A Quilt Retreat of Sorts

So over the last week or two I’ve been texting my friend Nell.  She was talking about going on a quilt retreat and how she was working on her Tumalo Trail block for the Pre-Mystery Challenge.

Sadly, I felt a little jealous.  I could use a quilt retreat or at least a few days in a row to SEW.  I’ve been lucky and have been able to get quite a bit of sewing time in with my waking an hour earlier each morning but still I couldn’t help but long for a whole day of sewing with little interruption like you get at a quilt retreat.

Well…my wish kid of came true.

I got the flu of Friday.  Luckily two of my childcare families were sick too so my day off didn’t interrupt so many schedules.  It wasn’t a fun flu but it wasn’t the kind where I had to be on the couch all day long….I just needed to be close to a bathroom and able to put up with a churning stomach and not really able to eat.

I decided I could lay on the couch and be completely miserable or just sit and sew….I sewed.  Thankfully my quilting room has a bathroom real close.  Being I was sick, none of the kids came home….Hubby ended up coming home early and brought a pizza so I didn’t need to try to cook.

So I got the center of my Narragansett Blues UFO sewn together.  It’s from Bonnie Hunter’s book More Adventures in Leaders and Enders.

The border pieces are all sewn into segments and just need to be pieced together.

The weekend came and I still didn’t feel the best so I continued to sew.

I got the center of another quilt top sewn together and that one needed LOTS of piecing and ironing first.  It uses a bizzillion half square triangles that finish at 1 1/2″.   I made some test blocks for a new quilt I designed.  I bound two quilts.  I finished a some blocks for another project.  I got LOTS of sewing done…LOTS and LOTS.

I guess I just decided to make the best of not feeling good.  Kalissa did stop by briefly and “yelled” at me for not being on the couch.  (it’s the nurse in her)  I explained that I’d feel even sicker if I completely wasted the time by lying on the couch.  I also explained that I was leisurely sewing…for the most part just sitting in the chair listening to my stomach churn while I piece.

…and for the record, I did lay on the couch in the evening which is a major event for me.  Our daughter Kayla recommended the Netflix series Longmire to us.  Hubby and I both enjoyed it and have already watched six episodes.  For non-television watchers, that’s a HUGE recommendation.

So in a way, I guess I did get a “quilt retreat” of sorts…I didn’t get the good girl friend fix but I did get the quilting fix.