Quilt Retreat

This weekend was our annual San Juan Quilter's retreat, Friday morning till Sunday after lunch on the Uncompaghre Plateau, about 8,000 ft. altitude. It's a church owned camp site, a woodsy setting called "Mountain Retreat" a very comfortable and convenient facility. I forgot to take some pics of the exterior, next year I will.

It's only my second year but I wouldn't want to miss it, so much fun. We don't have a formal program but each of us brings our own projects to work on, some have major quilting goals others, like me, bring a few smaller items.

Lots of sewing, laughing and sharing and oh yes a little noshing too!

Gathering to bless the food at one of our meals. We divide into teams and each team takes responsibility for one meal, it works out very well and there is frequent recipe swapping during the weekend.

We have usually 20- 25 quilters throughout the three days, and it's hard to catch everyone at work at the same time.

Because there is lots of coming and going and giggling in corners, brain storming, friendly teasing and many words of encouragement and celebration for our projects.

I have pics I think of most of said projects including my own, this was my first, not exactly a quilt but a very cute apron!

Tada! That became our celebratory cry as each person reached their goal then out came the cameras, click,click click recording the moment!

A bright and cheerful scrappy quilt, this lady has given me three of these quilts already for the QOV program for wounded warriors. Borders have yet to be added before quilting.

She keeps a box of scraps beside her chair and pulls strips randomly for foundation piecing.

This is her scrap box, little Daisy our quilting dog mascot found it a warm and comfy bed even though Daisy's own bed was only a few tables away.

She is so small you can hardly see her. This is a teeny weeny dog, 2.5 lb. Yorky.

A first quilt from this new quilter, and I think she has already become infected with the dreaded Quilt Pox!

A lovely hand appliqued table runner, I admire but do not aspire!

A Brenda Henning design constructed in a rainbow of colors.

A "done done" quilt, all quilted on her DSM, a labor of love for a fortunate son.

A very successful weekend for my table mate, she completed both of these delightful baby quilts!

The sheep are appliqued fleece, a nice tactile experience for a baby.

Late Saturday night, some mindless sewing for me, I made six of the little selvedge pincushions and one larger before I ran out of crushed walnut shells for the filling. Yup, my fellow quilters thought I was nuts using selvedges. Some thought that I must be running short of fabric and needed an infusion to my fabric collection so they kept dropping off their selvedges on my table- obviously they haven't seen my stash!

To be continued, I have more pics. to edit of all of the fabulous work accomplished over the weekend.

VTT Little China Bits and Pieces

These are all circa 1970. Just vintage I think.

The first were gifts from my Mum, purchased in England when we were all there traveling around together, my Mum and Dad and youngest sister, DH and me and three oldest sons.

There is a little crazing on these, I guess that shows they have been well used? The handles on the spoon and knife are china too.

The brand information is clear- I use them for butter and jam.

During the same trip I purchased these two little dishes in Scotland as souvenirs, the Scottish Thistle is the National Emblem of that country. They are handy for butter and other condiments and I think they are very pretty,

Again, the brand is quite clear.

This last item may not seem strange, but these are rather different from ordinary forks, and were a very popular item in the 60-70's for buffet style entertaining. They were called "splayds" or "sporks"! Anyone remember them? This set [there are actually six of them] were won by my Mum at a tennis tournament over forty years ago so they have sentimental value as well as historical! These are really a blast from the past and we actually do use them.

Now swing over to Colorado Lady's blog to see the Vintage Thursday Thingies displays.

Wordless Wednesday

June Cleaver

Well, that was me today, apron and all! I was given a case of apples and a case with four different kinds of grapes, so I had to process some of this fruit, the grapes were really ripe. Even with the apron I managed to get grape jam on my sweater, but I have Oxyclean, I am woman hear me.....eh whatever, I got a bit carried away there, too much domestic engineering for one day!

There are three kinds of grapes here.....

and the fourth variety, Concord, I think ........

brewing away on the stove see how the color is lightening.......

add the sugar and yum, nearly ready it smells so good, look how the jam has darkened to a beautiful plum color.

I made five large jars and two small from the Concord grapes.

This jar is from the other red grapes, the color turned out much lighter and the taste is quite different. The green grapes I will use for grape juice I think. I will share the jam with my family, DH and I can't possibly eat it all. Our "boys" still love PBJ sandwiches, grown men that they are, and their Mum's home made jam will be a nice change from store bought, nothing but fruit and some sugar in these jars. I used a scant 6 cups of sugar to a generous two quarts of grapes, and doubled those amounts for the concords.

The case of apples, mostly red, just a few green on top. The red are crisper and sweeter but I will freeze all of it. The donor of this bounty has an orchard and grape vines that produce a huge harvest every year, even though the trees and vines are pretty much ignored- they can't use all the fruit so he gives it away by the truck load!

This is what I have frozen already, about half of the box. When I want to use the frozen fruit, I take a bag from the freezer and it goes directly into a pot on low and I cook till it breaks down to a delicious applesauce with a little cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, perhaps a bit of sugar. If I want to make apple strudel, apple pie or French apple tart, I let the apple slices thaw- I have already treated them with a little citric acid so that they won't brown, apples freeze really well.

Not sure when I will have the energy to process the remainder of the apples, perhaps next week, my hands are discolored and a bit sore from today's effort so I need to give it a day or two rest!

Back to quilting tomorrow.

VTT Cups, Saucers and plates

It's that wonderful day of the week, Vintage Thingies Thursday and if you visit Colorado Lady's blog you will be able to follow some of the other VTT bloggers. I have learned so much participating in VTT and I think nary a week passes that I do not encounter another rare VT that I haven't seen, or heard of, before!

I grew up in Australia with the custom of "Morning Tea" and "Afternoon Tea". At a minimum this consists of a good cuppa and bikkies [cookies]. If company is expected homemade cakes and biscuits, pikelets and perhaps even "scones and jam and cream" [called Devonshire Tea in Australia] would be offered.

Every self respecting woman back then had a nice collection of fine china cups, saucers and plates, Royal Winton, Royal Doulton, Staffordshire etc etc and many other names well known in the English tradition of fine bone china. To this day my 98 yrs. young Dad insists that the tea doesn't taste right unless it is in a nice bone china cup and I tend to agree with him!

The other requisite for Tea with company was a silver teapot, creamer and sugar bowl.

I have all of the above that I have shown on other VTT's!


I began my collection of china at 13 when my very English Grandma gave me my first cup, saucer and plate, it's the pale pink one second from the left on the top shelf. The set on the far right on the top shelf my Mum gave me, she chose it because the brand on it is "Roslyn" and if you enlarge the pic. you can even read my name on the cup. These have special sentimental value, both the lovely ladies that gave them to me are no longer alive. A couple of these sets were 21st. birthday gifts and two or three DH brought me from UK when he was on business.

I remember that my other Grandmother had an entire large china cabinet- probably 6-8 shelves absolutely packed with tea cup sets I don't think I ever saw so many in one place and I doubt there were any duplicates.

I gave up collecting them many years ago because I just didn't have a place to keep them or a need for them, Teas are not an American tradition.

There are a couple of other sets that are not English china, this is one, it resides on a different shelf, there isn't space for it with the others. It's different, very oriental and my senior brain can't remember who gave it to me!

Wordless Wednesday

Baby Matthew you are getting so big!

Shakespeare In The Park and Flying Geese!

Ever since I first saw a Shakespeare In The Park [SITP] quilt I have been longing to make one.

It’s a combination of two different blocks that make it appear quite complicated and the directions describe very unusual methods so it can seem rather daunting.

I have been collecting black, white and red fabrics that would be perfect for such a quilt.

Just recently an offshoot group formed from Stashbusters to make SITP so I jumped in and joined. The group has a couple of “leaders’” who have already made SITP - they will be assigning us one step a week to work through this rather complex process, as shown in Judy Martin’s “The Creative Pattern Book”.

This is Week 1, and the task is to make Flying Geese [FG] blocks.

Here are some of mine.

Every time I make these blocks I revisit four or five different methods I know of for their construction, and each time I return to the following method mostly because it is fast and produces four FG blocks at a time.

It requires one large square of one color and four small squares of a different color for each set of four FG blocks, but here’s the deal- you will need to know the finished width and height of your FG in order to cut the fabric.

One important fact to keep in mind is that FG blocks are always twice as wide as they are tall [in order for the "geese" triangles to have a 90 degree angle] so if your measurements do not reflect that there is something awry!

The large sq. will be cut width of finished block plus 1.25”.

The four small squares will be cut the height of the finished block plus 7/8”.

For my SITP I need FG that are 3” wide and 1.5” high finished [twice as wide as they are high, remember].

Therefore my large square will be 4.25” [3+1.25] and the four small squares will be 2 3/8” each [1.5+7/8].

For example, one large B and W square and four small red ones. Draw diagonal lines corner to corner on the back of each of the four small [red] blocks as below.

Place the large square rt.side up and take two of the small squares, placing one in the left top and one in the bottom rt. hand corners of the large block, as below, with fabric rt. sides together. Don’t worry that they will overlap a bit in the middle.

Now for a little sewing!

Stitch a scant ¼” seam on either side of the line. It is very important to have an accurate ¼” seam [either with a special foot or actual lines drawn on either side of the cutting line]. One or two threads width can make the difference between accuracy and inaccuracy, to trim or not to trim! I hate to trim but I do it when necessary because I want my blocks to go together neatly and my quilt to lay flat and square.

Cut apart on the line you drew between the two stitching lines .

Press seams flat towards the small triangles. You will have two of these units, set one aside while you complete the other. The first time I encountered this method my brain just could not make the jump from this odd looking shape to two FG blocks but it can happen, have faith!

Lay one of the remaining small squares in the corner of the large triangle as shown.

Stitch a scant quarter inch seam either side of the line you drew as above.

Now cut apart on the drawn line and press, then trim the tags. You may need to trim off a sliver to make your block the correct size depending on how accurate your seaming is.

Repeat with the remaining unit and small square and you will have four perfect Flying Geese!