Quilt Retreat

My first quilt retreat was amazing. I left the girls with a babysitter on Thursday morning and my mom and I went shopping at a LQS, had excellent Mexican food for lunch and were finally on our way to the convent. The convent is located on a famous road in Temecula, CA--famous for it's wineries. It seemed an odd place for the nuns to be with tasting rooms for neighbors, but the views from the room of the open fields and grape vineyards was amazing.

We were almost the last to arrive and set up our area in the back of the room. It was so pleasant, we had a lovely group of ladies and one man to spend the weekend chatting with and learning from. Our instructor, Pearl Pereira, was so lovely. She was patient explaining all the techniques for freezer paper applique, being self taught it was nice to have someone who was so patient even with teaching me easier ways to hold the stiletto to move the fabric better.

Here are some of the creations that people worked on or were brought in for show and tell this weekend. The first is from a lady who just stopped by for the trunk show on Saturday night. She made this one for her daughter & son-in-law, the signature blocks are from the guest at their wedding.

The flowers are from this pattern below of Pearls called Wildflowers. I love how unique the top one is. I love when people take a pattern and make it their own.

Linda worked on finishing the blocks up for a summer quilt "Gifts from the Sea" by Verna Mosque. I loved the bright colors. And I am sure that my girls would love the quilt... maybe one day.

This one was from another quilt shop owner Julie. She spent the weekend trying to get caught up making samples for her shop.
Here is Pearl's finished Baltimore Halloween Quilt. Four ladies were working on it at the retreat. After seeing the size of some of the tiny pieces that had to be turned, I can guarantee that this one will never make it to my to do list. But it is absolutely beautiful in person, and I certainly understand the attraction to make one.

Her Christmas quilt with the big pieces is much more my speed. Aren't the faces sweet on these guys?

Here I am industriously working on my applique pieces. The pink fabric is super cute in its finished spot, and the little brown arch turned into the handle on this basket. Do you remember the background I posted about a few weeks ago?

Aren't you excited to see the whole quilt? I am about 1/3 way done stitching down the applique. so be patient hopefully in a couple more weeks it will be ready to be quilted. Of course for each pattern that we are designing, we have it done in two different color ways, so maybe I shouldn't be so optimistic that this pattern will be ready soon, but I hope so.

Happy sewing,

Kami

Whirlwind

Life has been happening fast around here. Although I thought I was beat after supervising the 33 kindergartners on a field trip. That was a cakewalk compared to life since. So here is my life in a nutshell. (Granted it needs to be a really big nutshell.)

Let me preface everything by saying, I forgot my camera on fieldtrip day. Life would have been much simpler if I hadn't left my camera connected to the computer that Thursday morning. Halfway through the fieldtrip one of the other moms, Cindy, made a comment to me that in her other daughters class a mom collects photos from all the parents and puts together a DVD of the highlights of the school year. Me, without a camera, thinks "hey, what a great way to get pictures of today to put on my blog." So these words come out of my mouth,"I could easily do that for everyone if people give me a CD of their pictures."

WHAT!! Did I just volunteer to get people to give me their photos (Oh, the follow through), organize the photos (I don't even scrapbook), and then put together a DVD (only my second one ever)! And I was going away on the applique retreat in a week with less than 2 weeks left of school. Sure no problem!

To add to my stress, at this time Jason's hours at his job were cut forcing us to have a 20% cut in pay, so I applied for my first full-time job in 6 years! Thankfully, it is at USAopoly the company I worked for before "retiring" to be a SAHM. I had the job interview on Monday, and still no word. But back to my story.

So while staying up til midnight most nights for the next week to try and finish the piecing for the 6 quilt tops for the 3 new patterns mom & I hope to release, I had in the back of my mind this little DVD project. Wednesday morning I mentioned to Cindy that not many parents had given me pictures and I might not have a very well rounded movie since i would be gone for the next two days. Well leave it to the next Sarah Palin to organize the parents at the school. Honest if you have a project that needs to be done don't ask me, ask Cindy. By the time I dropped off Katelyn at school last Monday morning, Cindy had collected 3 disks, one flash drive, got 2 parents emailing me photos and one more set was dropped off to my house that night. In 2 days she got 7 parents to get their photos to me when I got 2 in a whole week!

I was so busy last Monday I didn't have time to look at the disks until that evening. Here is a little taste of my day. I helped in the classroom in the morning, fed my girls lunch, got KG's hair in a bun for her final dance rehersal, got a phone call from USAopoly about the interview time, got all distracted with horrid butterflies in the tummy and left the costume at home, finally got K to the theater, had ice cream with AJ, went to the quilt shop for applique thread, picked up K who was 1/2 an hour late getting out, dashed home dropped off the kids, went to my book club meeting where Marie Botswick actually called us. AND finally came home at 8:30 to start the DVD. Really, how am I supposed to fit a 9-5 job into that schedule. Thus, began week 2 of being up till midnight to get stuff done. Thankfully, the DVD turned out great, school is out for summer, and KG's dance recital was beautiful. I am hoping to finally start slowing down and enjoying life again.

I was going to add pictures of the retreat also, but I think I will wait til tomorrow. Since I refuse to leave the house for anything, I am hoping I will have time to post them early. Well, at least before midnight. I thought I would leave you with this last picture of Katelyn and her "boyfriend".

A first crush

Mom and I leave 1 week from tomorrow for our 4 day applique retreat. I have been too busy getting ready to even take pictures of my works in progress. So today I got out the camera, and thought I would post a few teaser pictures of a couple of quilts that we will be working on up there. These are parts of the pieced backgrounds, but next week we start adding all the fun little applique details to the quilts to really give them flair. And yes, they will be pattern packets soon!

Tomorrow is Katelyn's first field trip on a school bus! She is so excited I didn't think I would ever get her to sleep tonight. The class is going to the post office, fire station and civic center/library. And I get to go as a chaperone! After spending every Monday this year helping out in her class, I know all the kids almost as well as she does and am looking forward to a fun time with all of them. I promise to bring my camera and take pictures!

So do you want to hear tonight's funny story? Okay well first we have to go back to last week. No, no, lets go back about 3 or 4 months. Do you remember your first kindergarten crush? Well, like most girls in her class K had one. Well, this little boy was REALLY not into girls so after spending all year liking Boy 1 she decided to give up on him and pick a new boyfriend, Chris. Twice each week for homework they bring home a journal with a question from the teacher that they need to answer. Well fast forward to last week and the question was "Do you have a boyfriend (or girlfriend)" K quickly filled the page with information on Chris and how they like to play house together and tag on the playground...

Finally, tonight I really got to see them interact. Chris is just as smitten with her as she is with him, which in kindergarten-ese means that they ate their food at opposite ends of a bench, alternating between giggling at each other and turning their back on one another. And in the peaceful times, it was a lot of loud jabbering about playing house at school and the field trip. When they finally finished it was time to run around and play freeze tag. So what am I doing while the kids are flirting? Listening to Chris's parent tell me how much he talks about Katelyn at home! Can you guess who his girlfriend was in the journal entry? Of course, Katelyn. Aww, a first crush is so sweet, especially when the boy likes you too.

Kami