Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Retreat Fun!

Retreat was really fun. Visiting with friends who share the same hobby is always nice. You get to see everyone's projects and new gizmos.

Helen had this really cool purple air cushion. When you sit on it, you have to stabilize your body and it made me sit up a bit straighter. I always find that I'm slouching when I sit at my sewing machine. I found them at Amazon.com. Think I want to get one of them and try it out. Who know's it might work for work also.

I've been wanting to do some machine quilting, but don't feel comfortable with doing something big or with free motion. Straight lines I feel comfortable with. I finished the blocks for my Ocean Waves quilt a year ago. I even sewed them into rows.

I had the idea that I wanted to try a "quilt as you go" type project. That's where you quilt each block (or in my case row) individually and then sew them together. That way it's more manageable. Here is a quick demonstration by Paula, The Quilter. I figured if it didn't work, I would have 5 long table runners for Christmas gifts. Well it worked, so I'll have to figure out something else for Christmas Gifts. I started with Row 5 so if my quilting was kind of crappy, it would be at the foot of the quilt. I got rows 5, 4, and 2 quilted. And I was able to sew rows 4 and 5 together. All I have to do is a little bit of hand sewing on the back to hide the seem. Can't wait to get the other 2 rows quilted. I did get them basted, so at least they are all ready to be quilted.

Will post pictures soon. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. I did had my camera with me, but just never dug it out to take photos. That's a real shame too as there were lots of wonderful projects being made.

We had a little bit of auto excitement over the weekend also. On Thursday night, JoAn was having transmission trouble with her car and when we went to leave on Sunday, my battery was completely dead. I had been planning on getting a new one before winter, but obviously that was a little to ambiguous a date for my car. However I know I got off the cheaper. Hope JoAn gets her car back soon.

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