Another Scrap Happy Quilt Retreat (Sort of)

In honor of the 10th anniversary month of my blog, I am going to attempt blog everyday for the month of October. I’ll be catching up on adventures I’ve not yet shared. Perhaps eventually I’ll share my latest textile project(s) when I get back to working on them…

ANOTHER QUILT RETREAT IN MY HOME (SORT OF)

Back in May I had a “Scrap Happy Quilt Retreat” at my home for my friends D and K, who are both quilters – see series of posts in this blog category Scrap Happy Quilt Retreat, if you’d like to read about our “fabric-scrap-wrangling adventures.

My friends MJ and J got interested in “retreating” at my house – J is a quilter and MJ is not. I met J through MJ and MJ is a long time very dear friend of mine that I met when I lived in Bend, Oregon 2005 – 2018. We planned the retreat for late August 2023.

I thought it would work – MJ and J would come for 5 days and J and I would working on scrappy freeform log cabin quilts while MJ did some other craft and just hang out with us. MJ joked that we were going to give her macaroni, non-toxic glue, popsicle sticks and fingers paints (like in Kindergarten) to work with – ha!

I’ll share what MJ actually ended up doing later in this post (she creatively made her own retreat!) when our retreat in August happened.

But first I will share the huge fabric scrap pile J and I had to work with during the 5 days in August we had the retreat: it was a combination of my scrap pile and scraps that J brought:

I helped J find some type of inspiration fabric scrap in the pile that had a color palette (as how else to you start sifting through that “hot mess” to design a scrap quilt?). Once she found an inspirational scrap, she started pulling from the scrap pile fabric scraps that coordinated with the scrap to create a palette.

J took off and ran with the concept and before I knew it she was covering my design wall with her improvisational combinations:

Which evolved into these blocks:

I’ll share her pieced quilt top someday in a follow up post when she completes it (if she doesn’t mind me sharing the photo).

What did I work on? I started a new freeform scrappy log cabin but I didn’t like the direction it was going; and after a couple days working on it I recycled it into the scrap pile (and didn’t take any photos of it).

So what did MJ work on? Well not any crafts, ha! She abandoned us in my studio and ended up having a cooking retreat with my husband John.

Like the retreat I had in May with my friends D and K, John did all the cooking. MJ helped John do all the cooking and got cooking lessons from him on some of his specialities. Here they are in a lesson:

She also enjoyed hanging out with Mike our dog (MJ is a “dog person”) and binge watching Netflix shows. Here life is very busy back in Central Oregon and she enjoyed just relaxing and helping cook as her “retreat”, while J and I were upstairs in the “quilters sweatshop” working on our scrappy projects!

MJ also ran errands to the home improvement store with John and Mike, and she got trained on how to push Mike around in his box in the shopping cart as John does!

We had a “make/top your own pizza night” for dinner one night, it was so fun. John and MJ pre-baked the pizza crusts and we got to add our own toppings and hang around the oven waiting for our delicious combinations!

We got out of the house and spent a couple hours or a 1/2 day on various adventures.

One day we went to Castle Rock, CO and visited The Barn, a consignment/antique venue (sort of like a nicely curated flea market), that I love and is so fun to wander.

Here are some boots at The Barn I just could not live without (just kidding, definitely not my style):

It is such a fun wander to meandering around The Barn; and as mentioned on their website: “When you walk into The Barn you may feel many things. Among these feelings could be a sense of comfort…..like you have come home. Many customers express these sentiments…it has come to be known as ‘Barn Therapy’.” 

After The Barn we had cocktails and delicious appetizers at the Ecclasia Market across the street, sitting in the Sinners & Saints/Gluttony & Graze area of the market on the comfy sofas.

We also stopped at my favorite indie bookstore in Castle Rock – Sudden Fiction Books.

All of us brought books and J bought so many books we wondered how she’d get them all in her suitcase (she did ship them home), especially some amazing Children’s books for her grandkids. This little bookshop has an amazing curated collection.

They also had this adorable little miniature room display (that lit up) inside one of their bookcases!

One day I did take J to a quilt shop – we visited Holly’s Cabin quilt shop and J was amazing by their extensive collection of curated Kaffe Fassett fabrics on display:

We had beautiful weather (though a little warm in the afternoons) while MJ and J visited. Every morning MJ (who loves to walk like I do) and I took Mike on a couple mile stroll around my neighborhood. John introduced me to what we call “the nature hike” near our house – miles and miles of wooded trails surrounding and connecting different neighborhoods. I’ll share photos from my new favorite daily walk/hike someday.