Wish You Were Here!
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009It’s early Day 2 of the retreat, and I thought I’d try to give you a quick update. I’m having so much fun it is difficult to find time to do anything but laugh and talk and sew! And miracle of miracles, I actually slept last night for SEVEN hours!!!! It must be the clean, country air and the yummy food and the terrific company. I may have to move here just so I can get some sleep!!
I had planned to bring along my traveling companion, Bobbi Jo, but when it came time to leave yesterday morning at 5AM, she had somehow managed to get lost between midnight and 5AM. So I brought my friend, LouAnn, instead. I forgot pictures as we were leaving Atlanta (barely made it to the gate to board the plane on time as it was!), but here’s a shot of LouAnn as we were picking up the rental car in Minneapolis.
Here’s our sporty little red car! (See LouAnn perched on the mirror? She is already annoying me, wanting to be in every single picture!) I had to upgrade my car because they wanted to give me an itty bitty little car, and I knew I wouldn’t be comfortable driving it. Remember, I drive an SUV so even this little red model is a stretch for me. But it was fun sailing around the state in it yesterday afternoon, once I got used to it!
I was first to arrive in Augusta (Wisconsin) yesterday afternoon (because I left Atlanta in the wee hours!) so I spent a couple of hours in the little town exploring. There are a lot of Amish in this area, and a great little Amish shop called The Wood Shed where you can buy Amish-made products. There are also a couple of antique shops, too. This is also the home of Bush’s Beans and they have a HUGE facility right on the edge of town. Population of Augusta is only 1460, so I was pleasantly surprised at the shopping options available. We’ll have some time Wednesday to get out and about again so I’ll try to get some pictures to share – it was storming yesterday afternoon so no pictures!
The retreat is being held at Bridge Creek Cottage here in Augusta. This is a wonderful facility, sleeps 20 but with just 12 of us here there is plenty of room to spread out. We have a personal chef, Jason, who fed us a fabulous meal last night. I did get a picture of the beautiful table setting that Terry and Roseann put together for last night’s dinner, but I didn’t get any pictures of the food. Trust me, it was yummy! Roseann is so creative, and she taught me how to make the adorable paper flowers! Hope I can remember when I get back home.
Here’s LouAnn getting comfy on the Bernina that Laurel brought for me to use. I was so happy not to have to lug my machine from Georgia to Wisconsin, even though I was a little intimidated by the Bernina. No reason, it is a SWEET machine!
We broke up into teams for the evening and made one of Terry’s new patterns, Pie Crust Pile-Up. It was great fun, and all the quilts turned out beautifully. These will be donated to charity. This is one of the patterns I picked up at Spring Market.
That’s it for the Day 1 recap. Everyone is up and about now and we’ll be getting started soon. Another full day is planned – two new projects from Terry! Plus today is also massage day – so far I’ve resisted, but I may give in later on, we’ll see. I’ll introduce you to everyone who is here later on; everyone is so nice and it is like being with a group of trusted friends even though most of us just met yesterday!
I’ll try to keep posting updates for you, but don’t worry if I don’t get to it…just know that I’m having so much fun there is no time for blogging!
…in exactly 8 hours for my trip to the Rags to Riches Shopowner’s Retreat in Augusta, WI, which will be led by Terry Atkinson of Atkinson Designs fame (I am such a fan of her designs!) I’ll be there through the end of the week, and then I’ll have a couple of days to “hop” to a dozen quilt shops in the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop. To say I’m excited is an understatement! I’m looking forward to meeting the other shopowners and the sharing and learning that is sure to take place all week long.
I’ll be 50 years old in August. How the heck did that happen??? I remember when I thought 50 was OLD, but now I’m thinking “50 can’t be old ’cause I’ll soon be 50 and I’M NOT OLD!!!!!” Yeah, right – I feel every one of my almost-50 years and then some.
Batik Special
Pat is offering optional mini projects for the group to work on at various times throughout the week, and Monday’s project from Sweet Home Quilt Co. was the Moda Bake Shop Christmas Stockings. Each of these little mini Honey Buns makes 3 little stockings, plus a half yard for the backings per box. The technique is Seminole piecing, which is not difficult at all to do, but is something that not a lot of people have done before. We have a limited number of these kits in the shop.
Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of the group working on their individual stockings, but here’s Pat in her “teaching” mode. She’s a great teacher!
Here’s Pat “threatening” me for taking her picture! Lordy, she scares me! Did you see on her 
You can see that the entire room was buzzing with the sounds of laughter and conversation amid the whirr of sewing machines. A running tally is kept of the number of projects finished during the retreat and it seems like the total was at five or six when I left yesterday. This group knows how to have fun, but they can turn out the work, too!
Here’s Julie B. showing a fat quarter quilt she’s working on – all it needs is the three borders. I helped her pick out the fabrics for this one, and the green is a little unexpected with the red, white and blue. Doesn’t it look fantastic, though!
Here’s Marie M. with her Dancing Stars quilt on the design wall. I think she still has one more multi-color border to go, but it is looking wonderful! This was a Silver Thimble Quilt Club selection from April, which we kitted at Sweet Home. A couple of kits are still available.
Here’s Teresa W. showing her completed Ring in the New stitchery BOM. This was a BOM from Kathy Schmitz that we offered at Sweet Home last year, and Pat designed the setting exclusively for us. The stitchery is blackwork done on aged muslin. A few kits are still available for this one, also.
This is a shop sample that I took to share with the group (I actually intended to sew the binding on, but didn’t get to it!) The basket blocks are hand embroidered, set with a variety of scrappy 30′s prints. The quilt is STUNNING in person! We have a limited number of kits available in the shop.
A rousing game of Left Right Center resulted in lots of laughter and a pile of really ugly fat quarters, none of which, I can assure you, came from Sweet Home Quilt Co.!
You’ll recognize Kris who works in the shop several Saturdays a month. She adapted the
Marty brought her latest finish to share ea rlier in the week – a cute, cute baby quilt of colorful kites on a sky blue background. She had been in the shop not long ago to purchase a backing and we helped her settle on a ‘perfect’ multi-color dots to finish it off. The tails on the kites are 3-D and Marty pointed out that she waited until after the top was quilted to add the tails so that the “windy” quilting pattern would be uninterrupted.
Here’s another cute baby quilt made with one of our pre-cut flannel rag quilt kits. These kits are perfect for a quick gift in a hurry because the squares are already pre-cut so all you have to do is sew, clip and wash!
Last up is a table runner I finished as a gift for a friend’s birthday. This is a new pattern I found at Spring Quilt Market from The Teacher’s Pet called
Fifteen acres of sunflowers greeted us as we drove down the two-lane country road to the Sunflower Festival farm. It was a sight to see all sizes of sunflowers as far as the eye could see, and all with their little faces turned toward the sun!
This huge arrangement greeted us at the check-in point. We arrived about an hour after the festival opened, and people were toting out HUGE bouquets of sunflowers from the fields that they had picked. You could pick a bouquet for just $10! I convinced the kids that we should wait until we were ready to leave to pick our flowers so 
This type of flower garden is what my grandmother called her “kitchen garden.” She’d plant her everyday vegetables and row upon row of flowers. This garden was filled with zinnias, coreopsis, lavender, coneflowers, and tons of other flowers that I can’t name. Hayden, of course, couldn’t sit still for a photo op – he had to pick at the hay bale and show me the straw he managed to pull out!
There were TONS of butterflies (and bumble bees, one of which flew up Mike’s shorts leg and zapped him on the thigh! OUCH!). I had to closely watch Hayden to make sure he wasn’t trying to catch the bees, but he was determined to catch a butterfly. We must have spent at least a half hour in the flower garden while he patiently tried to catch them! 
Haylee even got in on the act, although she’d squeal every time one fluttered near her – such a girl! At one point, a local newspaper photographer picked up on their efforts and snapped a few pics of them. He asked permission to put them in the paper, and I think Haylee was more excited about getting her picture in the paper than anything!
A little hesitant with the goat, but he finally went over and petted it! The goats were better enjoyed at a distance, though!
After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, they finally got to ride the ponies. Neither had ever been on a pony before so they were both thrilled. Hayden must have said “I want to ride the black one” at least a thousand times while we waited! Luckily there was only one little girl ahead of us and she wanted a different pony, so a potential disaster was averted. They all got to ride their choice and were happy riders. At least the wait was under the shade trees so it wasn’t too unbearably hot. Hayden did not want to get off the pony when time was up, but the ponies had had enough – they were starting to balk so we lucked out on the last ride before their rest period.
Haylee, smart girl that she is, spent most of her time on the tractor with the umbrella! I have such fond memories of riding with my granddaddy on his tractor, which also had an umbrella to shield us from the sun!
Look at that face!!!
Uummm! Do you think he’s enjoying it? 
Haylee started out eating hers daintily with a fork, but quickly abandoned that and dove right in! 
Hayden always says “cheeeeese” when you start to take his picture so he usually ends up with a goofy expression on his face. I told him to say “monkey” instead and here they are teasing me with cries of monkey, monkey, monkey. Luckily I had the camera on rapid mode so I got one or two good shots out of about six or eight that I took! 
A perfect end to a perfect day! 