T-shirt Quilt Palooza (aka. Spring Retreat)

 My sweet friends Iowa City and Coralville friends and  I enjoyed a fun long weekend on sewing retreat this weekend.  We started with a shopping trip in Galena, followed by a wonderful meal at Vinnie Vanuchi's.
My mission for the weekend was to sew tops for 3 t-shirt quilts.  Nothing fancy, just 12 blocks with sashing.   I've seen some really neat ones with the student's name, jersey numbers, words and so forth in them but I really don't have time to do anything super fancy and I think the seniors really will love them just like I made them.  I stabilized and cut out the t-shirt fronts at home so I would only have to sew at the retreat.

 I started with dear son's quilt, just in case I screwed something up.  I like the way it turned out, here it is without the borders.

It is always a lot of fun to go to Dubuque to the Shalom Retreat Center to sew.  A lot can be accomplished with uninterrupted sewing time and when meals are all provided.

The gal on the right is the one who puts on the retreat, I really appreciate what it must take to organize it twice a year.  The nice lady with her is her aunt.

 Here is my sweet niece's graduation quilt, I love the way the red pops/

 This is the one I made for the neighbor's son and my son's good friend.

Quilt-Palooza!  That makes three tops in three days!

 The gals that attend this retreat are all so nice, it really is a nice relaxing weekend, it was so quiet I actually slept in until 8:30am one morning!

Well, all good things come to an end and we heard about another snowstorm coming through so we packed up a day early to beat the storm.  It is the end of March and we are still getting 3 - 6 inches of snow in Eastern Iowa!

when first you don''t succeed try, try again

I've had my share of epic project fails in the past few months.  I tried to cover a wingback chair with paint drop cloths and it turned out a mess.  Now I've learned to leave it to a professional and will probably buy slipcovers instead of making my own.   I found a website that looks pretty good for ordering custom made slip covers, I will keep you posted on how they turn out when I get around to ordering them.  I love the look and the idea of slipcovers and I have several pieces of furniture that are looking a little dated but still in really good shape.  I am ready to start doing some redecorating, only time and money, right?  Hmm, seems to be something I don't have either of with a senior graduating, something to keep me busy when my nest is empty maybe?

 Miss Bab's and I are having an on and off again relationship.  Here is the second sweater I started with the same Miss Bab's yarn and I hated the way the edges look so I frogged it.  The first sweater I worked with this same yarn was frogged with a little help from my friend, Chance!  This picture of Chance is with a different yarn project but you get the idea of how he can help determine the destiny of a project!

 I am now on the third sweater pattern using this same yarn and I have to say I am getting a little sick of looking at the yarn at this point but I am determined to power through and finish!

March going by so fast

 It has been almost a month since my last blog post, it seems time is flying by for us.  I will try to highlight some of the big things that have kept me away from blogging.

We celebrated sweet college girl's 20th birthday on March 10th.  We went out to Three Samurai's in Coralville and I made a two layer homemade red velvet birthday cake for her.

 Dear son spent his spring break recovering from oral surgery.  He had 4 impacted wisdom teeth removed.  He did really well but had a very low key spring break as he was recovering from the surgery.

This is dear son's senior year, I anticipate not having a lot of time to blog in the coming months but I will try to check in at least once a month to give you all an update.