My First Retreat

Last weekend I went to my first-ever quilt retreat, located at a fantastic old mansion on the bank of the Mississippi River.  It was a one-owner residence from the time it was built until it was donated to the city and the entire thing has been preserved as close as possible to how it was in the early 1900s.  I had to keep pinching myself to believe that I was allowed to be walking around freely in it, looking at and even touching things.  I stayed in that third floor room right above the front door.

My biggest take-away was that I need to bring more stuff with me!  Also, I probably should have started packing earlier, but I was so focused on finishing up my Halloween tote bag that I put it off until the morning of the day I was leaving.  But once I was there, I was ready to work!  I first made progress on two of my goals for the month.

I started with the rest of my non-scrappy blocks for the modern fans quilt.  The fabric for the scrappy blocks is strewn across my sewing room floor - far too messy to bring along for something like this, where I have a limited workspace.

I was ready for a bigger challenge after that, so I pulled out my Dwight scraps and got to work.  When I made the Dwight B Plaid quilt, I doubled him in size.  This time, I wanted my finished product to fit a pillow form I already have, so I shrunk him down to around 75%.  Everyone at the retreat had fun watching Dwight come to life!

Unfortunately, I didn't bring the fabric to finish Dwight off, so I had to bring him home like this.  He should be a real pillow very soon!

Finally, I started two new quilt projects.  One is the Vintage Christmas quilt by Lori Holt.  I pretty much exclusively make Lori's blocks in the six inch size, so I decided it would be fun to just pick my 20 favorites from the book and put them together in a sampler quilt.  I got two of them done, Away in a Manger and Christmas Candles.  I also started my garden quilt, which is from a pattern I got in one of my Sew Sampler boxes.  I finished 37 of the 48 blocks I need - not bad at all!  If I hadn't run out of floral fabric I would have finished them all.  I worked on these projects at the same time, switching between the more detailed and less detailed blocks to give myself a break.

You can see I kept up with my temperature quilt blocks while I was gone too (and just may have gotten an idea for my 2019 challenge project as well - more to come on that closer to the kick-off).

And that's what I did on retreat!  I had a great time staying in my museum house and hanging out with quilters all weekend long.  We talked and laughed and ate and took a field trip to a few local quilt shops.  My only regret is not bringing enough projects along to do!  I'm already looking forward to next year!