Fall Quilt Retreat #2 Recap

A second retreat!!  An longtime friend, Becky was getting some ladies together to scrapbook one weekend and she asked if Julie (Wanna-Be-Quilter) and I wanted to join her and her friends. They were looking for a few more ladies to defer the cost. Being Julie missed the LQS retreat, she was on board right away.  I didn’t want to miss the fun, so I was in!

We stay at the Avon Lakeside Craft Retreat in Avon, MN.  The house had plenty of rooms and beds.  The space for quilting or scrapbooking was really nice.  The only glitch was that the wireless internet was terribly slow and not enough bandwidth for multiple people to use.  The problem really is that there is limited internet access in that area.  We liked the place so much, one of the scrapbookers offered her time to assist the owner update her internet service when high speed is available.

Julie and I really had a GREAT set up. There was plenty of space, a larger cutting area, 2 different ironing stations, and a design wall. Fortunately, both of us didn’t really need the internet – our patterns were printed or on iPads.

Julie was putting borders on her February 2013  mystery quilt.   Sorry for the out of focus picture.

I was able to finish the 2014 Fall Mystery Quilt from the previous retreat.

The rest of my work time was spent on making a king sized quilt using the Jacob’s ladder quilt block.  The fabric line is Into the Woods by Lella Boutique for Moda.  I love the pink, red, green, and brown color scheme of this quilt.  The plan is to put this on our bed post holiday season.  Into the Woods has a wintery feel with the pine trees and the pinks and reds have a Valentine’s Day feel.

I will need 90 12.5 inch blocks to make a a king sized quilt.

I took 3 pictures the entire retreat.  See what happens when you haven’t blogged in awhile?  Or mostly on task?  I went through 5 bobbins of thread.  That doesn’t sound impressive until you know that the Bernina 7 series sewing machines bobbins contain 80% more thread than a typical bobbin.

The scrapbooking ladies were a lot of fun!  We laughed a lot and were just as funny without booze as with booze! : )   It was a great girls’ weekend.  There was plenty of great food, wine, chocolate, a game of Crimes Against Humanity, and movies.  The highlight of our viewing was the Starz original series, “Outlander”.  Eight episodes later, all of us were hooked.  (I have since read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and started book #2, Dragonfly in Amber.)

Overall a very successful weekend, a lot of quilting accomplished while getting acquainted with some fun ladies.  I look forward to another great retreat!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced’s WIP Wednesday.