Pieceable Retreat, Quilters of South Carolina!

I'm back from retreat! This was my first time attending the state guild retreat, and I'm so glad I went! I've been in SC for almost 5 years now, and it seemed that every time the state guild held a retreat, I was out of town doing something else, or unable to attend for other various reasons. This year I was definitely going to go!

White Oak is a South Carolina Baptist Convention center, and the facilities couldn't be beat! There are banks of motel rooms behind the convention center, a cafeteria where all our meals were provided, lots of classrooms and open space....and rocking chairs all over the grounds for relaxing and unwinding!

I left from work in Columbia on Thursday and got to White Oak at 5:30pm...just in time for dinner! After dinner I unloaded everything to my room, set up the massage stuff, and then took my sewing stuff to the classroom for the "BYOP" (Bring Your Own Project). I got to sew for the evening! I got the binding on Jared's wedding quilt (Jared is my choir director) and started hand sewing it down while chatting with other quilters. It was fun seeing people from all over the state, those I have met doing trunk shows and workshops for their guilds!


My other main project was to "re-make" a sample of the scrappy mountain majesties quilt....My other sample had been donated! And since I am going to be teaching this as a workshop, I needed a new sample. Remember the night that I was up at 3am and couldn't sleep? I kitted up my 8.5" squares that night, matching them with a light and a dark and slicing them on the diagonal into large 1/2 square triangles. It made sewing at this retreat so easy!

I zipped all the 1/2 square triangles together into their pairs in one sitting, and squared them up in another...cutting them into block parts by pairs of blocks, one uphill, one down hill. Then as I could through the weekend, whenever I had time between massages, I would sew a few blocks together. They go SO easy and fast!

This quilt is dual purpose...I was also forcing myself to use some of the UGLIEST and OLDEST fabrics I have had hanging around here. It was murder sewing them, as everyone around me was sewing with beautiful NEW fabric they had just bought at the incredible vendors mall upstairs in the auditorium...and there I was, sewing with my 1990's VIPs and stuff people had donated to me because THEY didn't want to sew with it either!

I was able to sew from 7am to 9am in the morning...then take my first massage client...work between clients if there were any open spaces, break for lunch, do some more sewing or massaging, break for dinner...go to the show and tell evening meetings, break for dessert (gotta have dessert!) and sew until I was too tired to keep my eyes open any farther.

I gave 13 massages! And still I was able to attach the binding and getting it completely sewn down during the show and tell evenings and completely finish the center of this scrappy mountains quilt! So yes, it was a productive weekend all the way around.

I came home to pick out some border fabrics. One of the gals there had a reducing glass, and you know what? Through the reducing glass you can't tell that the fabrics are that ugly! *LOL* I'm just as happy sewing with this as the people sewing with newer or prettier fabrics. And I got a heck of a lot done. :c)

Today I'm a bit of a zombie. I'm taking the day off to give my wrists a rest. The only appointment I have today is for myself, and something I am reminding you ALL to remember to do. I'm going for my mammogram....