Retreat Roundup

Departure, and I'm late (as usual).  2:30 at Anne's house.

Meals:

• Thursday supper - lasagne, salad, apple pie, grog for Helen*.
• Friday breakfast - whole wheat english muffins with butter & apricot jam.
• Friday supper - ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, chocolate cake with poached pears & devon cream, grog for Helen*.
• Saturday breakfast - French toast with fruit salad.
• Saturday lunch - homemade butternut squash & apple soup with ham & cheese panini.
• Saturday supper - coconut curry chicken with jasmine rice and mango salad, leftover chocolate cake & devon cream, grog for Helen*.
• Sunday breakfast - Sue's baked oatmeal with blueberries & peaches.  We had to manifest our inner Sue since she was not able to join us this weekend.  But it is her recipe.  And it is delicious.
• Sunday lunch - english muffins broiled with leftover ham, cheese and fresh tomatoes.  This took me back to my youth when Mom used to make us Cheese Dreams for a bedtime snack.

* Helen (that's me) DID share her grog.  However, Margaret and Anne drink tiny little 'two fingers' drinks.  If you know my background,  you will know this does not even count as a drink.  I think my dog drinks more licking up the occasional drip on the floor.

This was my project - another copy of the Jelly Roll quilt.

Uh oh - reverse sewing.

Here is the progress by the time we leave.

This was Margaret's project.  She didn't get much done.  Well, maybe she did - considering the size of this little bitty thing.

She was treasurer of the quilt show so she left Anne and I on our own for a lot of the weekend.  I wonder if she's counted her silver yet?  heh, heh, heh.

Sunday noon.  Margaret is heading back to the quilt show.  We look like the Black Bottom Gang.

Retreat Weekend

I'm off to Margaret's (of the Kawartha Margarets) for a nice long weekend retreat. We will be attending the Buckhorn Quilt Show. It will be interesting to see if they still think Margaret's quilter is Helen Hunt, or if they've figured out it's actually non-famous Helen Hubert. I have my sewing stuff all packed up and my menu items planned. I'm picking up Anne at 2 pm and we'll be heading on down the road...

Leaf Quilt

Green and brown are not really my colours (although I do have two rooms painted green). This quilt came to me with almost perfect piecing. And the quilting turned out so pretty ...I went with a leaf & curl theme.
Continuous curve in the leaf blocks.
As usual, I'm just all about the back.
I don't normally post photos of quilts that have been quilted with a pantograph. I prefer to showcase my 'fancy' quilting. However, I love the colours in this quilt so much. Working on it just sent a frisson up my spine.It's Labour Day weekend and I am certainly labouring. Labour of LOVE, that is (ha ha ha). I'm trying to get caught up since I'm several quilts behind schedule.
DH cooked Friday & Sunday nights. I'm not allowed to tell you how badly the potatoes were burnt, or about the ruined pot, or about the range hood that smells like a burning tire and may have to be replaced. I have certainly had my share of disasters (ask me some time about my infamous Freightliner Porkchops). On Saturday we ordered in Chinese and had supper with the neighbours. After explaining the odour in the house, I had to listen to the ENDLESS story of MY cooking, and the smoke alarm that performed double duty as a dinner bell in our first house.
In his non-fumigating time, DH was in the garage working on a float for the Caledonia Kinsmen, which will be entered in the Great Tricycle Race parade. When I checked the event schedule, I saw there is a contest "How Many Students Can You Squeeze in a Car?". Not surprising, it's a challenge for high school students. When I was in high school we had mom's old boat - her Chrysler Newport Custom. We crammed in 11 on a return trip from the Waterford quarries where we'd been illegally swimming and drinking all day. That was back in the day when I was skinny enough that I could sit on a guy's lap for an hour and not squash him, and even if I did squash him, he really didn't mind (if you know what I mean?? - wink wink).

Drunkards Path Quilt & Barbeque Disposal

Here's the beauty I finished up this week.
I went with a theme of feathers and curls.
The straight lines add a nice contrast.
I love living in the country. Old BBQ out at the road - 9 am.
Old BBQ mysteriously disappeared - 1 pm. This put me in mind of Bert from Soap (a 70's sitcom) where he thought he was an alien. He would snap his fingers and believed that he had disappeared. I find myself doing that and I'm oddly surprised when people can still see me.

I was out with some of my Red Hat gals on Tuesday night. We went out for supper and a movie: Eat Pray Love. The book was better than the movie, which is pretty normal. You can't substitute your own imagination for someone else's condensed version of a story. We had a grand time anyways. I had ribs - yum, yum, yum. I had my bloodwork done the next morning - it was likely so full of salt & fat that I'll have to go back for another test.

SOLO Recap

Thirty longarm quilters descended on Caledonia at noon on Saturday.
They heard there was dessert.

Jane & Kristyn gave us the lowdown on their January sewing mission trip to Nicaragua. You can check out their respective blogs for details. Our meeting on Saturday garnered them $55 in contribution cash.
We had a flip chart for doodling quilting ideas. Too many were shy and needed some strongarming to get them over there to pick up a crayon. Or, maybe they were just preoccupied with my huge pan of (I Can't Believe It's Zucchini) Crisp?Trish from Quality Time Quilting came with her wares - many items specifically geared towards longarm quilters. 'Cause we all like to shop, eh?And as you would expect, show & tell was all about the BACK of the quilts.

Insomnia

I wish ...Too many things on my mind these days. Four quilts behind schedule, zucchini up the wazoo, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, flower beds filled with weeds, SOLO meeting to get ready for (I think I will need the truck), executive guild meeting to arrange, and a house dirty enough to plant potatoes in the corner of the living room.
So - baby steps.

• finish Barb's quilt
• make zucchini marmalade (won't DH be pleased when he's still eating zucchini in March? heh, heh, heh)
• oops - must go to grocery store and purchase oranges for the marmalade. Drat. There's always a fly in the ointment, isn't there?
  

Longarm Meeting - Saturday Aug. 28th - Caledonia

If you have not received this information from anywhere else, here is the poop.

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SOLO meeting (Southern Ontario Longarm Operators/Owners/Other word that starts with 'O')

Saturday Aug. 28, 2010

11:30 – 4:30

Grace United Church

174 Caithness St. E., Caledonia, On.

Hosted by Helen Hubert (thehuberts@mountaincable.net) & Debbie Winn (dkwinn@hotmail.com)

Pot Luck lunch starting at noon.

Theme: bring your brain. OMG, seriously!! We will have flip charts and/or white boards to show & share quilting ideas. Think specifically about weird blocks you have felt really good about quilting. Personally, I struggle with Bears Paw blocks, so I’d love ideas on that.

We will also have show & tell, so bring quilts.

We will be collecting at the door to pay the hall rental (less than $5 per person).

Jane & Kristyn will be talking about their upcoming mission trip to Nicaragua. Check Jane’s blog www.janesinstitches2.blogspot.com for details of requested donations.

PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 27^TH TO EITHER HELEN OR DEBBIE.