Sewn Give-away

I hate to see the Sewn give-away end. I've so enjoyed reading the comments, e-mails and visiting the blogs of the quilters/crafters who entered my blog give-away. I entered the numbers in the random generator at www.random.org.    The winning number was number 79. Combining the comments, followers, and folks who blogged about my give-away,  number 79   is  ......

      

 

           Victoria M. who blogs at  "So Many WIPs, So Little Time."

 Congrats to Victoria! Please send me your postal address so I can get these books to you.

Again, thanks to everyone who entered the give-away! I loved your comments. Loved visiting your blogs to discover more about you.

Looking forward to the actual Sewn website which will be launched tomorrow!

Peace in the Mountains

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 Robert Frost's wonderful poem kept going through my head on our sewing retreat in the North Georgia Mountains near Blue Ridge, Georgia. Peace. Quiet. Humming sewing machines. Brenda, Pat and I spent three fun, productive days with no distractions at Brenda's mountain home. 

On the way to Brenda's house, Pat asked me "Do you think it has air conditioning?" Hmmm. I think Brenda would have told us if it was that rustic. Well, Brenda and Joe's "cabin" was a wonderful mountain retreat with air-conditioning and a dishwasher. We traveled several miles off the main road, through the woods, to their "subdivision." Once we were at the cabin,

the only other living creature we saw was the deer that came each evening at dusk to eat the corn that Brenda set in the clearing. Not one car, voice, animal - other than the three of us and our sewing "babies" - our little machines. We brought cooked food, but that was just because we needed to eat. There was coffee, wine, diet cokes, blueberry muffins, spaghetti pie, salad, chicken and more. On the second day, we never got out of our p.j.'s. Bra's were discarded almost immediately once we arrived :) 

Ironically, all three of us - Brenda, Pat and I - had major surgery in the last 12 months. We had "parts" taken out and parts replaced.This "me" time was need by each for us. The peace and quiet was so healing.

I worked mainly on my Autumn Ridge project from the book, The Best of Black Mountain Quilts. I probably did more reverse sewing (Pat helped me in that department, too) than actual block construction. I did finally settle into sewing one colorway log cabin block at a time instead of trying to chain-piece several at a time. The project is well on its way. I have it organized to resume sewing this week. I must have miscut one of the gold/tan/yellow logs. I couldn't find it once  at the cabin. Of course, I didn't bring extra strips so I had to move on to my other project. I'm making Pat's Strawberry Pie in blue and white fabric - left-overs from my Blueberry Pie Project. I'm renaming this one Blueberry Ridge. It's in great shape. I'm ready to pin the 16 patch blocks. I'll do that in the evening while watching TV with DH. 

Brenda has unique moose and bear items in the cabin. I kept noticing one-of-a kind items that I hadn't noticed before. This towel rack in the bathroom was one of my favorites.

Click over to Brenda and Pat's blog to read their accounts of our wonderful, peaceful, blissful retreat! I "borrowed" some of their photos for my blog. Thanks, ladies for an unforgetable three days!

Singing in the Rain

Back from a GLORIOUS three days in the north Georgia mountains/woods. This is just a quick "hello". It will be Sunday before I can share our sewing retreat with you. Last night was our first Summer swim meet. This is the last Summer our son can swim with the neighborhood team. He has reached the maximum age allowed by the county league. Yesterday was a day of laundry, shopping and getting ready for the swim meet. Oh, did it rain!!!!!  But it was just rain, not thunder and lightning so the kids continued to swim. We were able to get most of the events completed before the lightning began around 10:00 pm. Today, we begin prepping for Michael's graduation parties. Today is the party for his high school friends. He has invited 50 kids. Yikes! He said 23 have confirmed. So we  will be cooking, cleaning, and setting up for "the invasion". Tomorrow evening is his graduation party for family, neighbors, and friends (adults :)  I'm looking forward to visiting and enjoying the evening, but tomorrow day will be another party prep. day. I'm getting ready to hang his T-shirt quilt. Yesterday, I pulled some of his "little kid" pictures. It was just fun reliving some of those events. Ok. Let's take a deep breath.....   Back on Sunday or Monday!

What's on your Design Wall?

Judy L. has challenged her blog readers to post photos of their design wall, especially those with projects with "lengthy visits."  I have two walls with heavy flannel that I use for design walls. The valentine wall-hanging has been on my wall for a couple of weeks. It is so close to being finished. I stalled out on my border choice. I'm over that. Just need to sew the border to the top and DONE!

I just added these blocks this week. This is my Firecrackers top. It is long and narrow. I'm thinking about moving the last row to the side making it wider, but shorter. I'm also auditioning this fabric for an outer border. Not sure if it's the look that I want. I started work on another project and will let this one mature a bit. On Monday, I'm off on a quilting retreat (YEA)  Neither project will travel with me, so they are destined to stay on the design wall until next weekend. A couple of quilt shop visits are planned so I may look for another border fabric for Firecrackers. 

I'll be back in a couple of days. This is the second year that we've tried to make the trip to Brenda's cabin. I'll be working on Autumn Ridge in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Take care!