My Weekend Quilt Retreat Update

I was able to go on a quilting retreat last weekend. My quilting friend Micki had planned to go (I had not) and she wasn't able to at the last minute. So she called me the day before retreat to see if I could go in her place. Since my hubby is now employed, I salivated as I ran through the things in my head that I might have committed to over the weekend. I couldn't think of anything that couldn't be worked around. Neither could my hubby, so I went! Thank you, Micki! I wish you could have been there with us.

During the retreat, I finished the Stormy Weather miniature pineapple quilt (above) and donated it to the Dallas Quilt Celebration Live Auction. It will be auctioned off on Saturday March 13th at 1:30 PM at Market Hall in Dallas, TX, to benefit the Senior Source. The auctioneer is always fun, so if you're in the area and you've never come, you really should try to attend. Quilt Celebration is the guild quilt show the Quilter's Guild of Dallas puts on and it's absolutely wonderful, if I do say so myself. It's the largest all volunteer quilt show in the country and runs March 12 - 14.

I finished up blocks for another miniature pineapple quilt that I hope to complete in the next few weeks. I have the borders sewn onto the little top now and it's ready to quilt. I just have to get the time to work on it.

This one will be auctioned off on this blog to benefit Haiti. If you want me to contact you when it's time for the auction, you can leave a comment (with your email address or a link back to you) on this posting and I'll email you. Or you could just sign up to follow the blog. I haven't decided how much time the auction will actually last. Probably anywhere from 3 or 4 days up to one week.

During the weekend, I also working a little on one of my little quote quilts. I had similar problems with batting bearding through batiks on this little quilt just like I did on the first one I did. Sandy gave me a piece of fusible batting to try and it worked pretty well. I may switch to white flannel for the next on though. Traditionally, kantha stitching would not be worked through batting, so that is why I keep having problems with my quote quilts. I also thread basted the hand quilting sample for the class I had today. (The class today went great too. I've never had a group of students who were more happy and excited to take a class!)

Then I was ready to try something new -- again. A few years ago, my friend Marianne tried to teach me to knit. I didn't practice and soon forgot everything she taught me. We started planning to start up our lessons again, but before we could, she suddenly, unexpectedly passed away. It's taken me more than a year to get into the groove again and pull out the yarn. I tried to teach myself. That was laughable. The retreat had several knitters attending, all very generous with their time and talents. I had advice and lessons from Dianne, Suzanne, Donna, Sandy and Paula. Encouragement from Jan, Cheryl and Krissy. There were times I was almost in tears because I couldn't relax, but now I'm doing much better. I can see where I relaxed on the scarf. I think I had about 6" by Sunday night. Tonight, I took a photo and it was almost 21" long. It's a very loose, mistake riddled scarf in a poopy yellow wool and I am very proud of it.