Six Glorious Days of Stitching

I apologize profusely for my days of silence. I totally intended to blog each and every day of last week. Having lots of fun and sewing for six straight days is absolutely exhausting :) I'm ashamed to admit that I am sleeping an extra hour each night and still had to take a nap yesterday afternoon. I'll try to do better. Girl Scout promise!

Last week, Monday through Saturday was the Summer Stitch-In sponsored by Pat Wys and The Silver Thimble Quilt Company. In past years, I was able to attend two or three days of the Stitch-In, but never the entire time. This year the moons aligned and it worked for my family and me. In fact, I just announced to them that attending the Stitch-In was what I wanted for my birthday and their gift to me was to tend to all the stuff around the house (walking Rusty, doing laundry, unloading the dishwasher, etc. etc.) Pat and her entire family worked to make our stitch-in a very special experience. When we arrived on Monday, we each searched for our place at the tables. Pat had made name tags for each of us and we had goodie bags! Each bag contained a small journal, bottle of Mary Ellen's Best Press (fabulous stuff), peppermints and bag of M & M's.

We each contributed money for lunch, drinks, coffee, snacks. The food was fabulous!!! Dinner on Saturday night was unbelievable. Pat cooked her famous Spagetti Pie (need that recipe) for us. Julie D. baked three awesome Cheesecakes for us. Julie, your cheesecakes were The Best cheesecake I've ever had. We discovered that she baked cheesecakes for a local restaurant at one time.

We had visitors during the week. What a treat on Monday! Melisa of Sweet Home Quilt Shop sewed with us throughout the day. It's wonderful to see a quilt shop owner who sews and quilts just like we, her customers, do. Read about Melisa's Excellent Adventure on her blog here.

We "Celebrate" everything during Stitch-in -completed quilt tops, new purchases, new quilt patterns and even birthdays! Carla's friends made sure that her day was recognized. She had two luscious birthday cakes. Happy Day, Carla!

Everyone set their own goals during the Stitch-In. We brought many more projects than were possible to finish, but finish projects we did. I was very pleased to finish two quilt tops during the week. This is the first time that I ever complete a quilt top during Stitch-In! The first top completed was my blue/indigo/white version of Pat's Strawberry Pie Pattern. This top was made mostly from fabric that I had left-over from my Blueberry Pie Quilt. I enlarged the quilt top and had lots of extra fabric. Susan from Susan's Stitches donated her extra fabric to help me out. I do have fabric left-over and that will go back to Susan for her strip collection.

My second quilt top was Honeyberries from the book 40 Fabulous Quick Cut Quilts. I did lots of sewing on this top last Summer at the Stitch-In, but it spent almost an entire year in a plastic bag. I even had blocks pinned and ready to sew. I was determined to get this top completed. I was afraid it might sit for another year if I didn't. I collected blues and neutrals for this quilt some time ago. I did use scraps from other projects. There was lots of sewing, cutting and resewing on this quilt top, but I'm really happy with the results. This one is definitely one I'll keep for my family.

There were lots of give-aways during the week. We each brought items from our sewing rooms for the drawings. Pat collected wonderful items that she named The Princess drawings. Many of us brought half a yard of fabric for a special give-away. Guess who lucked out? My lucky winning was close to 10 yards of great fabric!

I'll have to end for now. Today is errand day. I've already brought my Bernina to Mr. Nixon to be serviced, had my haircut, made a salad for tonight's Swim Team end-of-year party and shopped for groceries. We're now headed to the vet for Rusty's annual check-up. He is not going to be happy with us :)