Monday, February 28, 2011

Retreat Report

Imagine you're planning to go on an all-day quilt retreat. It goes from 9 am to 10 pm, meals, snacks, coffee/tea/juice are provided. You'll have your own banquet table workspace, plus access to a big table for basting and raised tables for comfortable cutting. Now. Here's the question: how much sewing/quilting do you think you will accomplish in those 13 hours?

Here's my list of projects that I brought along (vaguely thinking I would get most of them mostly (if not completely) done). I've indicated the project's status so you can get an idea of where I sat with them as I packed them up:
  1. Drunk Love in a Log Cabin-style Bee Blocks (2) for Nicole in the Maple Leaf Bee (fabric still in mailing envelope);
  2. Christmas Tree Skirt ties to be finished off (raw edges needed to be folded in and ties finished with a topstitch);
  3. DQS10 quilt (fabric pulled, blocks chosen, one (of 9) blocks pieced);
  4. That Girl That Quilt Along quilt (all cut out with 1 row (of 8) of blocks already pieced);
  5. New Wave Quilt (all cut out);
  6. Memory quilt for my BFF's daughter (fabric pulled (but not cut), and pattern chosen).
Here's what I actually accomplished:

1. The Bee Blocks.
MLB Blocks for Nicole

Bee Blocks

2. The Tree Skirt ties (took literally 5 minutes - I couldn't find time to do that before Christmas??? Ugh.)

3. Four DQS10 blocks.

DQS10 progress
4 more (6½") DQS10 blocks

4. 1 full and 1 partial row of Quilt Along blocks (sorry for the terrible photo). 

QAL blocks
More QAL blocks - bottom row is missing some frames

As usual, my eyes were bigger than my stomach, quilting-wise. Thirteen hours seems like such a long time!! I felt like I should have walked out with ALL of my stuff done! 

Oh well. The best part of it all wasn't what I got sewn, it was who I got to spend the day with:
Flickr Friends on Retreat
Flickr Friends on Retreat

While I wasn't as productive as I (admittedly delusionally) hoped, I had tons of fun and got a little sewing done, too. I'd call that a success.

4 comments:

  1. I'd say that was extremely productive!!! I also want to point out that obviously quilting is not doing anything for our collective eyesight!! 9 Flickr'ers in the photo. 9 pairs of glasses!!!

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  2. I don't think we ever get as much done as we would like but I think you got a TON done and all of it lovely!

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  3. Haha I always do the same thing... but if you don't aim high then you won't know what you're capable of. It all looks lovely! xx

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  4. I'm very impressed with how much you got done! At the six-hour-long sew-in, I did a bunch of cutting and then only finished ONE 12" block. It was just too fun to chat and see what everyone else was working on!

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