Retreat! Retreat! Quilt Retreat!

Twice a year my family has a quilt retreat.  Mostly women of some age, but we do have a couple of young ladies who come too - teenagers even!  It is a place where we all get together to quilt, visit, kibbitz, and complain sometimes - oh yeah - and eat!  The catch is that we dont have to cook!  Or clean!  We just get to sew, or craft, or do whatever our hearts desire.

We also have block drawings - we each make a block or three to enter (if we want - this part is not mandatory) and then we can enter the blocks to maybe win all the blocks!  Bonus!  That's me above with one of the sets of blocks - I did not win these!

This is Auntie Barb - she is 80 years old!  Can you believe it - still quilts, works, and does crafts!  She makes these great pot scrubbers that she hands out at retreat - kind of as a door prize to all the girls at retreat!  So she makes a lot of them!  I forgot to get a picture of  that.

Above is another set of drawing blocks - I love these and since I also did not win these I will be making my own version of this quilt.  Stay tuned in a few months for that!

The blocks above are drawing samples for next November's retreat.  We start way ahead so everyone can plan and prepare and get the blocks done.

Better shot of one of the blocks samples for drawing for November.  This is a fun set - we bring a baggie with a batik in it of a certain size - not knowing what blocks we will even be making- and then they all go into a basket and we each draw out as many baggies as we brought.  Then we get patterns and make our blocks out of the fabrics we drew from the basket.  Like a mystery!

Aunt Char working on her hand quilting project.  Behind her is cousin Deb all the way from Ohio!

How great is this fabric?  Cousin Karen got me some of this from Sylvia's Quilt Depot so I would have it for retreat!  Yummy!

Great Aunt Fran - All the way from Missouri for retreat - this is her second one and boy does she get stuff done!!!

Auntie Linda - working on a project.

This one is called "Mexican Star" and it was a block drawing from a few years ago.  Aunt Nan won these and got the quilt put together.  She and I have some of the same taste in quilts and colors - I always love her combinations!

Here is Aunt Nan (in the blue) and Aunt Shirley - also All the way from Ohio (Deb is her daughter)

Cousin Patricia (you might know her as "creative cousin" from earlier blogs).  She also designs quilts and we have a lot in common.  We graduated from high school about the same time too.

Another show and tell quilt from a past block drawing.  I think these might be Deb's blocks.

Above is a closer shot of that quilt.

This is "Scrappy Montana"  one of the block drawings for November.  

And this beauty is "Big T" block - Cousin Karen and I nominated it to be done in blues and teals.  It is for the November retreat drawings also.  I love how it looks 3D from the fabric placement.

I didn't win any this time around but Im hopeful for November!  Six months is a long time when you are waiting to win blocks!

But for now - it is time to get growing!  Stay tuned for some garden, greenhouse and kids blogs in the next few weeks as well as a What is Houston Up to Now?

See you then!