Update!

Although I haven't been posting, I have been checking in daily. I took a little "blog vacation", but not from quilting. I have been busy working on three projects diligently (alternating of course---not at the same time) :c). I am working on a Guild Challenge; "Spontaneous Combustion"; and a UFO. All are actually a little over 50% done! This may seem chaotic to some, but it keeps my interest up! I can get bored working on the same thing continually---it gets "tedious" to me.

In the middle of everything, one of the Guilds I belong to had a "Mystery Retreat". We have an auction every year and that is one of the things that you can purchase. There is a "retreat" committee and they have done a good job in the last 2 I attended. This year was no different. For this year's mystery, we used a quilt pattern created by Judy of Patchwork Times (with her permission of course). The tricky thing with mysteries, that although you are given the yardage requirements including how much you should purchase of darks or lights, you really have no idea whether your fabric choices will work. It is certainly an exercise in trust---trust of your own choices. I think we all did pretty good. At first I was second guessing my choices, but I am glad I trusted myself. The quilt has 34 - 2.5/8 blocks, so needless to say, although we were given "homework", I am not finished yet! I am also going to enlarge my quilt (of course), and since Judy does like multiple borders, this quilt has 7 borders with one being pieced. I think I am going to enlarge the borders, but not do the pieced one. My fabric's are rather busy and I think a pieced border would be a little too much. By enlarging the borders a little, I am also going to enlarge the quilt slightly to fit my queen bed a little better (I think). These are my plans tentatively, but I will wait and see how it looks after I finish. I rarely make pieced borders since I am "cutting accuracy challenged" and mine don't turn out right (at least not to me), and to make them fit properly, since I am enlarging, math will be necessary (which I don't do), so---. Two members of the retreat committee had made the quilt and it was revealed at the end, it is a really nice quilt---as soon as I put together a couple of rows, I will post a picture.

I have included a picture of the gifts I got. Everyone in attendance got a handmade sewing machine cover, and a little box full of goodies (including some aloe in case we burned ourselves on the iron). I also won a "sewing" prize which included thread, some really cute scissors, some thread and needles. The food was great, and the company and fellowship even better, and there was LOTS of chocolate. All in all it has been a good week-end.

Here is hoping your week-end is fun!