Summer picnic

Sunmer picnic for the diva's. Great news that although we were  missing some, we had Ruth join us again.

Lynn took pictures.

                        Fran and one of her delightful scrap quilts. Look at Laura's quilting!

I believe Fran's granddaughter was involved with this blue beauty 

This is the first Frienship quilt block we made for Ruth.and we let her stay. It's still being hand quilted.

Whoops, can't recall who did this.

From Mary Ann 

Kathy's alphabet quilt from ancient friendship blocks

A baby quilt by Kathy 

Love letters from Prudie

Another from Prudie

  

A bunch from Jan

                                         shopping from Dianne's stash

I know there were a few more so send me pictures and I will post.

 It was a lovely day, Thanks for organizing it, Jan

Long time. Aug 2024

 I don't even know how this works anymore. Someone said something about putting up pictures.

 This summer had been brutal with the heat and all. Of course this retreat it was chilly.

 We were down a couple of people. No Fran, she was getting over Covid. No Laura or Luann. We missed them all.

We also missed the forks I forgot to bring.

Lots of good food. Great conversations. Dill Pickle vodka is the best.

So much sewing.

I made a bunch of blocks and units for blocks. 

Syd was putting on borders, making pillow cases, making quilt tops. I think she folds time when we aren't looking.

 Jan the same. She bordered up an ancient stack and wack, after designing and piecing it (the border). Standard borders on 3 eye spys and they are pinned up and ready to go. A beautiful pillow covering, quilted and all and mailed to her grand daughter for her first day at college. Many pillow cases as well and a delightful Halloween quilt was started.

Lori had piles of pieces. Making them into bigger pieces. Oh, the leaf piece top got done and some abstract  sew along she was doing got done too.

I don't know what the hell Lynn was doing in her corner but her kids sent her flowers. Oh yeah, she was making a Yetu.

Dianne was making a fantastic new quilt top and in between, binding another.

Gwen worked on a zillion tiny stars.

Sue had trees to work on and a delightful coral piece. I asked if it was for someone special and she said "Yes, Me!"

MaryAnn was working away on a Christmas piece. Gnomes and reindeer.

 Prudie made a billion pieces parts for the scrap quilt pattern Fran worked on last time.

Caryn  had the most beautiful delicate black and white piece with a pink heart on it.

So, we kept busy. 

The weirdo house keeper came in one night and sprayed air freshener all over the place. Jan took care of that, because they texted her to see how we were doing.

So this year is done. Nothing is more sad than dropping Lori off at the airport. I can still pretend that Syd is just  a couple miles away.

We are so lucky to have each other.

 

Still Pinching Myself

 . . . that's how surprised I was (and continue to be) to receive an amazing retirement quilt from the Divas at the January retreat.

As you know, emails were sent out over the summer asking for I Spy blocks for me and for Jan--leaving me off of one set of emails and Jan from the other.  I'm sure the fact that I knew about Jan's surprise made me even less aware that one was in the works for me.

As Syd started to announce that the Divas had made retirement quilts for both Jan and me, it just didn't compute. I was stunned.  The quilts are beautiful and I appreciate the work and the heartfelt generosity of time and memories that went into these quilts.  Special thanks to Syd for finding the pattern and facilitating the effort, plus piecing and quilting Jan's.  Special thanks, also, to Laura for quilting mine and to Dianne for piecing the top and back plus designing and donating the spectacular AZ fabrics for the back.  I'm sorry that I do not know who to credit for the binding (maybe Kathy and Jan?).  Thank you to all of the Divas for finding special fabrics and piecing the blocks that remind us of our favorite things.  I'm so grateful for the quilt and for the time we get to spend together.

Here's a photo of both quilts in our room.

Now that I'm home, I took some more closeups of mine.  How lucky am I that Dianne had this amazing AZ fabric and designed (and pieced) a genuine Diane Young original for the back (in addition to piecing the top)?  When I got home and unfolded the quilt for Mike and Brady to see (showing the front of the quilt), both of them said ... "I thought you got the Arizona quilt", not realizing that the photos I'd texted Mike were of the front and the back.  :-)  I can't stop looking at it, discovering new things each time, which I would say is the mark of a truly great I Spy!

I have a feeling I'm going to be pinching myself for a long while.  I love the quilt!

Thank you all for a great retreat.  Jan brought some old photos from the Quilt Local event held in her garage.  None of us could pinpoint the year but there were many familiar faces looking decades younger than we do now.  :-)  It made me realize that I should be taking more photos of us and less of the quilts when I'm lucky enough to be at these special weekend retreats.  We spent lots of time talking fondly about Ruth--wondering what she was up to and reminiscing about the fun times we have had over the years. 

I blogged about my projects for the retreat over at my blog.  Maybe I'll try again to blog regularly.  I still enjoy it but I don't spend much retirement time on the computer.  See you all next time!