*sigh* I wish it were last Thursday. Because then I would be on my way to the mountains for a long weekend of quilting and spending time with my best friends.
It is not at all unusual for there to be snow during Quilting in the Pines. Last year, I called my post "sewing in a snow globe." It was pretty much like that again this year. With one big difference. It turned treacherous to get back and forth from our cabins to the sewing room. We had snow, then it warmed up and turned slushy, then it got really cold and froze. So underneath all that pretty white snow was a layer of deadly slick ice. For the first time, we used the services of the resort SUV and driver to get us back and forth because it was just too dangerous to walk, even with snow boots. One poor lady slipped and broke her wrist in two places!
This was the view from our sewing table:
This is only about one third of the total sewing room:
And our little section:
Jennifer always makes the cutest placecards for our group. Deborah didn't like the picture Jennifer used so we tried to take sneaky pictures of her all weekend. Next year she will not be allowed to cover up her picture!
Here are some of the "challenge" quilts on the walls. I was standing there looking at the other quilts and someone said, "Oh, look. Someone used the fabric labels." Um, did you mean "selvages?"
Every year, we friends keep our challenge quilts totally secret from each other. When they are on the wall, we try to figure out which quilt each of us made. This year, other than mine, because my friends obviously know about my total obsession with selvages, none of us could figure out who made what. Everyone did something completely different than her normal "style." It was fun.
This was Dotty's:
And Jennifer's (she was in a three-way tie for third place. Way to go, Jennifer!). It had so many cute buttons, and I know she loves buttons. But it was machine quilted (by someone else), and Jennifer always does her own quilting on the challenge quilts. Very sneaky, Jennifer...
Jennifer spent most of the weekend working on her "gaggle of geese" because it was just so time-consuming, but also very cute and cheery.
Dotty seemed to work on a lot of different projects and accomplished a lot of different things. She even made two quilts from my Charm Parade pattern. The fabrics reminded us of Easter eggs.
Are you wondering what I worked on?
While I had great intentions of working on Single Girl, the first two days I worked on Popbeads:
I'm making two separate Birdie Stitches quilts (Central Park and Hoopla) and my thinking process was that if I had all the blocks made ahead of time, it would be easier to get the embroidery done. All the quilt blocks are finished and ready to embroider!
Sometimes odd things happen when you have been sewing for so many hours and it is 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. Dotty ended up sewing the right side and wrong side together on this block. Oops.... (Why is that non-bloggers think we bloggers take some "odd" pictures? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that one either...)
While we were having snow in the mountains, this is the kind of "snow" we have down here in Fresno. The orchards are in glorious, sweet-smelling bloom. (I asked Mark if this was a "drive-by shoot" and he assured me that he stopped the car this time.)
