Last weekend I was once again fortunate to attend our annual reatreat at Rosemary’s Quilt Shop in Highland Illinois.
The first floor & basement are the quilt shop floors. Rosemary lives on the second and third floors. It’s a beautiful older home and the owner/occupant is a wonderful host! On the days that she has retreats, she reatreats to the third floor leaving enough sleeping rooms for 6 quilters on the second floor.
For the past 8(?) years a group of us have met for a weekend each winter and sewed, sewed, sewed. The basement is set up to sew and snack 24 hrs. a day if you want. Within two blocks there are authentic Mexican, Italian and Chinese restaurants. No need to pack any food! Of course there are lots of other restautants around town too as well as Walmart, Walgreens, etc.
Another great perk to sewing here is that Rosemary has everything you might need at any time, day or night; fabric of course, basting spray, batting, you get the picture!
This year I decided to take along a project that I started at our quilt designer retreat in November.
I made 7 of the blocks in Minnesota where I bought the book & kit. I pieced all day Thursday (un-pieced half the day on Friday) and finished the top Friday evening.
It’s “Peony Patch” from the book Summer Gatherings by Lisa Bongean & Carole Charles. The finished size is 20″ x 24″. It was designed with little leaves on every block, but after I got those appliqued on I didn’t like them! It took me about 6 hours to remove them and re-sew the stem… I love it now. I’m trying to decide how to quilt it. I’d like to give it to a professional, but it’s so small I’m embarrassed to send it out!
Next I made more of these; mini Dresden plates with my template.
I love using my Clover Mini Iron.
It gets super hot and presses the little petals very flat, plus it’s light-weight and doesn’t heat up the whole room while I’m pressing a million of these things.
Since these seams are pressed open, the mini iron tip can get right in there and press those flat too.
These are looking great with my Salt Air fabrics.
Love, love love them!
Can’t wait to show you how these are going together, but no photos ’til they’re done!
I’ve also got a new lap quilt just for little boys about finished…Nothing like a quilt retreat with all sewing, all the time to get my creative juices flowing!
Until next time,
Susan
Quilting my way through life! 