Time to rise and shine!

You all know that I am a nightowl but when I am at Bonny's or any other quilting retreat, I am more than happy to "rise and shine"!! One of the things I love about retreats aside from the quilting time, is that I don't have to think about cooking. Bonny loves to cook. She is also a quilter so their are quilts and quilty things everywhere. :-) One of the really fun things about her retreat is that there are different dishes at each meal. This is the pretty table setting that greeted us last Saturday morning..............We dined on French Toast with Banana Fosters drizzled over the top, sausages, and a huge bowl of fresh fruit.....strawberries, cherries, blueberries, oh, so yummy! We went back to our sewing machines with full stomachs and enjoyed a morning of stitching our projects. By noon, we could hardly believe it but we were hungry again........all because of the yummy smell coming from Bonny's kitchen. When we went upstairs for lunch, we were greeted by this lovely table setting........

And here is what smelled so good......

It was this awesome pizza made with chopped rotisserie chicken, sliced grapes, cheese, and pesto....oh, and green onions. It was served with fresh tomato slices and mozarella cheese and Bonny's recipe for sweet cucumbers. We all had two pieces of that scrumptious pizza and then had to find room for this............

I forget what this was called but it was a concoction of whipped cream and cream cheese topped with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. If you are dieting, don't do it while at Bonny's. :-)

So, after lunch we felt the need to get outside and walk off a few calories. We always take a group picture and decided that with the sun shining, it might be best to take it in case thunderstorms rolled in later on.That's Marianne on the left, me, and Sharon. Seated are Laura, and Stephanie (they are sisters-in-law). Bonny cooks and quilts and she also seems to have a green thumb. These were too pretty ..... had to share........

And if you look really closely at the center of the picture below.......you will see a butterfly that kindly sat still so that I could get his photograph...............

Okay, so it was time to get back to sewing. Here's a peek at what we worked on...........

Sharon was working on a project that was a feature at a shop hop. You sew charm squares together into one large piece and then cut it into 3 1/2" squares "just so" and then sew them back together and you get this.............

Pretty cool, isn't it?!! I'm going to buy a 3 1/2" square ruler that I can mark permanently for this project and plan to give it try with a Fall charm pack that I bought a couple years ago.

Laura was working on a quilt for her son Andrew. It was a "Buck-a-block" project from a quilt shop that was near her home (it's closed now).

She finished all her blocks and I think Andrew is going to love this...........

She choose a beige mottled cotton that will look great between the blocks.
Marianne was the first to completely finish a project. She had embroidered this cute snowman before she arrived and added the borders on Friday night.

Then she realized she needed cording for the edge and thought she'd have to make a run to JoAnn's. Nope, I had some in my plastic bags, so on Saturday morning she added the cording, then the backing and voila! finished!!! If there had been a prize for first finish, she would have won.
Stephanie was sewing triangles for a large quilt. She sewed lots of triangles last year for a blue and yellow quilt and brought it back all quilted. I goofed and didn't get a photo of it (so Laura can you send me a pic of it?).

I played in my box of 30's fabrics and cut those squares I showed you in my last post and then I decided, I should actually make something I could finish. I decided to make a totebag.........

I've just barely made a start in this photo but I got it almost finished at the retreat. I just had to secure the handles once I got home. And once it was done, I thought.....hmmm,,, I think I'll enter it in the County Fair. And that's what I did. It was one of several things I took to the Creative Activities building at the Fairgrounds yesterday. Everything was judged that night, but I won't know until I return on Sunday if anything earned a ribbon. It's just kinda fun to see a critique of my work. :-)

That's all for now. Dinner at Bonny's is coming up in the next post and it was delicious!

Have a great Friday!

Sandi