Retreating, Hooking and Shopping

March was a fun month with lots of travel, interrupted only minimally by work.  It started with a weekend retreat in Crystal Lake hosted by Pieceful Gathering Quilt Shop. This was my third year attending the spring retreat and it was fantastic as always. The guest teacher (or “guide”, as she preferred to be called) was Julie Letvin of Me & My Stitches.  Julie’s trunk show was very entertaining, her quilts were great, and she was so much fun to talk to! I worked a bit on my Old Town mystery and did my Unity blocks for the week before starting the retreat project. Many of Julie's designs feature log cabin blocks - below is one that I fell in love with and had to add to my "someday" list.

I headed home from Chicagoland to take a three day workshop with Katie Hartner, organized by the St. Louis rug hooking guild. When choosing my pattern for the class I fell in love with so many of the patterns Katie sells, including one that will be (when I finally get to it) the largest rug I have ever hooked.  I purchased several patterns and, after seeing the rugs Katie shared, would like to get a couple more. Katie was an outstanding teacher and shared so many really interesting and inspirational techniques. I love how she has mixed lots of wools of similar value and hooked the background of this rug in straight lines:

And then in this one - hard to see in the full rug photo - she has hooked a low contrast scalloped border line to add interest. It looked even better in person (and made me want to hook this rug too😆).


From there I headed off to Branson for Missie Carpenter's spring retreat.  While the view from the Branson location didn't hold a candle to the one from the Kimberling City house last fall, it wasn't too bad. 

The retreat was wonderful and I managed to get quite a bit of stitching completed.  I finished the embroidery on block one of my Hobby Farm quilt and got block two prepped. 


I also stitched another block for Lucy Boston. I had gotten away from EPP and was hand piecing the blocks but have really been enjoying EPP since taking a workshop with Tina Craig in Houston last fall.  I think I want to switch back to doing them by EPP from here on out.  I will need to figure out how to merge the two.

I also worked on my Indigo Revival blocks but didn't take a picture of those. We had a great group of ladies to stitch and chat with, and they brought along some fabulous quilts for show & tell. Here are a couple that I would love to add to my list.  I understand that Moda will be reprinting the fabrics in the Raven quilt later this year and there will be kits available so I am likely to be sucked in on that one. It is a gorgeous quilt!

I am continuing to keep up with the Unity QAL for the most part - I have only missed the one week when I was in Branson, and have prepped the first Serenity block (two year Wool Box project) and the second month of Indigo Revival. I have also made a tiny bit more progress on Old Town. I need a monthly retreat to help keep up! My next adventure is a quick trip to AQS Quilt Week in Paducah in April. Let's hope I can resist too much temptation there - I've had way too much 'inspiration' already this year!

Finally Finished!

I am so excited to finally have my Stacey's Floral Runner finished!  I started this rug at Janice's back in 2014. I hooked most of the center and then set it aside, distracted by other projects.  I picked it back up last year only to realize that the wool I had stored with it was apparently from a different project.  I have no idea where the original wool went to - perhaps I will come across it all in another bag or bin someday.  I took it back to Janice's last summer and she helped me find wool that coordinated with the center colors so I could finish the border. I finished hooking the rug last summer and then added it to my pile of rugs waiting to be bound. Determined to make a dent in that pile in 2025, I started working on the binding in January, and finally finished it last week. After a final steaming yesterday, I can mark this one off my list of UFOs. It's a big rug (74' x 30") so now the challenge is figuring out where to put it!

On the quilting side, I have made several new starts in the new year.  Once of these is the Primitive Gatherings Unity Stitch-along.  We are five weeks in and I have been able to keep up so far. At some point in the near future we will need to start constructing blocks in addition to stitching HSTs so it will likely become more of a challenge to remain caught up.

Although I am not quite finished making tiny nine patches, I started assembling the top at a retreat at the end of January.  I still have a long way to go but am absolutely loving how it is turning out. I need to keep going on this one - it would be perfect for this year's quilt show at Primitive Gatherings.


I also made a bit more progress on the Indigo Way mystery while at retreat.  I finished cutting out the entire quilt and did quite a bit of sewing. All of the parts are currently stacked in trays, waiting for the next retreat.


Another new start is the 2025 Made by Hand project by Dawn Heese & Bonnie Sullivan called 'Hobby Farm'.  The first block was released on Feb 1. It is a large block but I was able to get it prepped and start stitching it on my flight to Tampa for a business meeting.   


My latest new starts - there are several - are the 2025 Sue Spargo BOM (Bloomer), the one year project from the Primitive Gatherings wool box (Indigo Way), and the two year wool box project, Serenity. I will have plenty of options to choose from for my hand stitching retreat in Branson next month!

Kicking Off 2025

Obviously my plan to return to blogging last year was a miserable failure!  Let’s see if I can do better this year. We kicked off 2025 with a bang, ringing in the new year aboard the Carnival Radiance in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. I’m pretty sure it’s the first New Year’s Eve party that we’ve ever attended. We had a fantastic trip, celebrating my husband’s 60th birthday, and even learning how to cook some great Mexican recipes. 

I had barely gotten back from the cruise when it was time to head to Arkansas for the Eureka Springs Hook-in. We had a huge group this year, nearly 130 people.

We had a great week and loved our new spot in the hooking room, which was much warmer than our usual corner. I managed to finish hooking my Floral Harmony rug, a pattern I started at Janice’s in November.

I’m currently working on binding a rug I started in 2014 but just finished hooking last year. I'm a little over halfway finished.  It's a very large rug!  I have a significant binding backlog (at least 5 other rugs, most very large) that I am determined to work on this year.

On the quilting front, I have an extensive list of projects I would like to finish and an equally long list of others I would like to start. I am planning on playing along with a UFO challenge our local quilt shop is leading in hopes of being inspired to move a few things forward.  Here’s my list of 10:

1. Twilight Gatherings 

2. Old Town (Quiltville 2024 Mystery)

3. Indigo Way (Quiltville 2023 Mystery)

4. Tiny Nine Patches

5. Blue Baskets

6. Wrapped in Ribbons

7. Black Gingham

8. Letters to Santa

9. Subtle Shades

10. Feathered Triangles

It was tough to choose just 10!  There are a few others I want to work on but I decided to try to be practical and choose a mix of projects with varying levels of effort needed, including some that require considerable piecing and/or appliqué, a few that need quilted and bound, and one that just needs the binding hand stitched.  

The first UFO we are supposed to work on for the challenge is #4.  I worked on the Tiny Nine Patch challenge throughout 2024, sometimes managing to knock out the challenge’s 10 blocks per week and sometimes not.  I current have around 50 blocks left to make and then need to piece the top (which will be a lot of work).  I’m hoping to make decent progress on it at a retreat next week.

Among the new projects I’m planning to start are the Unity QAL from Primitive Gatherings, the 2025 Sue Spargo BOM, and the projects from the PG wool and cotton boxes. I am also really excited about the new Made by Hand - Hobby Farm project - I signed up and am planning to pick up my background fabric for it next week, in time for the first block release on Feb 1. It doesn't stop there - I participated in a virtual LeMoyne Star workshop on Monday (part two is next week) and am participating in two workshops in March so there will be more new UFOs to add to my list. I will have no shortage of projects to keep me busy when I finally retire!