I'm baaack! Retreat Report

I've always liked that line from "Independence Day" : Hello, boys! I'm back! But in this case I think it should be Hello, girls!

Remember in my last post, I mentioned that it was snowing? Just a wee little storm that closed all the Interstate highways in Colorado. I could not leave when I had planned on Friday, because I had to wait for the main north/south highway to reopen.

The rest of Friday was spent trying to get my Featherweight to work. It worked at home before I left, but the minute I got to Wyoming it did not want to work. I was almost in tears and about ready to head back home (45 min drive one-way) to get my Bernina when a very kind quilter next to me loaned me her Featherweight. She was using her other machine since she was going to spend the weekend machine appliqueing. Thank you, Patricia!!

Saturday, my roomie and I were very rudely awakened. Whoever had the hotel room the night of the blizzard had set the clock radio for 6:00am. Deb and I sat bolt upright in our beds at the sound of a male voice quite loudly exclaiming for us to "STOP! Stop..." blah blah blah. We were still asleep and thought there was a man in the room. When we realized it was the radio we started laughing and LOLed off and on all day about it.

I worked on the commission quilt and got two of the three rails in the rail fence sewn together. Then I got 30 of the third rail sewn on and realized that I had a problem. I had mis-cut all the rails in 400 blocks. Yes you read that correctly: 400. I spent Sunday morning removing the third rail and now I can cut down all the rails from 2.5" to 1.65". Ackkkk. It will change the size of the block but I won't have to redesign the quilt and then go through the approval process again. I can slip on more borders and nobody will be the wiser. We'll just keep this between you and me, ok? I modified the pattern to use a charm pack and didn't really think it through, I guess. But all is fine now.

I did get something done, though. I got the QOV for Alycia bound and labeled. It is now washed and I am making a presentation case for it. Plus I won second place for my decorated flip-flops. I'll show you those later. The retreat's theme was 'tropical' and we were to wear a flowered shirt for the group photo. That's me front row center in the blue-on-blue Aloha shirt.

All-in-all, I had a wonderful time. Lots of goodie bags, lots of prizes, lots of talking and laughter and lots of camaraderie.