Mini Quilt Retreat................

Last Fall one of my quilting/beekeeping friends moved MA, in April we planned on her coming up for a few days to spend time catching up and quilting.  This past Wednesday through Friday she was up and we spend 2 1/2 days in my sewing room - our own "mini-retreat"!

It was a great opportunity for me to get a few things caught up and to work on some projects that haven't been out of their totes in quite some time!!

The first 1 1/2 days was spent catching up on my Block of the Week project - "Mastering Miniatures" designed by Sarah Maxwell & Dolores Smith using Judie Rothermel fabrics - Yummy!  I was able to do the 7 weeks I was behind and do the current one, even made a mistake and corrected it.......next Saturday I will pick up the new one and I WILL get it finished in 7 days!!!

Here are the two I have a photo of, they are the two that required corrections (photo before correction)........can you spot the mistakes?

Next I finished up one of the Civil War Journals quilts, I had all the blocks done I just needed to sew the blocks and rows together then add the borders.  This was the Year 3 of five Block of the Month projects that was put out by the same ladies I mentioned above, they designed 5 Civil War block of the month quilts to commemorate the 150 anniversary of the CW.  Let me see if I can make that easier to understand........each year since 2010 they have had a new block of the month quilt, after doing the first one I just HAD to do all of them.  The last two I have not even opened the packages, well maybe just a little to fondle the fabric, LOL!

 

The third year of these CW BOMs they gave us the option to make 4 smaller quilts, after completing the above flimsy I now only have one more to work woohoo!  One of them is completely finished the second one is a flimsy like the one above!

 

The next project I choose to work on is a block from the first year, Civil War Tribute, I have more than half of that one finished but month 9 has a "Y" seam and two "set in" triangles.......these were a little above my skill level back in 2010 so I got frustrated and never completed that month or the rest of it!  Month 9 was one 18" block and the same one in 12", I finished the 18" one and will have the 12" one finished later today!  This year I made the decision to finished up more of my UFOs and try REALLY hard to keep the new projects to a minimum, that is difficult!

 

Here's the 18" block.......................

One of the projects my friend Debra worked on was finishing up this quilt that will someday be a raffle quilt for the local beekeeping organization!

Hope you are having a wonderful July so far!



Feeling lighter.................

Feeling lighter now that I have reclaimed part of the basement and two bedrooms, I purged them of junk, painted the corner wall and floor and finally stained the window trim!

This is the basement space before cleaning and painting.

After painting and purging the junk......the back corner is ready for me to bring in the wood in a few months.

This is reclaimed bedroom #1, it is to the right of the space above.....my quilting room!
 

Reclaimed room #2 also in the basement but it is on the backside of the house and has a full window......it is the guest room.  I am looking forward to using this as a space to showcase a few finished quilts, right now it still has a few of my son's things hanging on the wall.

Off to "reclaim" the garden back from the weeds!

Mystery Quilt

Just picked up my mystery quilt from the quilters, made up the binding earlier this year.....now I just need to put it on and then I will have another finish for this year! 

The fabric is Sentiments by 3 Sisters for Moda, I really love the backing it is from the same line and is made up of addressed envelopes.  Hoping to have a few more quilting related post in the upcoming days........

Purging, Painting, Staining

We have had some hot muggy weather recently, so I took advantage and went into my basement and started painting the corner I have been wanting to get finished!  The past few months I have purged the stuff that we no longer use, I am tired of moving things to get to the things I need then moving them again when it is time for the winter wood to come inside, you get the picture.  Now I will NOT be putting anything in that corner in the summer, then come late summer I won't be wasting time moving "stuff".  It is such a freeing experience to declutter, still much to do but certainly a big jump in the right direction.  I have gotten rid of the big stuff (in the basement), now I need to get sorting some of the little things, that will be tedious so I will do one tote at a time! 

Here are some photos of the project...............................

Before the primer



After the walls were primed, I have since painted the walls and the floor in that corner.

 

I have also stained and polyed the window trim, we got new windows about 4 years ago and I never go to the trim.......I will enjoy going downstairs now........even to do laundry!  I will take more photos soon and post more updates........then hopefully I will get to posting some quilting, after all this blog is called Mountain Quilter!

Next big projects will be the garage and the attic, my husband and I started the garage a few years back, I posted about it then, well we need to get back to it!  The attic will be slow going, I plan to take a few things down, go through them so I don't get overwhelmed and end up not finishing it!