrice about it at lunch and said that she would have to come and see what I got. Patrice came and fell in love with it and said that if Jen made one for her, she would make a donation to St. Jude Hospital. Of course, Maddy wanted one, too, and I started saying that everyone could have one for a price. And this is how the pimping out of Jen began! :)

While Jen was working in the sweat shop making the caddies, I was working on my borders for the stash pot pie quilt. Now, considering that when the borders are added to a quilt, it finishes the top off and it is ready for quilting, I have no idea why I dislike adding the borders so much! I felt like I was whining for hours about how long it was taking. Now, I may not have been whining out loud, but I feel like it did take way too long to get the borders on. But at least it's done now!



After lunch, Shirley pulled tickets for a few raffle items. I won this Quilter's Travel Companion. This will be great for any road trips to Florida or Milwaukee! There were also some needles with the book.



I also won another prize that was a charm pack, a book of applique patterns and more needles. I gave the charms to Jen because she has some yardage of the fabric and I gave the book back to the table of prizes for the Fabric Bingo game.

At some point before bingo, I laid my head down. Apparently, Jen was able to find her camera for this...





After dinner and more sewing, we pulled the rest of the raffle tickets and then set up for fabric bingo. Carol had spent a lot of time putting together fabric and the cards to pull and I think that the ladies had fun playing. I just wanted to sew and chat with Jen and Mary. Kathi had won these green potholders and threw them over her 'girls' like they were a bikini top. It was amusing! Kathi is always a lot of fun!



Once we were done playing Fabric Bingo, we pulled for the grand prizes. We had a Rowenta steamer iron, a gift certificate to Hancock's, an Ott light and a Side Winder. While Brenda was talking about how great of a weekend we were having and about St Jude Hospital, I was talking to Jen and telling her how they were going to pull my name first. Then Brenda said, "Oh no, you have got to be kidding me!" I looked up and there was a ticket in her hand and she said my name! I ran up to the table like I had just won the Super Bowl and grabbed the iron! How awesome! It just needs a name! I can't decide if it male or female so it might have to be Pat or something like that until we can decide... Any suggestions?



After my quickie nap and the excitement of winning prizes, I was good for a few more hours of sewing. But all I really got done was reorganizing myself and then I started cutting pieces for one of my super secret blocks. I didn't even get one block done! Jen and I ended up chatting with Maddy and Kim for a while and laughing a lot. Then we went to bed around 1 or 2 again. There was lots of laughing on Saturday!