1st Annual Family Sewing Retreat

I seem to be reverting back to my recent past...and posting really late about happenings in 2013. After this post I promise to move forward into 2014.

I happily regress back to late October, 2013 where we, meaning my 3 sisters and Mother, gathered for our 1st Annual Family Sewing Retreat. This was no small accomplishment since I'm in Georgia, our Mother and one sister is in Louisiana, a sister in Arkansas and one in central Texas. It took quite a bit of planning, emailing, and texting to get our dates set...but we did it and set the date for our Sewing Retreat the last two weeks in October.

Our Mother is conveniently located in Louisiana which was an easy drive from Georgia and a nice stopping point on my way to Texas. After a day's rest in Louisiana my mother, her sewing supplies, me and my sewing supplies drove the 12 hours to my sister's home in central Texas. The first week was spent in Texas and the second week we all drove, in a three car convoy, to Arkansas.  My Arkansas sister who has a blog wrote a fantastic account of our sewing adventure. You can read about our fun-filled family retreat and see pictures of Part 1 - Texas and Part 2 - Arkansas on her blog, Sew Much and More. Meet the family and see how we almost bought a live goat, visited quilt shops and what all we bought and made during our two weeks together.

Here are some of the items I made:

Two pillow cases and a "tater baker" sack.

(The goat in the background was pregnant and delivered, I think twins, two weeks after we left)

A Christmas table topper which I've yet to quilt. It's a Schnibbles pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company called Sunday Best. It was made using 64 Charms and 3/4 yard background fabric. I love the pieced border.

And two little purses. I won these purse kits years ago from A Thread of Red, the blog for my LQS. It's from Lazy Girl Designs and called Runaround Bag.

My sister's horses and donkey enjoyed our photo ops and were always alert to what we might be carrying in our hands and hoping it was a snack for them.

 

We all had a great time laughing, sewing and just being together.

 

 

Now I move forward to December 2013. Here are the Christmas gifts I made for family members. Couldn't post at the time of completion for fear of ruining the surprise.

 

 

 

I machine embroidered dishtowels and potholders for my SILs and MIL. These are 3 of the 6 designs I stitched out.  They're from the Anita Goodesign collection "Baltimore Quilt" and stitched out really well as those designs generally do.

 

 

 

Here are some of the potholders...well these are actually mine. My mistakes in the learning process of adding a backing without removing the project from the hoop in order to keep the design centered. I figured it out and got some potholders for myself too.

 

 

The stippling stitched by the embroidery machine shows on the front and back. The center design only shows on the front.

 

 

And I made these pillows for my grand nieces. I included a zipper in the bottom pocket/pillow seam for easy removal of the pillow form so the covering can be washed. 

 

 

 





 

The sleeping Cat is from Designs by JuJu.

 

 

And lastly for my Mother, sisters and SIL I made these pillows. My father passed away in 2012 and these pillows were made from some of his cotton shirts. I hugged each pillow as I finished them. The pinwheel design went to each sister and my Mother received the other design.

 

 

....and the pillow back made from 108" quilt backing fabric.

 

 

The below frames I stitched out for 2 of my sisters who are converting rooms in their homes into their sewing studios. Yay for them!  You know how we quilters want our own space.

 

 

The Sunbonnet Sue design was downloaded from Embroidery Library.

 

 

 

 

Okay...now I'm done with 2013 and can happily move forward into 2014.  I wonder what it holds?

 

Thanks for visiting me and I love to read all your comments. Have a great weekend!

 

Happy Living! Happy Quilting!