First night at the Retreat.......

This was the sixth year in a row that Laura, Sharon and I have gone to Bonny's Quilt Haven in August. We added Stephanie and Arlis joined us a couple of years ago. To say we have a wonderful time is putting it mildly. Bonny's Quilt Haven is an experience! It's like the Ritz of Quilting Retreats as far as I am concerned!

However, before we arrived at Bonny's we met for dinner at our "usual" place - McCormick's Restaurant. We wondered if we should bother eating as the food at Bonny's is so good, we probably didn't need to eat. And there is always a really good snack on Friday nights! We ate anyway and enjoyed the conversation as we hadn't seen each other in quite some time.



After we arrived at Bonny's, everybody headed to their rooms and dumped their suitcases and then out to the sewing room to begin working on projects!! Here's Arlis working on some applique blocks. It was a pattern in Better Homes and Gardens Patchwork Quilting from last Spring. It's going to be gorgeous when she gets it finished.




Laura jumped right in and began machine-quilting a baby quilt thatshe is making for some friends. She was a woman on a mission as she worked on this quilt.

We all enjoyed a tasty snack that Bonny brought us - carmelized Cheerios and nuts that was still warm from the oven. Yummy!



Stephanie (Laura's sister-in-law) had completed the colorful blocks you see on the table prior to our retreat. She began to assemble them as soon as she was set up and stitching.







Sharon loves to do Redwork. She had completed a series of fairies done in Redwork and her first project was to sew some scrappy red print blocks that would connect her Redwork blocks.







Then there's my project. I have spent the last five retreats at Bonny's making the blocks you can see in the photo below. There's more to the story than just those twelve blocks. That story will come in my next post. First, I need to tell you that if you are going to a retreat, make sure you don't forget anything. I was so excited to go that I started packing three days before I was to leave. I was sure I hadn't forgotten a thing. I brought all my quilting stuff and more projects and fabric than I could sew in a year. So, after we arrived and our bags were put in our rooms and we had set up our machines, I was ready to get comfortable - it was p.j.'s time!!! I went to my suitcase to get out my comfy p.j.'s and, holy cow, I had forgotten to pack them. This was not good! Bonny came to my rescue with the pretty blue p.j.'s I'm wearing in the picture. Thanks goodness!


I wanted to finish a project before I started sewing the 30's blocks together, so I made a set of pillowcases to donate to the Sew and Share flood relief project. I really liked the balloon fabric and wanted to see what it would look like sewn up into pillowcases. When they were done, I put my 30's blocks up on the wall so I could move them around and see which lay-out looked best. I decided to "sleep on this layout" and play with it in the morning.




Speaking of sleeping, this was my bed. It was so pretty, though, that I hated to mess it up by sleeping in it! But sleep I did and "like a log" just like the rest of the group. Time for some sleep now and although it won't be quite the comfy experience as at Bonny's, it will suffice. Tune in tomorrow to see what we finished on Saturday and hear about the food!!!