{*ReCap*}

(my friend Angie taught me 1/4 inch hexes. Yup. That little flower is the size of a quarter!)

wowzers!!! So I'm home from some insanely crazy days of sewing!!!

It's been a *blast*!!!! An overwhelmingly amazing good time. I don't even know where to begin!!!

Let's start with the thing I finished!

This is my mixed tape quilt! Elizabeth's pattern was awesome. Her pdf is totally worth buying off etsy. I mean, this is an insanely detailed pattern. It's wonderful!

I used Moda's Hello Betty, Urban Chiks 1974 and Sweet. The sashing is also Moda.

I'd be lying if I said I liked this quilt. In fact, I'm pretty darn sure I hate it. I love it because the sewing was a blast and technically came out really really nice. I hate it because of the sashing. The color is just dreadful and the wider borders totally killed it. They take away from the whole thing. Only because of the color, any other color and the wider borders would have made it cuter. I debated seam ripping and starting over but decided against it. It just gives me a reason to sew another one right? ;) In the future, I'd rather do a dark gray or red border on it!

I also sewed an entire jelly roll and tomorrow night I'm going to sew it into a coin quilt! woot!

And then...

There is this...

Yup. Queen sized quilt!!! Mine will be slightly smaller than the patterns 92x92 because I'm doing only one border, I'm just waiting for the fabric to arrive (Kona Cotton Charcoal if your curious). Liz & Brenda Lou named this pattern "Duck Duck Goose!" I love it!!!

I'm sorry the photos are so terrible, the building the retreat was in was AMAZING space wise, we had that giant long hall way to arrange huge quilts in but sadly, no natural light.

Here's a snap shot at home:

The background fabric is a realllyyy nice natural colored linen. The solids are from Moda (I think?). The patterned pieces are Jay McCarroll. I freaking adore him, so I used his grays and pinks! And then there is a rogue Heather Ross pink gnome print. Because of course, rabbits, deer, crazy mushrooms need gnomes right?

Only one tiny bit has been sewn together. I was relying on a strip of painters tape for my 1/4 inch seam and that was lame. Crystal, who I had the pleasure of sitting next to, had a great 1/4 inch foot with a little guard on it. I came home, searched on ebay and walked away with one for a little over $20 with free shipping. Until it arrives and I get used to it, I won't work on this quilt. I learned that being off makes a huge difference, by the time I was finished with some geese, I was off by 3/8ths! eekk!!! Sew again!

I'm not even going to lie, this weekend was slightly rough. This sinus infection just won't quit. And being in large crowds of people makes me extremely nervous and self conscious. When you have a sinus infection and you are feeling weird, it makes for strangeness. A lot of the time I was so so so spacey!!! I kept making silly mistakes!

But the good thing is I got to meet so many fantastic new people and have fun with my friends. Liz is so incredibly patient with me. Imagine when I almost lit my fabric on fire. Imagine when I mis-sewed everything. Imagine me losing pattern piece after pattern piece. Imagine me trying to cut fabric left handed when I'm right handed. Hahaha. Me + Sinus Infection + Sewing til midnight and getting up at 7:30 = trainwreck!!! It was great though. On Saturday I got to even see Larissa! Yay!!! And I got to hang out with Angie! Angie is one of those people who is just too much fun. So when we all were combined with Crystal and Laura, it was hilarious. You might know Angie, she designed Sparkling Cider with her mom, Weezie! It's on my summer list of quilts, in fact, I nagged her SO much that hopefully she's going to teach it as a class at Scottie Dog Quilts. She brought in a quilt that she made and I honestly wanted to steal it something fierce! The quilting on it was to.die.for. *ALL* The ladies I was with this weekend were extremely talented.

I decided that I'm going to list my Pfaff Performance 2058 on Craigslist. It's a simply gorgeous and amazing machine, but I really really like my Brother and I think once it's tuned up, it's going to be even better, so I'm out/off work until midweek when my machine comes back to me. The Pfaff just is so confusing to use, it's all computerized and fancy pants, which is great, but its just...too much. I barely can figure it out, let alone sew a pad. I should have thought twice before I bought it. My Brother machine almost feels likes an extension of my arm, its second nature and just makes sense. The Pfaff I spend too much time fiddling with it!!!! The touch screen is super neat but trying to find stitches is a pain. Also, this is going to sound silly, but I hate that it doesn't have a tie on/tie off feature/auto backstitch, little things like that make sewing pads a heck of a lot easier!

I'm going to leave you with this photo of my friend Paula! Isn't she cute? She's the nicest gal ever. This is part of one her finished quilts! Pretty awesome huh? Behind her is Liz & Brenda Lou's retreat quilt! Hopefully mine will come out looking like that, lol!

Also, thanks everyone for commenting on quilting! I'm going to learn long arm machine quilting from Angie hopefully this summer and she does machine rentals! How great is that???

Right now I'm going to curl up on the couch with a book and some tea and SLEEP!!!!

xoxo