Retreating

 Hello Everyone,

I spent my week preparing a few quilting projects for a retreat that I'm attending this week with my guild members at Zephyr Point at beautiful Lake Tahoe. 

I've had an idea circulating through my brain about making pumpkins with my Hearthstone fabric line.  The first two pumpkins came to fruition.  I decided to incorporate Marcus Fabric wools with my cottons.  There will be either 9 or 12 pumpkins.  Mr. Joe suggested I name the quilt Rodent Resort as there will be little mice scampering around the quilt.  This name made me laugh and I'm afraid it's going to stick.  It's catchy if nothing else.

My main goal for the next 5 days is working on a queen-sized Calico Cottages quilt.  I have 10 blocks finished with their frames.  I made 10 more foundation pieced houses, and they are waiting for their frames.  I will need to make at least another 20 houses.

I need about a billion half-square triangles for the sashings.  I have a stack of them all set to go.

I filled project bags with everything cut and marked and then I'm ready to do some serious power sewing.

The worktable in my quilting room was decorated with parts and pieces of the quilt all week.  It all looked so pretty.  I placed an order for my Hearthstone fabric line with Marcus Fabrics this week.  Bolts and bolts will arrive in July and Mr. Joe is trying to figure out where I'm going to store it before I cut it all up into kits and fat quarters.

It was a busy weekend here in the mountains of Calaveras County.  It is the celebrated Jumping Frog contest in Angels Camp made famous by Mark Twain.  It is so famous it made it to a question on Jeopardy.  When I think of frogs, I think of motorcycles.  I do believe every motorcycle west of the Mississippi invaded our county and in particular my neighborhood.  Talk about rolling thunder!  The motorcycles travel in packs, and you can hear them coming from miles away. A group of questionable characters rented the VRBO cabin across the street from us.  Luckily for us, they were very quiet once they put their bikes to bed, so I guess they weren't that questionable.

The other night, after we came inside the cabin from our leisurely dinner on the deck, Mazey went into her full throttled anxiety-ridden bear bark.  Sure enough, there was a bear in our back yard.  This healthy-looking bear was completely unconcerned about Mazey and us. Mazey smells the bears before she can see them.....it's pretty amazing and we take her warning seriously.

The beautiful creature was so relaxed it just sat down!  Maybe it was doing what bears do in the woods?  Time for us to start carrying the airhorn on our neighborhood walks.

I'm leaving my computer home this week so I can get away from work, work, work.  I will only be posting on FB on my Sew'n Wild Oaks page and on Instagram from my phone.  I'll post a lot of pictures here when I return at the end of the week.

Happy quilting,

Lynn