Sew What

A week after the Nashville Needlework Market it was off to the Blue Ridge Quilt Guild retreat. It's held at the Southwest Virginia 4-H Educational Center in Abingdon Virginia. It's a rural setting of rolling hills and camp-like accommodations . . . adequate, not luxury. I love it there!

We work downstairs in this building with our sleeping rooms upstairs. For those who prefer not to do stairs, you can drive around and up the hill to the upper parking lot on the sleeping level. Breakfast and dinner is included in a building up the hill (also driveable) . . . sitting and sewing all day, the hike up the hill is welcome exercise for me!  We have favorite restaurants in and around Abingdon that we like to go to for lunch . . . it's good to take a break from sewing and get out of there for a bit.

It was nice, as one of the planners of the retreat, to have "helpers" that made our name tags and cute "mug rugs". . . a big thanks to those fellow members! I put together the "first aid" kits with Hugs, Kisses, Ricola cough drops, stitcher's band aids and a thread waxer.

We take one day and go to Wytheville to the quilt store there and have lunch. It's a little over an hour's drive . . . well worth the trip! They always have a fantastic sale room, a few retreat exclusives and put together gift bags for us . . . so nice!

 
We have lunch up the street at the Log House.

This is such a cute place with delicious food! It meanders around from room to room . . . an enclosed area even has 3 doves in it! We were in a room by ourselves . . . they were very busy and only one waitress.  We helped her out by handing her our menus with our orders written down.

There are two quilts shops in Abingdon we had to visit as well . . . one can never have too much fabric!

Then it was back to work! So many talented ladies ! ! !

Good thing neatness doesn't count!














My friend Kathie made the Bionic Bag. I had thought about making one, but after watching the intense work . . . think I'll try to resist. They are really cool though . . . we'll see if I weaken!

 There was a major frenzy when we handed out the gift bags from Batiks Etc. All the bags contained something different. Lots of trading going on!

I worked on several things. First I finished my charity quilt. The guild makes quilts for charities that service children that have been taken out of their homes for various reasons. Our member Anne gives us the design each year and many of us finish them on retreat.  It's a good way to use up scraps. There are always different ways to put the blocks together. I struggled to get my points to match up with this layout only to discover that they didn't have to.

I then moved on to putting borders on a lap quilt I made for my daughter's birthday. It will be late as it still needs to be quilted and her birthday is Thursday. We will be visiting her in May and I will hand deliver it to her then. She has my 2000 Yellow Beetle (although it may be traded in soon) . . . this will be a good memory of it.

I then put a small border on a quilt I've been working on for several years.  Didn't bring the measurements to be able to put the larger border on it . . . so, it still didn't get finished.

So . . . lets work on something new . . . the Bee quilt that I had unrealistic expectations of having it finished by the Nashville Needlework Market to use in my Bee display. Like that was going to happen ! ! !

I did get almost all the smaller squares put together and one large block put together just to see what they will look like. I think I'm going to love this quilt! Maybe it will be ready to use for my display at the Merchant Mall at the Prim Stitchers Society Retreat in June . . . get off the Blog girl and get busy ! ! !

~*

The Nashville Market

The Nashville Needlework Market was a great success a couple of weeks ago! Always a fun time . . . always a stressful time!

I had 5 new designs this year for Market.

First up is "Bee Hives Matter". Did you know that 70 out of the top 100 human food crops — which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition — are pollinated by bees?

To make 16 oz. of honey it takes 1,152 bees to travel 112,00 miles to visit 4.5 million flowers! (I don't know how they know that, but it sounds amazing.)

So . . . Bee Hives DO Matter!

There is a wonderful Bee/Honey store "Wild Mountain Bees" in Weaverville, NC just over the mountain from me . . . they have the best wildflower honey! After reading a few articles about how many honeys have other things added to them, I prefer to get my honey from "Wild Mountain Bees" versus buying it at the grocery store.

And so . . . keeping with the bee theme, the next one is "BEE-utiful". I finished this one as a pillow . . . really not as big as it appears . . . the wicker chair is a dolls chair.

Noteworthy Needle and I carried the bee theme to another level with a collaboration. Janis designed smalls to go with my designs called "Small Matters". "Bee Hives Matters" fits on the lid of a cigar type box with "BEE-utiful" fitting inside the lid. All the smalls fit nicely inside. Aren't they too cute ? ? ?

We had a bee theme display complete with bee lights . . .

We also dressed in a bee theme . . . oh the plans we had to carry this to the extreme . . . this was as far as we got.

 Janis even convinced her husband Tom to wear the beekeeper's outfit!

Next is "Faithful Friend" . . . this year's Ripple Effect Pattern. My designer profits from Ripple Effect Patterns are donated to the American Cancer Society in Meg Ripple's memory . . . a friend we lost to cancer.

I had two "early release" patterns available at Market.  The first one, "Frogs In Your Underpants" will be released in April. (Market attendees were able to get it at Market).  I think this one would make a great birth sampler.

And last, but not least is my patriotic offering "God Bless America" that will be released in May. (Market attendees were able to get this on at Market as well).

We joined a group of designer friends for their annual "tour of rooms" beginning with pizza and wine. It's not only fun to see and hear how everyone displays and comes to design their patterns, but tips and suggestion sharing was very helpful . . . what a great bunch!

Had a week at home to recuperate from the lack of sleep work/party fest and it was off to the quilt guild's annual quilting retreat . . . stay tuned for more lack of sleep quilting/party festing ! Is that a word . . . festing?

Always BEE Stitching ~*