Weekend Sewing- Retreat among the Redwoods

I do so love a quilt retreat, especially one that's rustic and remote.  The South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild organized such a retreat (their first) and were gracious enough to open it up to members of sister Modern Quilt Guilds in the area.

Who goes on a quilt retreat but forgets to bring her walking foot?  Yep, I'm the genius that did that.  Grand plans for quilting my Converging Corners quilt for do. Good Stitches and completing a pillow cover for The Pillow Talk {Swap} Round 9 foiled!  Several people kindly offered the use of their walking foot (feet?), and I actually tried a universal walking foot offered by Miriam, with whom I was sharing sewing space.  But my Singer 301A is a persnickety little thing, and she will only quilt with a walking foot modified especially for her (which I purchased from Jenny at Sew Classic).

Luckily, I was still able to work on these projects despite the forgotten walking foot.  I pieced the backing for the Converging Corners quilt, as well as the front of the pillow cover.

The pillow cover is based on the Batwing Block from The Farmer's Wife (I drafted my own templates).  I stalked my PTS9 partner's ispiration mosaic and favorites, as well as her comments on other projects posted to the Flickr group, and I hope I got it right.  Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it, as well as hit up some tutorials on how to actually put together a pillow cover.

Aside from these projects, I was busily engaged in making new friends with the ladies from the guild- such a fun and friendly group!  I loved the flow of chatter and exchanging of advice, ideas and (of course) fabric.  And there were so many great projects being sewn up.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures, but most of them can be found here. 

Since I didn't get to quilt Converging Corners at the retreat, that's the current task at hand.

The goal is to finish up the quilting today, then bind it before the weekend is over.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

A quilt retreat, a first day of school and a scrapbuster swap

     My first quilt retreat!  A handful Bay Area MQG quilters spent a long weekend near Sonora at the vacation home of one of the guild members.  It was enjoyable getting to know the ladies who went on the retreat.  I didn't accomplish much sewing (three quilt blocks), but for me it was the perfect balance of sewing and socializing, chocolate and wine.
     And I received some lovely gifts:

I owe my retreat mates a goodie bag, which I will bring to the next guild meeting.  I've got some ideas that require a little knitting or sewing.  Thank goodness I only have four gifts to assemble since the next guild meeting is less than a week and a half away.
     I can't believe we have a 3rd and a 4th grader in the house.  Time passes so quickly!  Monday morning was hectic with the drama and excitement of the first day of the school year.  I think it felt more chaotic than it actually was because I felt out of sorts from being away all weekend.  It took a couple of days to get back into the homemaking routine.  I've finally unpacked the fabric I picked up on the retreat:

The other reason I only finished three blocks- getting a little side-tracked by scrumptious fabric!  Can you believe I found yardage of Katie Jump Rope?!  I've always liked it but was too late to the quilting party to see it in shops.
     Encouraged by one of my fellow guild members, I've joined my first block swap.  It's a scrapbuster swap, so we use scraps and fabrics from our own stash to make the same blocks.  I've signed up to make twenty "postage stamp" blocks.  Twenty.  A little ambitious for my first swap, but I do have a large stash of fabric and scraps scattered all over the house.