Flimsy Alert! ~ Make that Two, thanks to Cabin Fever 2!!

Last week I had the best time at the Cabin Fever 2 retreat. It's the perfect event for me: A four-day bring-your-own-projects focus with little make-and-take demos each day in a stunningly beautiful luxury mountain cabin with no cell reception and hardly any wifi. . . Lots of work gets accomplished, I'm telling you!

How could we not love sewing it up at a location like this??  (stock photo from their rental site here:)

I don't have many photos, as I was MADLY SEWING on something that you won't see for some time. But the first thing I did was zip together the blocks for my "Boomerang" quilt. The pattern is by Emily of Crazy Old Ladies, and as she's one of the retreat organizers, she was on hand to help hold it up for the photo. Awesomeness  :D

The blocks had been made a good year ago, so I was excited to have the perfect excuse to pull them out even though this project was not on the current priority list. It didn't take too long to finish up, and then I hit the project that has true urgency right now. 

During the two and a half retreat days that I dedicated to Top Secret, I nibbled away on my adorable cookie, 

made this pocketed mug mat to keep my mug on, [There was a lot of fun swag, as well, from sponsors - coupons, I won a notions pouch and charm packs, and that orange baggy has the other two make-and-takes that I look forward to finishing during TV time: a new approach for a paper-pieced pin cushion, and a golf-tee based bobbin/thread connector.]

This other charm pack from swag was off playing with the Kona color card when I was snapping shots:

and this adorable clutch that Shannon prepped (SHOWER CURTAIN GROMMET for an inexpensive yet super cute closure!!! genius!):

and marveled at the creativity of folks who brought some fantastic gifts they'd made for everyone. I mean, check out this pin cushion below that Cheryl made for everyone! The weight of the wood frame base is wonderful when you want to move between your machine and a sofa for detailed pinning work.

And this thread catcher! Too clever!!! Seriously. (I need to find out who made these so I can credit her.)  They use a mini embroidery hoop inside the top rim and a circle of wood(?) at the base, and stand up like this with NO interfacing - 

- Until you want to pack things up, they twist and nestle into themselves so they take up hardly any space at all in your notions shoebox!

April even made these fun night masks for her roommies!:

Sometimes when I was up to do some pressing, I went "dumpster diving" in the trash cans near me to pull out scraps folks didn't want. I intend to start working on an Omigosh type quilt in a few months, so anything you can cut a square inch out of works. Patti was so amused at that concept, that she sent me box after she got home - I was expecting jumbled scraps, but it was full of charm and crumb packs she won't use! What fun!  :D

And after I finished all the work on Top Secret that I could do there, I snuck in some time on the last half day to start my Leaded Glass project. I only managed this much:

The pieces for this had been laid out at home before I left, and my two older daughters helped shift things around until we thought it worked nicely. The gathering up involved some meticulous organization, so instead of shelving this when I got home, it went straight to the work area. I've just finished putting it together today, so my work area is once again free for Top Secret and my cover projects. Isn't this pretty? It's a Tracey Jacobsen design that I tweaked just a smidge. 

I may or may not take the outer edges back off. I kind of liked it without the white border and lobes. Or maybe I'll border it in dark blue like the pool table's color. . . 

But it's going to be a long time before it gets a turn at quilting, so I have time to think about things.  :)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Keep It Simple, Make It Fun

WIPs Be Gone

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

BOMs Away Monday - Resurrecting Jane

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.
This week's link-up is at the bottom of this post.

I. Had. A. BLAST. at Cabin Fever!!!!!  Emily put together the best quilt retreat, and Shannon's hubby spoiled us all with his cooking. What a wonderful time. New friends, gorgeous cabin, splendid trunk shows, fun make-and-takes and games, fantastic projects to watch being worked on, a man cooking for us. . . You just cannot beat that.  I'll have to share some pictures when I can get it together better, but here's a shot Jennifer took when we were getting to know each other. 

This was a terrific bunch of people, sure hope we succeed in staying in touch!


But to get BOMs Away rolling, here' my report for this week's work. . .

Had to drive home over the Rockies through a winter storm - was good to see my own steps after that!

It's a winter wonderland right now. This was early this morning before today's blizzard moved in. Fun to dress the Picnic Spruce for a moment before the wind picked up. 

But then they needed to come in and get dry by the fire! Selma graciously accepted the pile of Baby Janes on "her" rug, so long as she could model them.

I had hopes of finishing a lot more blocks than I did, but one of the sets was SUPER demanding. So 10 are completely done, 8 more are half-way pieced, and 12 others have varying degrees of hand stitching to do. 

This block, in particular, took something like 5 hours all on its own. G6 for you Janiacs out there. What an insane block! The tiniest 8-point star you've ever seen (the points approach 1/4 inch) set in a 5-point star set in a 4" square. I can't believe I kept all the pieces straight.

The 10 blocks that were completed added 245 more pieces to my quilt's count for a total of 2595!

~*~*~*~*~ 

 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.  

Woohoo!!! Let's DO THIS. :D

Fun WIP stuff for this week!!

Still working on the Amaretto binding. Right around half-way finished with that, so that'll make it for a Feb. finish.

But it's getting a break for the next 4 days. I'm goin' on my first true quilting retreat, and I'm taking Jane with me.

Gonna drive 8 hours to lock myself in with a bunch of ladies I've never, ever met. Scares me to death! I'm not good at social stuff. But I'm putting a lot of faith in the fact that quilters are almost all super cool people. That, and if for some strange reason I feel totally uncomfortable being sociable, I have so much work I'm bringing that I can zero in on that.

But who wouldn't have a great time at something organized by Emily of Crazy Old Ladies, with daily trunk shows by Natalie of Piece and Quilt (taking my book so she can sign it!), Amber of A Little Bit Biased, and Katie of From the Blue Chair. Wow!! This is going to be great. 

And I even get to see a cousin that I haven't seen for decades. Since I'm not going to start the 8-hr drive (without snow factors added) at 2am to get there mid-morning Thursday, I'll be driving over the mountains tomorrow. Sharon lives an hour away from the retreat, and she said Sure, I could spend a night at their place. So I'm really looking forward to seeing her, too.

(back in August)

I've got all my Dear Jane stuff packed up and ready to go. I haven't worked on it since we moved from the temporary apartment to this house because some of the to-be-worked things got lost. But I found it just in the nick of time last week, and everything's organized and ready to go. Let's see how many of the 70-block backlog I can put together in 3 days!  How far can I push the chart?!

As of 8 Aug 2012

~*~*~*~*~

Linking up at

Lee's WIP

Esther's WOW

BOMs Away Monday - 31 Dec 12 - Sneaking In One More NewFO. . .And a cool retreat is coming up!

Welcome to my Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.
This week's link-up is at the bottom of this post.

Yeesh - running a half-day late here - I was trying so hard to get this one all fused before posting this week's link-up, but I'm about ready to vomit fusible stuff and my iron and I aren't on speaking terms at the moment.  ;D

In the spirit of Christmas/New Year's vacation, I took a break from my side-bar line-up of BOMs, and pulled a fresh winter one off the Creepy Room list. (Which is now called Bobbit's Room - but that's a whole other story.) That makes this NewFO #2 for December!! Which is a lot of fun. :D   So I'm linking this up to Barbara's party, too. 

(This one below was NewFO #1, blogged here.)

But that's about all the fun there was to be had. NewFO-2 is a full-BOM kit I purchased post-Christmas either two or three years ago. It is horrible!!!  I will never order from this store again, and of course, since I waited so long to start it, it's far too late to see if they would make things good. Normally I have no problem - I've purchased kits from many stores around the country, and everything's been great. This one, though - without any comment at all, the color scheme was entirely changed from the picture, in something I don't like at all, and with absolute disregard for values against each other. Furthermore, there were several fabric pieces missing entirely, and others had nowhere near enough. 

So I had to pull out a trusty scrap bin and raid yardages in my stash for some backgrounds and at least half the pieces. . . creating THIS nasty explosion all over the pool table. 

Poor hubby's off work for the week and can't even shoot right now. Working in a frenzy on this to get it all cleared for him. This is the state it was at this morning.

Don't you just "love" all the tracing, tracing, and tracing involved in this method?  :P

I got all the checkerboard rows pieced, and almost got all the cutting and fusing finished today - Just have that bottom row to do, then I can clean off the table.

Once I get those mittens fused onto the cobalt row on the bottom, this sucker is going boxed up, back in Bobbit's Room until next Holiday Season. This kit just disgusted me so much. But those snowmen do make me smile.  :)

~*~*~ But, Oh! ~*~*~

I did have a real blast the night before last. My sister came down from Idaho, and we stayed up sewing until 2am, working on some long-term UFO aprons she wanted to make for her girls. That was fun.  :D  And the first time I've ever sewn past 9pm *without* having to frog anything at all. Should give myself a medal for that!



~*~*~ And Another: Oh!! ~*~*~

Have you seen that Emily has a quilter's cabin retreat organized for 
February 21-23?

I'm super excited that for once I can participate. This ones a BYOP (bring your own project), so it's perfect for me. I'm on a strict UFO plan for 2013, so there will be no retreat/convention/store class projects added into the mix. 

And daily trunk shows from Natalia Bonner from Piece and Quilt, Amber Johnson of A Little Bit Biased, and Kati Spencer- From the Blue Chair are a humongous bonus!

I'm really looking forward to staying in this cabin with several other quilters and getting some serious work finished on older projects!

If you are finding yourself tempted, head on over to Emily's post and see if you can snag a spot before they're gone. :D  Sure would love to see you there!

And Now, back to BOMs Away:

~*~*~*~*~ 

 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.