Red Zig Zag quilt progress

I now have approximately 1/3 of this quilt quilted.

Here is the back. I bought a bolt of this red print a while ago and I love it!

The binding has already been made of what scraps I could scrape up

I was trying to use up scraps for this quilt and was down to some pieces of the red and white striped fabric that weren't quite wide enough. To fix that I added a piece of fabric and the white will never been seen.

I plan on finishings this quilt over the weekend and at least pin baste the flannel top I found. I will be watching football as I sew and straightening up around the house too. Rain is in the forecast for the weekend so I may not be able to get the leaves blown. I have done that once already, but it needs it again. Have a great weekend!

Slowly getting it together

Every day I feel a little bit better from having so much fun. I was wondering why I was just sore all over. I remembered on the drive how the windy it was and I had to hang on tightly to the steering wheel for several hours. Isometric exercise! LOL!! Last evening I finished up Wanda's present, put it in a box, and will mail it at lunch today. I also worked on an idea for what my giveaway would be for everyone at the next retreat in August 2027. Yes, it seems like I have plenty of time, but most of the summer I am on the road with the band. I saw this little pouch on s.o.t.a.k. handmade's blog and thought I would try it out.

Here is the inside after I got the ends covered with the binding. There seems to be more fabric than there is usable pouch so I think this is a no. It turned out cute, but it was fussy to make. I will keep looking.

I got the table cleared off - woohoo! I laid out a baby quilt that has been folded for several months so it could relax. It was already pin basted and ready for quilting. That will be my next project.

Wrapping up the weekend's goodies

I was feeling a bit better toward the evening, so I did a bit of sewing. I am making a birthday present for Wanda so I will show it once she receives it. Meanwhile ... here is the final chapter of the retreat weekend. I was gifted this punch and stick-on pieces as a table gift. The lady had given us an instruction sheet too.

When you get Week's Dye Works floss, the tags look like this.

It is hard to put them on a binder ring with having only the hole the floss is threaded on. Here is floss on a binder ring. Classic Color comes with a tag with two holes.

With the punch, you put a hole in the opposite side from the name of the color

Move the thread to the new hole

then stick on one of the plastic holder loops.

Now it can be hung on a binder ring

Some people hand out floss cards or business card with holes and without holes.

That punch can put holes in the cards so they can be hung from a binder ring.

I was gifted this little box with a tomato pincushion and a cross stitched tomato covering the bottom. So cute!

I didn't buy too much. Of course I bought those bolts of fabric and I did buy two corner gauges - one for me and one for my sister. The shop hasn't had these in quite a while.

I bought this chart and a few skeins of floss. The chart was a new release. They had a model of it stitched and it was so pretty I just had to have it.

Speaking of that fabric, the three bolts were Windam and the piece was makower uk.

I still had leftover scissor pouches even after going around the room several times handing more out and giving them to people who bought thread beds. They did like it if I could find a pouch that matched the thread bed.

I did get a little stitching done. I finished this little sampler

and I got everything above the skein of floss stitched on this Animal Cracker by Stacy Nash.

This is what it will look like when it is done

My table is a disaster again! LOL!! I need to put away all the stuff from the retreat so I can get back to work.

This morning's sunrise

Xmas cactus and retreat goodies

After seeing Wanda's post with here Xmas cactus, I needed to go look at mine to see if it had blossomed and it did!

So here are some of the goodies I brought home from the retreat. I will show the last of it tomorrow. I was so tired when I got home from work yesterday that all I could do was take pictures of my goodies and then do nothing. I am still tired. One more good night's sleep and I will be ok. I do love all the different things people come up with for table gifts. Most people bring a few extra just in case. I received these cute pincushions.

Some candy

These are a mix of dangles to add to a zipper pull and holders for floss.

I received this cute jar with goodies inside. The goodies were trims and things for finishing smalls. There was a lot in that little jar!

I got some skeins of floss, a tiny pair of scissors and some do-dads. The bag has weathered jingle bells in it which I will use for finishing a small.  Everyone needs a little from with sunglasses!  That little glass piece in the first picture is an emergency needle that you can hang on a necklace!  LOL!!

One lady had brought these beautifully decorated cookies her daughter made that looked like a tomato pincushion! It is too pretty to eat, but some ladies did eat their cookie and said they were delicious.

Since there were four designers, we received four kits - meaning, the charts, floss and fabric! This kit is to make a scissor holder and fob, a tiny pin cushion, and a tiny needlebook. I took a picture of the pin cushion beside a tea bag tag so you could see how tiny it is. It has a bee theme. Everything fits into the tin. The designer assured us that the instructions were so anyone could stitch and finish each item.   This kit is going to my sister since she likes bees and is good at stitching fussy little items. Merry Christmas Kathy!

The next sampler came in lovely box. It is a reproduction.

The third project was another reproduction sampler. It has lots of different animals on it and there are a lot of colors! Look at all that floss!

The last project was another reproduction, but a completely different style. It is a German sampler and they gave us a skein of silk floss! I have never stitched with silk so stitching this one ought to be interesting! The person that owned the original sampler gave it to the designer so we passed it around to get a good look at it.

The shop also has quilting fabric. They have some beautiful fabric, but it is all $12.99 a yard - yikes! I don't really need any fabric, but I had to look at the 70% off bin. I found these three bolts and each one had a bit more than 8 yards on them. I thought they would be perfect for some baby quilts.  You had to buy the whole bolt but after doing the math the fabric was only $3.88 a yard! It had been marked $12.99.  I forgot to look to see what brand it was.  I will let you know tomorrow.  

There was a room of marked down fabric I missed so I went back on Saturday and found this darker fabric that I thought would be a nice accent color. It from a different line, but I think it works. It was 40% off and I bought 3 yards.