Back from the Rooster!!!

It doesn't seem like I've been home at all these past few months!  And it has taken a toll on my blogging, of course.  It always takes me a few days to recuperate before I'm able to get back to blogging.  I apologize for being MIA so much lately, but hopefully these great pictures from our retreat this past week at Red Rooster Retreat in Alabama will mollify you enough to keep you from jumping ship! =^..^=  Warning - this is a long post with lots of pictures!

First of all..... one of the BEST reasons to go the the Red Rooster is the FOOD!!!

Does this look yummy scrumptious, or what?  Oh yes, we chowed down!!!!

All the meals at the Rooster are delicious and hand cooked by Jennifer herself.  She's an excellent cook and loves to cook everything fresh and from scratch.  One dessert was strawberry shortcake, with homemade shortcake and from-scratch whipped cream - YUM!!!  Sorry, I didn't get a picture of that - it was gone before I could even think about a picture LOL!!!

The other great thing about the Rooster is the SPACE!!!

The red arrow shows you where I was sitting - 

when I wasn't eating, or taking pictures, or visiting, or - well you get the idea!  LOL!!!

I was pretty darn productive at this retreat which made me a happy girl!!!  You know how sometimes you go on retreat, and all you seem to get done is a lot eating and sleeping and talking?  Me too!  But not this time...

I started out by quilting my Rainbow Pineapples.  First I stitched in the ditch around each all the borders and then around each pineapple.  The only other quilting I did in the center was to stitch around the center pineapple square for stability.

My quilting gloves are $1.00 gardening gloves from the Dollar Store with the fingers cut off :*D

Then I did a simple freemotion feather in each black corner, which was pretty much wasted effort since you can only see it in the right light....but I was happy with the effect.

I hope to get the binding on it this weekend, and I'll show a final reveal then :*)  

After that, I got caught up on my Piecemaker's Year-Long Mystery Quilt called Baubles and Beads.  We are almost done with this mystery - I finished up Clue #14 at retreat.....

Chain-piecing Clue #13

The clues are coming together!!!  I just love these soft batiks :*)

And last, but certainly not least, I got busy on my Amish Beauties blocks!  First, I had to take apart the two blocks I made in Gatlinburg :(  I was using my new-to-me Bernina 180 for the first time and didn't have my 1/4" seam just right, so they came out almost a quarter inch too small and the pieces didn't fit together very well....

One of these days I'll learn to check that 1/4" inch!!!!  So I did a lot of this first.....

But then I got down to business and eventually I ended up with this.... 11 (almost perfect) blocks complete - WHOOHOO!!!!!!

I'm planning to make 16 blocks for a 4x4 block wall hanging, so 5 more to go.  Since each of these blocks finishes at 6 inches, it won't be very large.  My fellow retreaters thought it would be great if I gave them each one of the blocks as a retreat favor..... you can imagine my response to that suggestion!  :*D

There were some old friends at this retreat as well as some new ones - always a great mix!!!

Our friend Lynn moved away last year to Seattle - we were overjoyed when she flew in for this retreat!  And she was very prolific too.  First she made this oh-so-cute 10-minute table runner.....

With these adorable snowman buttons on each end - too cute!!!!

 Then she started assembling some hand-embroided blocks into a quilt.....This is called Aunt Bea's Parlor from Black Cat Creations.

All of these wonderful 30's fabrics were eventually cut up ....

And used to border her blocks to make this!

She still has to put on the borders, but we all fell in love with this!

It was hard to say goodbye to her when we left, but she's assured us she's coming back in October for the next RRR - whoohoo!!!

We had a few newbies there too!  Cookie LOVED Red Rooster and has already put in her name to come back in October :*)  She worked on her Braid quilt - a Bonnie Hunter pattern - using lots of scraps that she traded with her weekly sewing group.

And Melissa finished up a top before the rest of us were even settled in good!

Her mom, Betty, worked with these wonderful fabrics - I tried really hard to figure out a way to steal them and not get caught ... but... no such luck!

Sandy made the most humongous t-shirt quilt I have ever seen!!!!  She started with this....

Then got busy doing this....

And finally ended up with this....  WOWZERS!!!!

And believe it or not, she had enough t-shirts left over to make another one!!!  Which she started when she finished this one - now that's a labor of love :*)

One of the fun things to look forward to at Red Rooster is flying your completed quilt top - TaDa! - from the top floor banister so everyone can see it.  Here is Joanne with her Red & Black Stars that she had begun at the last retreat.... these beauties just glow!!!

Mary quilted her Redwork Snowmen quilt on her Featherweight.....

I have these patterns too and plan to start stitching them up when I finish Promises & Borders.  I guess I failed to get a picture of the finished quilt, but I can assure you it was amazing!

Pat worked on her Scrappy Asian Road quilt....

...... which turned out gorgeous, of course!  All those sparkly oriental prints - YUM!!!

Carole worked on a gift quilt for a friend - aren't these fabrics just so soft & loverlie?

She had her blinged-out turtle pincushion that Lynn made for her on top of her sewing machine giving her daily support and inspiration :*)

Check out that doily shawl with pearls adorning her back - LOL!!!

And Rose stayed busy playing with some of the most gorgeous batik bricks I've seen in a while!!!  This is planned as a graduation gift, so she put the pedal to the metal and sewed busily the whole time!!!

Michelle decided to model the first strip of her Big Easy quilt...

I can't remember if this picture was before or after she fell on the stairs and put this big hole in the wall - fortunately no quilters were permanently harmed in the filming of this blog!!!

She survived to finish up her quilt top and proudly fly it from the bannister for her Ta-Da moment!

All in all, I think you can tell we had a WONDERFUL time at the Rooster!  It's good to be home though - it always is, isn't it?  I had a few lovely squishies waiting for me too....

I won these beautiful, sweet-smelling handmade soaps from my sweet friend Janet O who blogs over at Rogue Quilter....these are the BEST soaps!!!  Thank you so much Janet :*)

Then I found out I won a copy of the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks #7 issue from Sassafrass Lane - along with four of their gorgeous patterns!!!  Whoohoo!!!!

I can't wait to dig into this great magazine and see all these wonderful blocks!  Shayla is the Editorial Assistant at Quiltmaker and her block is that cute little owl on the front page in the left side column - I will definitely be making a few of those so be on the lookout for them soon!  And if you are new to the Sassafrass Lane blog - be sure to go check them out HERE.  Shayla has a couple of really beautiful quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival right now :*)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Design Wall Monday – May 21, 2012

This will be a quickie post because I am off in one hour to the Red Rooster!!!  Yippee!!!  Wanna come along?  =^..^=

My design wall has a new quilt on it this week – Yay!!!  As promised, Vintage Valentine is next on my 2012 UFO Challenge list.  The pattern is a Verna Mosquera design from The Vintage Spool.  It has 12 sweet blocks surrounding a simply gorgeous medallion block! This is a very romantic quilt crafted of bows and birdies and above all Hearts, Hearts, and more Hearts!!!  Romantic may not be my usual style, but hearts definitely are! 

Here is what I have done so far…

Block #1

Block #2

Blocks 1 and 2 are complete.  All pieces fused down and stitched.

Block #3

Block #4

Blocks 3 and 4 have the pieces fused down but still need to be buttonhole stitched down.

I have all the pieces drawn on fusible and ready to go, so the drudgery part of the process is done :*)

I had originally planned to work on this at retreat, but then I decided against it because I didn’t want to have to carry all the fabrics I am using along with me.  I want to keep this retreat simple, so I decided to take two very straightforward projects that fit into one project box and simply require nothing but straight stitching.  No appliqué or other special stitching means I can take my little Featherweight instead of my heavy, bulky Janome 6600P too.  I’m travelin’ light folks!!!  More room for fabric to bring home ….. oops, no fabric shops between here and there anymore :(  Oh well!  I guess this means I won’t need to carry a lot of money either :*)  And maybe a positive Stash Report this week too?  Dare I hope????

Please pray for traveling angels for us.  It is a 3-hour trip but we are buddying up, so there should be no problems staying alert & awake :*)

That’s it for my design wall this week – what’s on yours?  Go to Patchwork Times to see what others are working on!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Stash Report & Rainbow Scrapiness!

I have been pretty busy the past few days getting ready to go on retreat at Red Rooster again – woohoo!!!  I’m really excited to go in the spring/summertime.  I’ve always gone in January or October, and it will be interesting to experience Alabama at this lovely time of year.  I’m also excited to see what kinds of eye candy Jennifer and Jim put up in May.  It is always as much fun looking at all their decorations as it is sewing & quilting!  Don’t worry, I’ll take lots of pictures :*) 

I finally managed to spend a little time sewing on my yellow scraps this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy.

I had a super fun time digging into my scrap bins to find just the right yellows and oranges to make this sweet sunflower for a small table topper for my Mom. 

I gave her the table frame for her birthday, and this quilt is her mother’s day gift.  Mom reads my blog, so she will see it here before I can get it to her.  So, Mom, I hope you like Sonshine =^..^=

I designed this quilt especially for my Mom, with the bright happy sunflower and the words “You are my Sonshine” quilted in at the bottom because they have a very special meaning to her.

When my mom was little, her life was not very stable, and she was alone a lot of the time.  Not a lot of hugs or love were handed out at her house.  But she had a favorite aunt who would pull her up into her lap in the old rocking chair and cuddle her every chance she got, and then she would sing softly to her, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine….”  My mom remembers those times with her aunt as bright spots in her otherwise stark childhood.  Today, as a Christian, mom spells it Sonshine for her beloved Jesus, so I spelled it that way on her quilt too. 

For that little finish, I used about half a yard all told.  I did buy more fabric this week.  I really needed to add more aqua, gold and rose colors to my stash in order to begin putting Eldon together. 

Although I’m not entirely unhappy with my numbers, I’m glad that I don’t have a lot of things coming up that I need to buy fabric to complete.  (Good thing there are no more quilt shops between here and Red Rooster anymore! LOL)  Hopefully I now have almost enough to begin putting together Eldon.  I also have to purchase one final piece before I can start on my niece Raney’s quilt.  And I need to purchase the backing for Moonglow.  I’m planning to take care of that during an upcoming trip to Whittles in late June.  After that, I’m thinking I can work on UFO’s and scrap quilts for a while until I get my “Used” numbers a little closer to my “Added” numbers. =^..^=

So here are the final numbers for this week:

Used this week:      .50 yards

Used YTD 2012:      74.00 yards

Added this week:   4.00 yards

Added YTD 2012:   99.50 yards

Net Used for 2012: -25.50 yards

Head on over to PatchworkTimes to see how others are doing with their stashes.  And don’t forget to see what everyone has been working on for their Rainbow Scrap Challenge too!  I am always amazed at what we can accomplish with even the smallest scraps of color!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Also linking up with Such a Sew and Sew for May Stitches in Time: