Grand Lake Retreat

From Thursday until Saturday of this past week I was sewing in a beautiful lake house on Grand Lake, OK. My stitch group is so blessed by the Bland family. You see, Colleen is part of our stitch group and her son and daugter-in-law own this beautiful house on the lake. For the second time they have allowed us to use it for a little retreat. We mostly worked on charity quilts for children. But we also worked on some of our own projects. Some months ago we decided to bring some orphan blocks to our group meeting to see what we could do with them. June brought a few of these:

I brought a few of these:

Leslie brought this:

And Emma provided the background fabric and the backing. Look what we came up with!

Emma and I quilted it and Colleen cut and put on the binding. We decided to leave it in the house for a table runner in appreciation for the use of such a beautiful setting.

Here's a quilt that Leslie is working on: I'm encouraging her to hurry and finish it for the show. I think it's a prize winner. It's all hand wool applique on flannel. Here's another project Leslie is working on. It is a signature block quilt from her parent's 65th wedding anniversary. She's trying to finish it for her dad's 90th birthday party in July.

Before we left on the retreat we all made a few 9 patch blocks in bright colors. Here are some of them. I had to leave the retreat early on Sat. morning and Emma was working on putting it together when I left.

And here are the rest of the 9 patches that June put together in a little quilt.

Colleen was working on this signature block quilt. A few years ago our stitch group exchanged these. Our intention is to display them in our booth at the Green Country Quilters' Guild show on June 4 and 5. I think some of us need to get in gear and get it put together (I'm talking to myself here)

Here is one of the quilts that I made. It's a flip and sew project that is also a "quilt as you go" quilt. I even got the binding "mostly" on. It will go to Hearts and Hands which is a group within Green Country Quilters' Guild that provides quilts to children in need.

Now here's a little cutie that June put together.

June again. Prolific, isn't she?

I like this one so much I posted it twice (really, I just don't know how to delete it!)

This one was so much fun! I wouldn't let anyone know what I was doing until I finished. I wish I could see the look on the little girl's face who gets it.

AND....Here it is AGAIN! I REALLY like this one!

I've been working on these little "feeder, ender" blocks for a couple of months or so. SOOOO much fun!

Here's our "Binding Queen" finished with another binding. I think she cut binding for and bound at least 4 little quilts on this retreat. Thank you Colleen for doing the work that no one else wanted to do!
Here she is ironing some more binding.

Emma made three quilts like this--same fabrics in different positions. She machine quilted them and Colleen (who else?) bound them.

Here are Loella and June hard at work.

Leslie...making some "feeder/ender" blocks.

Just to prove we were on a lake....Emma and I went for a walk. Or maybe I should say a climb. The road went down to the lake at about a 60 degree angle. Perhaps I exaggerate, but the next day my legs did not feel like it!

What fun it was hearing 7 machines running at the same time!

If you don't have a big board that fits over your ironing board you should get one. It's my new favorite tool! Two can iron at once and it holds the entire width of your fabric. Love it!

Colleen, Leslie and Donna.

No retreat would be complete without some of this:

What a great time we had! By the time I left on Saturday morning there were 4 complete quilts and 9 other tops for Hearts and Hands. Maybe some more tops were completed on Saturday. We'll be displaying them at the quilt show before they go to their new homes.

Next: I went to the Little Lighthouse Garden Party and Silent Auction where one of my quilts was sold. Pictures soon....