It's Been A While

It's been a while since my last post.  So much has been going on.  First - the Retreat.  (Warning, lots of pictures.)  A group of 10 of us went to Red Barn Retreat Center in Garden City, MN.  What a beautiful  place! And the work space was amazing.

The pool table was covered with a wooden frame that made a great place to lay out a quilt, kind of a design wall if you will.  It was also a great place to use for cutting.

                                               

Notice all the lighting?  Each sewing spot had it's own task light and since there were 10 of us, we each had our own table to work at.  So nice!

The other side of the room and my spot for sewing  all weekend.

There were 10 beds which is why there were no more than 10 of us.  But that made the price perfect for the weekend!  We did cook our own meals but the kitchen was great.  Check out the link above to see all the rooms.

 One of my table buddies, Allyn.  My project was started when she was still in her mother's womb.  (It was started in July of 1993.)

Jessie, Allyn's mother, was my other table buddy.

I worked on 2 PhDs (projects half done).  First up was my golfing dogs.  

This was started in July of 1993 at Quilt Nebraska.  I took a class taught by Trudie Hughes.  The pattern is from her first book, "Template-Free Quiltmaking".  My copy of the book is autographed by Trudie and dated.  (That's how I know when I took the class.)  This week I have added  tow borders.  I now need to decide what I'm going to use for backing.  I don't have enough of the golfing dogs.

With the borders.

My book

The other PhD I worked on is called "Everything but the Kitchen Sink' designed by Rhoda Nelson.  Here is a link to a picture of what the finished quilt will look like.  I had signed up for a Stash Buster 2009 at Prairie Star Quilts but ended up not being able to go to the workshop as my mother-in-law was ill.  I was using my 1930's reproduction fabrics.  I need to make 150 of those little nine patches.  

My pile of nine patch blocks that I made.

One last picture, early morning the first day at the Retreat.  Love the big sky, how you can see forever, and the colors.

All in all, a very fun Retreat!