Virtual Retreat Aug thru Dec 2015 Info on first post

[lotti]

what a sweetie!
yup - get them involved early :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

[lotti]

Aww Geneva...what a cutie!!!

Dorothy

[Scoopie]

Beautiful baby, Geneva! I can see that you really enjoyed yourself! Thanks for sharing!

I just finished the first of two tote bags, for one of my two year old granddaughters. This first one was kind of a practice one, for the granddaughter that loves to "go shopping." So, her mom gives her a generic tote bag, and she goes around the house stuffing anything she can find into it.







That's all for now, gotta dash off to the store for supplies for the next tote! Only have one week to get it made!

Dawn

[Scoopie]

Dawn...tote bags are really cute!!! Love them!

Dorothy

[genevacarroll]

Dawn! That tote bag is so cute!

Lois, I'd love to meet you and everyone else on these forums. I feel like I know you all anyway. I hope someday we can meet. How fun would that be? And dangerous! :evil:
Who knows what would happen if a group of lounge lizards were in the same spot! Ha!

Take care,
geneva

[genevacarroll]

Dawn - great totes! I love Winnie the Pooh.

Geneva - I feel the same. Fun and dangerous. :woohoo: Love the combination. Someone will certainly come up with a great doable idea. It just isn't me right now.

[lotti]

Love those Totes, Dawn, lucky grands!

One day we will all meet up in one place - for the time being we're ding the meetings and visiting in bits and pieces --- and mostly virtually ... But I have managed to see some of you in person - and the rest will come...

Terrie & Andree: i'll be visiting my parents over Easter - but only a shortish stay for a week or so... Terrie knows the place - Pike River - in the Eastern Townships - maybe we can manage a visit then?
And I should be in Chicago for the cardiology congress right after ... Maybe someone lives in the area?
I'll let you know dates when I'm closer to booking my flights - hopefully early January :woohoo:

[lotti]

...and I can assure you all, meeting up with Lottie was/is a wonderful time of precious memory making. And the test of true friendship as she forgave me for being late for her un-50th birthday party. The lizard presentation was a delight! And such fun planning all that with everyone in it!

[lotti]

Geneva--Rosie is beautiful!
Lotti--I live about an hour south of Chicago--let me know when and I will try to be there.
Terrie--prayers are going up for Alfred
Dawn--love the totes

I have been crocheting snowflakes. I love the crocheting, I love hanging them on the tree--today I did what I hate doing with them--making them stiff so they can be hung on the tree...ugh! They are drying now and soon all I will have to do is put hanging thread on them.

I would love to meet also but in the mean time, I am content to meet with you all here.

[loise98]

Nice totes, Dawn. I was just going to say, Ritzy lives near Chicago and she hasnt' been poping in quite so often, but apparently she's lurking. Glad some of us get together face to face.

[loise98]

Dawn,
Love the totes

[golfjane]

Ritzy,
Would love to see the pattern for the snowflakes. I made some soooo long ago, I can't find the pattern anymore. I, too, like to crochet and knit (beginner stuff) along with the quilting.

[Jdeluka]

Awesome tote, and beautiful grandbaby!

Lotti and Ritzy - I live about 4.5-5 hours south of Chicago (close to Springfield, IL). Don't know if I could make it up there - it all depends on if I'm on call, but would love to try!

~ Jen

[ajclapp]

Cute baby, Geneva, and nice totes, Dawn. Makes me want to do some embroidery, but it will have to wait.

I finished the bed runners except for hand sewing the binding. I managed to print the templates I needed on the printer with the old ink. It didn't print anything but yellow on the first try so changed all of the cartridges with at least 6 year old ink and everything worked but black and magenta. The black printed as light blue and the red as yellow, but the green printed nice and dark so I traced over the lines that didn't print well with green lines before printing. The template is from my pattern Zig-Zag Rainbow which is now a free download on my website as are all of my patterns. I'm taking the next year off from my pattern business so I can get caught up on so many things and decided to give my patterns away for now rather than just putting them aside. Depending on the interest I may or may not go back to writing patterns but hope to get back to doing tutorials again.



I did everything wrong making the block units, something to do with mirror images, pressing direction, and fabrics right sides together. But I made it work. Next time maybe I will make a sample block first as I tell everyone else to do instead of sewing them all at once, or maybe not. The colored blocks should have been made as mirror images as I wanted the darker fabric on the upper left. Repressing the seam allowances in the opposite direction wasn't that hard on the dark background as I should have put the light fabric on the bottom instead of the top and used the mirror image paper that I didn't use on the colors. And it wasn't hard to recut the background pieces that finished the edge of the quilt as only half of them were cut wrong.



The shower curtain for the bird runners worked out fine. I was a little concerned about how it would quilt as the machine sung a different tune going over the fabric but they look good and am glad they're almost finished. Now I've come close to finishing everything I started this year including some of my larger UFO's from previous years. There's still a lot of UFO's to go, mostly PBNQ's (pieced but not quilted), and I'm hoping 2016 will be a good year for those.





I'm avoiding the stores this month which is saving lots of time. Instead I'm designing some metal artwork for my retreat center which will combine wildlife with quilt blocks. I don't do a lot of drawing but I can draw quilt blocks and I can trace wildlife from free clip art. And if I stay busy maybe I will get the Lady of the Lake lap quilt finished that I'm making from 10" squares.

[ajclapp]

Ritzy,
Would love to see the pattern for the snowflakes. I made some soooo long ago, I can't find the pattern anymore. I, too, like to crochet and knit (beginner stuff) along with the quilting.

Jane--I have a book that has 100 snowflakes in it. Each year since I bought the book I have made five snowflakes for each of the daughters and myself. The name of the book is:

100 Snowflakes to crochet
Author: Caitlin Sainio

I have made some where I just picked up the thread and crochet hook and made up my own but I didn't make up a pattern for it and I wouldn't be able to pick them out from the ones made from the book.