What fun we had!!!! … part 1

I’ve often read on other people’s blogs about fabulous weekends spent with stitchy friends on retreat. Well ….. now I know what all the fuss is about lol ….. what super fun I had at my very first retreat!!!! We all laughed so much - my jaw was aching he he, and we all still managed to do plenty of stitching too!!!

It was a long drive to Gympie from home … about 2 1/2 hours … so we had a pre-arranged stop along the way at Patchwork Angel for some morning tea - and some shopping of course ;o)!!!! Penny also did a couple of great demo's of applique’ and paper piecing … and so this just HAD to come home with me … It’s a rotating cutting board – and I really should have bought one of these a long time ago – what a fabulous toy!!! Of course, that’s not all I bought, I also found some needles, and some threads – what a treasure trove that shop is, lots of fabulous quilty goodness around every corner!!! Before we all left Penny took a piccy of (most of) our group, there were a lot of us so she had to get a good vantage point he he he. Here’s Penny organising us lol ….. and if you want to see the piccy she took go HERE :o). Thanks so much Penny for making us all so welcome!!

In amongst the laughter I did manage to finish a couple of small projects … here’s a little iron caddy I made for my friend Karen… And I also made this steering wheel cover. The little embroidered logo in the middle was done by another of the gawjus ladies in our group, Jennine. That’s two more finishes for me for August – woohoo!!!

There’s more to tell, but I’ll save that for ‘part 2’ ;o)!!!

Another handy item…

I don’t know if I mentioned that I’m going on my first retreat in August … and I’m so looking forward to it. My friends Lynn & Valerie are coming too, along with another 25 or so from the quilting group I’m in. So……… to get ready for this fabulous event you might remember last week’s project – the cutting/ironing boards …… Well this week we decided we should get a nice little iron to take with us too …… Ok, it doesn’t look so small in the pic … but it’s actually a travel iron ~ slightly larger than the mini irons on the market – and about half the price too!!! Here it is up against my normal iron, you can see it’s much smaller.  It also came with a little carry bag … not very pretty though is it???!! So what’s a girl to do??? Well make another one of course :o)!!

I wondered how I’d go about it then I remembered my friend Dawn had a lovely pattern for one in a recent “Homespun” magazine (No. 83 if you’re wondering) ~ isn’t it gawjus!! So using Dawn’s lovely design as inspiration … cos mine’s nowhere near as pretty as hers … I set about making one on a much smaller scale … AND it matches the cutting/ironing board too :o) …..Pretty pleased with how it all turned out :o).

We’re making one more matching item for this little set … I’ll show it to you next week ;o).