A few of my FAVOURITE things....................

Another Fantastic retreat has Finished, which was Filled with Finishes, Fabrics, Fudging, Fun, Fire, Frivolity and a little Frolic, Fulfillment, Faith, Food, Fragrant Flowers, Fish, (on the menu), Family in a Float, Frustration, Frank discussions, a Failure or 2, Forgetting not those who served, Favourite Chocolates, and it started on Friday! (Yes, I have looked in the dictionary for F words!) The following report won't contain so many F words!

I guess I need to add a little background to this retreat. This was an unscheduled weekend, that came about a little while ago during a discussion with 2 of the Statler girls. One announced that she, and her friend, would be back before the end of the year, and I wondered when, as nothing had been planned. And then another said that when I had the next Mystery weekend, that her and a friend would like to come. I told them both that maybe they should check their diaries for a weekend in November that worked for them both, as I had no retreats booked in for that month. And then one of them cheekily said that I could call it a "Favourites retreat", as they were special! And soon after that when I was out shopping I saw packets of the Favourites Chocolates, and I laughed, and bought enough for those attending the retreat. And so the Favourites Retreat was scheduled. (And lest anyone feel left out, I will say that all who attend the retreats, are my favourite people, and I love the time we all spend together, and feel very blessed that you come.)

Some ladies arrived on Thursday afternoon, ready for a Friday morning start. It was so cold Thursday evening that I lit the fire again, which is very unusual for November. The temperature was down to a chilly 2 deg the next morning, although the days warmed up to be nice and sunny. As I went out the laundry door each day to water my vegetable garden, I was greeted with the special fragrance of my flowering honeysuckle hedge, and some of the roses have beautiful fragrances too.

Pat brought these beautiful flowers in from the farm, and sorry about the red vase, but the glass container they were originally put in was too small and they fell out, and this was the first one I found.

There is one very creative lady, who attends the retreats, and she came with these table decorations. (I will say it is not a good idea to have such temptations right beside the sewing machine where I was working!)

Everyone soon got busy with their chosen cases, and the machines were humming along.

First up is Val's quilt, called Lime Surprise. This is an Irish Chain quilt, with a little square of Lime in the centre, hence the name.

............and Ta Daa, a finish.

Next is Alison's quilt, called Black Tie Affair. This is a repeated Mystery Case, and has been a very popular quilt.

I have one of those Oliso irons, that are on "legs", and it is rather strange to get used to not having to stand it on it's end.  Here is Alison, just looking at it and wondering about how to use it........

.................and trying it out. One lady reckons they are irons on steroids! Everyone just laughs at it, as it stands up on the legs.

Feeling pretty confident with the iron now!

......................Ta daa, another finish!

This is Raylene's quilt, called Spring Festival, made with pretty rose fabrics, alternated with a chain block, all in soft pinks, cream and greens.

 

....................Ta daa, another finished quilt!

After Raylene finished her quilt, she added borders to a charity quilt she had been making, which has turned out very pretty.

And there was still time to fill in, so she pieced a backing for a quilt for me.

Next we have Lyn, who made Ink Blossom, which was named after the fabrics used in the quilt.

Lyn had a few machine issues, so borrowed one of my spare machines, and it took a while to get the 1/4" seam right, and thus it was longer before she finished the first block. It was a very happy smile when she got there.

......................Ta daa, another finish! We are very happy with this, and I have enough fabrics for a repeat quilt.

Pat's quilt, called Pearl Essence, was also named after the range of fabric that you can see in the following photo. I don't seem to have taken many photos of Pat's progress for some reason.

 ..................Ta daa, a finish.

Gayle's quilt was called Bird Song, and is another repeat which has been very popular. 

Again, there are not a lot of photos, and not a finish either. Gayle kept saying how slow she was, but I can tell you that her sewing, seams and pressing etc, are immaculate. You can see the almost finished quilt, without the last border, in the group photo below.

I will show you Gayle's quilt that she made in an earlier Mystery Retreat, that was hanging in their local quilt show last week. It looks great Gayle, well done.

I will add here, that Gayle and Lyn travelled 7 hours to come for this weekend. Very dedicated ladies, and deserving of being called Favourites, don't you think? They are very special, thanks for coming such a distance.

This weekend was unusual in that I decided to join the table and make up one of the cases too. There was one that I was waiting to see finished, so that I can use the pattern for another range of fabrics, so I went on retreat for the weekend! This quilt was called Rosehill Garden, again after the range of fabrics.

I started by making all the four patch units, and after my string piecing and cutting them apart, I remembered this little orange, cutting thing I had purchased in the US that I should have used!

So it was put to good use when I made the flying geese units, and is really very handy. I was demonstrating to those who had not seen this gadget,.........

..........and promptly got told by one lady, that her Gizmo was bigger than mine!!!!

And you can see that it was, (insert lots of laughter and frivolity here!), although it did the same job!

And while we were showing off tools, Lyn showed us this handcrafted item, which folds up nicely into the wooden handle.

All the units were made, and I started sewing the block rows together, but will admit that lots of unpicking was done, as I sewed a few up the wrong way. (I think some in the room were amused that I had to do so much unpicking!!??)

Ta daaa, a finish!!...... Proudly showing my quilt, and pointing out how the square in a square blocks had different coloured corners, to match the colours of the border.......

..........but whoopsie, maybe those corner blocks are in the wrong way!!??........

....................so thankyou to the kind lady who unpicked them for me, after she had finished her own quilt.

Our Statler machines have recently had a software upgrade that was released, but I had not put it onto Max yet. As Alison had successfully done her machine, we thought that we might try to do mine, after we had finished our quilts. But this message was not what we wanted to see, so we aborted that failed mission.

Fortunately we tried again on Sunday morning, and succeeded on updating Max, and both my laptop and desktop computers. Thanks again to Alison.

When I had lunch in Adelaide last weekend, I was told that GD2 and GD3 were both going to be dancing in one of the floats in the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, and I should watch them on the TV. I received a reminder message of that on Saturday morning, with a photo of them both dressed in their costumes.

So we were all waiting for them to appear while we were sewing, and thought the bright colours should be easy to spot in the parade.

Here they are, but, as soon as we saw them, the camera moved on too fast, and we missed most of it......

but thankfully DD1 posted some photos and a video on facebook, which gave us a better view.

Here is the group photo, and I have to say that it was like getting a heap of little children to sit still, and it was hard to pick a good photo to post.

A few of us spent a fun, frivolous evening playing the card game called Frustration and there was much laughter.

I am a bit reluctant to post these photos, but might be in strife with the photographer, if I don't. As it was all Gayle's idea in the first place that they be called Favourites, she was delegated to present me with a lovely gift. Thankyou girls, it was a pleasure to have such a fun weekend with such good friends.

This photo reminds me that I have deferred my hairdresser appointment for far too long. Now that the final retreat for 2019 has finished, it might be time??

Yesterday was the 11th day of the 11th month, so we listened to the radio at 11am and remembered.

Today has been cleanup and washing day, and even a little nanna nap. I have been sitting here at the computer for a few hours writing this up, so think it's time to finish off. Tomorrow it is back to some serious quilting and catching up with the queue. The weather has warmed up into the mid 30's today, which is a bit too quick, after only 18 on Thursday. Better go and water the vegies again.

That's all the newsfromjude for now.

Blessings, From Jude