a long awaited departure

And finally, what I have been waiting for for several months now....my patchwork retreat. I am allowed (I am allowing myself) a one weekend retreat with the girls to sew my little heart out. No kids, no husbands, just the girls, our sewing machines, fabric and inspiration. I think we all are very exciting about it. We have been frantically getting our projects together to sew, and hopefully we have all of the supplies we need, because there is no turning back until we come back home on Sunday. I am still a little undecided about what I want to take, but I am pretty sure I am packing up the project I wanted to start for my niece, Nina. This quilt will be for her twin size bed and made from the fabrics she picked out. I added two fabrics to the batch to stretch the supply - but that is a surprise for another post. Maybe, I will even get the top finished on my retreat.

An QAL update: I now have all of my fabric for my "Welcome to the North Pole with Val Spiers" in my possession. I am ready & rearing to go and have already outlined my first two houses for the wall hanging. I think I will be doing two blocks at a time as one block. It isn't so important to me that I have fifteen different background fabrics. My background fabrics will be grays and not blues. I know I am always disappointed after I work with gray fabrics, but this time, I am positive it is going to be the right choice. I was thinking about the snow as well; since white is such a translucent fabric, I think I will be doubling the fabric and making subtle folds and hand sewing them down. It should also make a nice transition from one block to another. I really want my QAL to be cheery and friendly. A thought came to me last night about the windows and window frames as well. Why not just cut a rectangle for the windows slightly smaller than the window frame and cut into four parts. Just appliqué them down and you have your four window panes. A little less work involved. I think I will be mixing buttonhole stitch and a straight stitch to appliqué my pieces down. A raw edge could look very nice in some places.

That's all for now, I have more preparations before my long awaited departure. ;-)

Sewingly yours,
Karen