I love retreats!

I have known for several months that I would be teaching a bag at the annual Pie Plate Patterns High Mountain Quilt Retreat. This is a retreat I look forward to all year long. It's always held the first part of August, but this year I double booked myself. Come to find out it would be going on the same week as our camp host duties for girl's camp so unfortuntately I was only able to spend one night at the retreat. Maybe next year. Stuart drove me over to Fairview from Bennion Creek and then picked me up the following afternoon. I love my chauffer!

After eating a delicious pizza supper we had our show and tell. This is one of the highlights of the retreat for me. We get to see lots of beautiful quilts the ladies have been working on. I opted out to share what I had done throughout the year, instead I took the quilt Yvonne gave to me when we met last month. I shared the story of how we met and how we have become such close friends even though she is so far away. They were all touched by what I had to share.

Isn't it just beautiful and it's all mine! This will be hanging in a special place in my home, my sewing room.
Isn't this a nice quilt that Freddie Ann brought to share. The rich autumn colors are amazing and are perfect for this pattern.

This is a kit Mary had won at the Fabric Shack in Ephraim. She put it together just before the retreat. Adorable.

Diane's scrap quilt. Just popping with color.

This is the most amazing quilt that Josephine Kiesler shared with us. She has donated this to be the opportunity quilt at annual meeting at the Zermot in October. I was told you can purchase tickets at the event. She has done a beautiful job on this quilt, she calls it Dolly's Garden in honor of her friend that past away from cancer last year. She has also made one to donate to Primary's Childrens Hospital and one for herself. Wow, that's alot of love to be given away.

After show and tell it was time to get started on the mystery bag. Bonnie and Brenda came up with a mystery retreat. The class members only had supply lists to go from. It was fun to watch the mystery projects unfold. What a fun theme to go by. I chose to do the Daytripper bag as the mystery bag.

Peek a boo I see you. Bonnies bag turned out really cute. "What a surprise" she said.

I didn't take anything up with me to make the mystery classes. I took something else to work on while I was there overnight. I am working on some quilts that I will be teaching at the shop in October. This quilt is called Twister. I sewed 10" squares together and sewed a 6 1/2" border around it. Results are in the picture above.

Then with the magic Twister ruler you start cutting your squares out. Yup, I just cut up a perfectly normal looking quilt! Then you put the rows back together to get a pinwheel affect. This is such a fun technique for making cute pinwheels

I'm just about done cutting up the top! Ouch!

Putting them back into rows one at a time.

And this is what it looks like after you get everything sewed back together. Amazing isn't it? I can't wait to teach this technique to everyone.

I finished the blocks off with a 2" inner border and I will be putting a 6" outer border of the same brown fabric to tie things all together. This quilt top was just made from scraps but it also can be made from a layer cake and yardage. If you are looking for a really fun class this fall, come "TWIST" with me at the Corn Wagon.

Look at these happy ladies. All of their bags turned out so cute. Pictured with me are: Fran, Josephine(her very first bag), Diane, Bonnie, Brenda, Freddie Ann, and Mary(also her first). Way to "SEW" girl's.

I am so glad I was given the opportunity to spend time with this wonderful group. Thanks Bonnie and Brenda for asking me. See you in the spring!