"Oh my Heck," that was better than last year

My sleep deprived self is finally awake enough to post about the most fantabulous weekend of quilting and laughing that I've ever had!  Amanda and 14 other quilters gathered at the Inn at City Park for our 2nd annual retreat with the un-paralleled crazy mom.  You might want to grab a cup of coffee or tea, this might be my longest post ever!

I worked my tail off to make sure it was everything that I thought it should be, which might be a little psychotic.  Here's the gift bag goodies: Scrappy name tags, fat quarter of fall-ish fabric, 2 bars of homemade soap, lavender lotion bar, lip butter, key chain, and scrappy pin cushion, a fabric magnet and the much desired cookbook with recipes fro 2009 and 2010.  Also coupons to the 3 local quilt shops  so a little shopping could be done.

And then the prizes--It's important to me that everyone win something.  And I don't like for anyone to feel like they got the boobie prize either!

So we have Amanda's awesome Blues quilt, which is even more amazing in person.  Kate said, of the retreat, "It was even better than last year."  No surprise there since she walked home with the quilt!  It's going to a good home!

We had a gift certificate to the Inn, Bag of coffee, mug and 2 charm packs, 3 yards of Word Play, Kaffe's gorgeous book, autographed at market(!), an Amy Butler Pattern and some of her  threads, some FMF fat eighths with some cards and quilting gloves, some Amy Butler fat quarters with some patterns and more cards, and an Arcadia honey bun with some Best Press and, once again, cards.

Two sets of pillows quilted at the retreat by Amanda--they both turned out so cute and went home with people to love them!  I also made this Streetcar bag by Indygo Junction out of thrifted vintage curtain panels, this little tote from some yummy Echino, and a table runner.

Whew!  I need another nap just writing that down!  So fun and so worth it.  Of course, I came home inspired to sew and finally finish some of my projects!

We had everyone bring a gallon bag of scraps to swap, and we just dumped them out on the kitchen floor.  I think I laughed until I cried.  When we were done Amanda sat down (she thought she already  had enough scraps?!)and thought we were crazy to be leaving so much behind.  So we'll split those up at our next guild meeting and make a quilt for charity.  We know better than to throw any away!


Well, I'm off to label some more soaps--I've got a trunk show at Wadoo Furniture tonight.  I'm always inspired to make stuff when I'm in this store!  I'll be opening my etsy shop with some soapy goodness--tomorrow, once I see what I've got left!