No school today for Parker, teacher work day, so I won't get much sewing done today. His best friend Jamie is coming over this afternoon and I plan to spend the afternoon tending to them and refilling my freezer with dinners for the coming month.


Since I'm trying to make this blog mostly about art, I'll share this recent piece of art that Parker brought home from school. He was so proud that he received a 4 on this assignment. I'm not sure what the grading system is for the schools around here. I grew up with the standard A, B, C, D, F scale. They seem to do 1, 2, 3, 4 with 4 being the best. According to Parker, 3 means that you followed the directions and 4 means you did more than you needed to. Regardless of the score, I love it!

Hills above Creede

Another photo taken last weekend at retreat in Creede.

Another Charity Quilt

This is the fourth charity quilt I pieced at retreat last weekend. My mom gave me 14 of these house blocks some time ago. I found them recently and put them up on the design wall. Fourteen is not an easy number of blocks to design with so I figured out the measurements of all the pieces and made a fifteenth block. My sister recently gave me some fabrics she didn't want (the planet border fabric and blue setting squares) and I found the green sashing fabric in my stash. The blue setting square fabric has raised plastic-like multi-colored stars on it. It looks cool but is a pain to sew with and you can not iron directly on the stars (they melt and stick to your iron!).

The houses are made from funky bright prints. The green sashing would not be my first choice, but I had enough of it. The planet fabric doesn't go with anything, but again I had enough of it and I needed the quilt to be wider. I call it "Houses in Space." Someone at retreat suggested that I quilt aliens in the windows of the houses. I think I may do that.

Charity Quilts

Here are some of the photos I promised yesterday of the charity quilt tops I completed at retreat. I haven't done anymore on them since cutting the backing yesterday morning. I'm not even sure that I have enough batting for them all.

I finished my 12th Navajo Stocking cross-stitch Monday night and spent some time yesterday figuring out how I will finish them. I decided to use a satin stitch on my machine to sew them to some red wool and finish the edge with a blanket stitch. When I get them done I'll post a photo. They are turning out really cute!

The Canyon

This photo was taken on my walk Saturday up the canyon at the bridge.

I'm still unpacking and sorting my stuff from the retreat. I'll post photos of the tops I completed tomorrow. This morning I cut backs for these tops and I hope to get at least one quilted this week. I already have the binding made for three of the four. I'll start with one of those.

I'm Back

I got home from retreat a little after 3 pm today. I had a wonderful time and got four small charity quilt tops pieced, a couple of blocks for the raffle quilt made and I learned how to play Mexican Train.

These are just a few of the photos I took on my trip. The first is the view up the canyon taken from the just outside the back door of the building where we sew. The one below is of the main street in Creede taken as we are on our way to lunch on Saturday. I took a walk up the canyon later Saturday afternoon and got some nice pictures along way but those will have to wait for another day to post.

Packing

Today I am packing for my guild's annual retreat this weekend. Three days and two nights of sewing, food and fun! I'm taking my new featherweight now that I have learned how to thread it.
I've got a bin full of projects, more than I will probably have time to work on but I never know what I will feel like doing. I am leaving some room in the bin for any fabric or other goodies I may purchase during the weekend. We will stop at a quilt shop on the drive up tomorrow and two other shops will come up on Saturday. There are also cute stores in Creede to peruse.
I've got my list and I'm checking off items as they get packed. In case you are wondering, I am taking a small suitcase of clothes and toiletries. I just didn't take a picture of that. I do have my new camera. You can see a part of my new camera case in the last photo above, on the right of the photo.