Last week was the fall sleep-at-home retreat at a conference center in Flat Rock. We haul everything there on Tuesday, set up our machines, start projects and leave it overnight both nights. Food can be left in the refrigerator, so you don’t have think about lunch each day. I always take more projects than I think I can do because it is usually so productive. I set up my sewing space, and got to work on binding the wine themed table runners.

I had five to do, and they took me most of the day to do all of them. I make the binding, then sew it to the back.

Then, I turn it to the front and topstitch. Going around the 60-degree angle corner is done exactly the same as a 90-degree corner.

At the end of day one, I had all five done. These will go into the Fiber Fair at the end of the week.

Day two, I needed to make significant progress on a Quilt of Valor. I had done the flying geese elements at home, so I started here on the four patches for the center of the star.

When I had all 15 done, I pressed them spinning the seams to reduce bulk in the center.

Next, flying geese are added to each side.

Then solid background squares are added to both ends of the other geese units.

When the elements are sewn together, I have star blocks.

The star blocks are laid out with the lattice blocks so I can check the placement of the scrappy elements to be sure I don’t have identical prints next to each other.

A few friends helped me look, and we settled on this arrangement. Then the rest of the day was spent constructing the top using the Web Method. If you’d like this pattern, it is available to purchase on My Patterns page. It is made with nine patches in the star centers and uses half square triangles instead of flying geese so it is easier to make. It is called To The Nines.

Day three was spent wrestling with a paper pieced pattern. This is a Carol Doak design from her book 40 Bright & Bold Paper-Pieced Blocks (available at Amazon). It is a 12-inch block and has to be made in four sections, then sewn together. To make it more complicated for myself, I was modifying the design to eliminate the points in the corners. This block will be used alone in a sampler quilt, so I didn’t need the extra elements that would make another star when put together with four blocks.

It took most of the morning to get two done. You can see here that I made lots of notes on the patterns so I would remember what color went where, and which seams I was eliminating.

Finishing the four quadrants, next was to sew them together. This is a difficult part of construction, as the lines on the quadrants have to line up precisely.

Then, the time consuming part, tearing out all that paper! But this is something easy to do while chatting with friends to make it seem to go faster. I pressed it with spinning seams again to reduce bulk in the center.

Voila!!

It was now mid-afternoon, and I started on the second block. I got the first two seams done on two quadrants of the new block (a different one) when I turned them over and realized that they would have to be frogged out because the strips were too short. Crap on a cracker. Those white strips should have covered the corner.

By now it was almost 3 pm, and I called it a day. I was tired and not really ready to pick that out. I packed up my stuff, and loaded the car, drove home and dumped everything in the sewing room. The next day, I was out all morning and part of the afternoon. Getting home around 3, I began unpacking. It was then that I realized I was missing my power cord and foot control. Oh, no!!! I tore apart everything, not there. I went through the car again, not there. I emailed my table mates, nobody had them. I called the organizer, who called the conference center, but no one could get back to me on Friday. I cannot believe that I was so tired that I didn’t turn around and check the table and floor. So, first thing Monday morning, I drove back to the venue to see if they could be found. Of all the times to do this, I was planning to sew on this machine while my embroidery machine was running so I could get the rest of the projects done for the Fiber Fair which is now just 5 days away. I went through the room, looked behind tables and chairs, in the kitchen, and took everything out of the bins with the extension cords but they were not there. I emailed everyone I could, but the cords have just vanished into thin air. My local quilt shop Beginnings came to the rescue, letting me borrow what I needed so I could finish all the Fiber Fair projects I had planned. But I am baffled as to what happened to them. I may never know. If they don’t turn up in the next week, Beginnings can get replacements for me, so I do have a plan B.

The Fiber Fair is at Beginnings Quilt Shop, Saturday, November 9 from 10-3. Their address is 1038C Greenville Hwy, Hendersonville, NC 28792. A portion of the proceeds will go to Hurricane relief funds. They are also having specials all day to celebrate their 5th Anniversary. If you are local, stop by!

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