Hooking in KC

It was wonderful to get a chance to travel and spend time with friends last week!  Our gathering was small - only 8 instead of the usual crowd - but Janice treated us like royalty as always and we had a fantastic time!  I started a new rug and am loving it so far.  The colors are based on a bouquet of hydrangeas that Janice cut right before the birthday bash last November.  Originally blue, they had started drying out and had turned gorgeous shades of lavender, white, soft green, and gold with deep burgundy leaves.  We had pulled wools to match the colors at that time and they’ve been stashed away waiting for this camp.

I forced myself to put it away when I got home and have gone back to work on Old Maine House. I would love to have it finished by the time I go to Janice’s again next month.

There were some great projects in progress in our little group.  Joan was working on a huge critter runner she designed for her lake house.

Betsy started This Vine, an older pattern Janice designed.  I am planning to get started on it next month.

And Leah was working on a design she asked Janice to draw that is based on an antique rug she found.

Lynn was working on an incredible project she designed herself and was incorporating standing wool shapes into her hooking.  It was amazing!

The camp went by way too quickly as usual and tomorrow I’m back to work with a very busy week ahead.  It was nice to get the time away to recharge!

I did manage to do a tiny bit of sewing on the weekends.  I have been keeping up with the prep work on the first three weeks of the Primitive Gatherings wool SBOW and have been starching the fabrics for the pieced version.  I did get one of the pieces blacks finished and pieced the centers for the other four blocks for week one.

And I managed to add two more quilts to my collection.  The one below was found by my friend Cindy in Amana, Iowa.  It has a couple of damaged spots but is a great design and has beautiful quilting.  It’s hard to see in the picture but there are blue leaves on the border motifs.  It’s hard to tell if it was a green fabric that lost its yellow or if it started out blue, but it clearly wasn’t the same fabric as used in the blocks.  The baskets look to have been red initially but have faded to various degrees of pink.

The only nice thing about returning to work tomorrow is that it’s a short week.  I am already looking forward to a long weekend in my sewing room!