Hi everyone! Yes, we are alive and well. So sorry for the unexplained absence the past week or so, but I’m here to tell you all about it. Last week was a very busy quilty week for me. Monday and Wednesday were the first meetings for both of the quilt clubs I belong to. I’m now the membership secretary for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club so that means extra work to get ready for the meetings each month. Then on Thursday my mom and I went on a quilting retreat and didn’t get home until late Saturday. We had lots of fun and that is what I’m going to tell you about today.
Our retreat was organized by the Perinton Quilt Guild and was held at Watson Homestead. My mom picked me up Thursday morning and we made the 1 1/2 hour trip south in perfect weather.
Our workroom is under the chapel
We unpacked all our quilting stuff and then headed to our room.
Our room viewed from the work room
Our room
A nice hotel style room, but with no TV. WiFi was available in the common areas so I was able to keep up with reading blogs, but didn’t take much time to comment.
Main dining hall – dressed up for a wedding
Our workroom was large and bright. With only twelve of us there was room for each of us to have our own table as well as some common tables in the middle for us to do our cutting or lay out our projects.
View of workroom – Claire lays out her project
Right away my mom and I, who had never been on one of these retreats before, noticed an unusual picture posted at both ends of the room.
The ladies call him Lance
The ladies said that “Lance” comes with them on every retreat. I believe he is from an Abercrombie and Fitch bag. We knew right then that this weekend was going to be fun.
Most of the ladies brought more than one project. I started out by working on the quilting for the king sized quilt I had basted way too long ago.
My work space
I can’t remember when the last time was that I did some quilting on this project, but I hit a wall when I was having problems with the fabric bunching up. The first thing I had to do was pick out some of the last bit I had stitched and start over. I’m happy to say that I was able to complete quilting the parts I wanted to and now feel better about keeping it going.
A little working and a little chatting
Everyone had a great time working on their projects and getting to know each other a little better.
Mary W. worked on many different projects
One of my favorite projects was one that Patty P. worked on.
Patty P says her brothers aren’t really devils.
In addition to lots of quilting and chatting we also had some great catered meals. We were very lucky on Friday night and were treated to a delicious salmon dinner with a side of macaroni and cheese that was incredibly creamy.
Salmon, Macaroni & Cheese and Steamed Veggies
Apparently salmon is not a common meal to have, but the caterer had an earlier event where he served the salmon and there were far fewer attendees than he was told. We were the lucky recipients of this great left over meal. To top that meal off we also had a scrumptious dessert.
Chocolate Mousse
All our meals were great if not quite as special as the salmon with mousse.
On our last day there I worked on piecing the backing for the flannel quilt top I finished a while ago. In addition to our work room there was another smaller room that had large blank walls. I came prepared with the batting, quilt top, painters tape and 505 spray baste in the hopes I would have a place to baste all the parts together.
Basted Flannel Quilt
I didn’t take pictures of the process, but first I taped the backing with wrong side facing out to the wall. Then I sprayed the backing with the adhesive. The next step is to stick the batting to the backing. Of course it isn’t that simple, but for the sake of finishing this post lets just say it went on smoothly. The last step is to spray the batting and then stick the quilt top to it. I was jumping for joy to get this done. At home I don’t have a wall tall enough to do this so the only alternative is to pin the backing to the floor and do the same process on my hands and knees. This is so much easier!
As you saw above there was a wedding held at the center Saturday evening. Claire and I decided to surprise the happy couple with a little gift and made a couple of Christmas placemats for them.
Christmas Placemat for the Newlyweds
My mom did the sewing and I did the quilting. We never found the bride or groom, but were able to give the gift to the brides father and hope the youngsters like them.
For our first ever quilt retreat we had a great time and I have plans on going next year too. I think Claire will join me if it fits her schedule too. Thanks to Sue P-T for organizing the retreat and thanks to all the other ladies for helping my mom and I to have such a fun time.
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