A View of my Sewing Room and more Quilty Fun Gifts

Hi everyone!

I hope you're having a great summer :)

The time has been flying by for me, I've been so busy...

Here is a sneak peak into my sewing room.

Cathy, one of my IG besties, came to visit me in Northern California.

We started a sewing project together.

These are the charms I chose for my mini quilt.

 Cathy (this is her...pretty, eh?) fell in love with my Kaleidoscope mini quilt on the wall behind her.

You can find the tutorial here on my "random tutorial" board on Pinterest.

It's always fun when Cathy's around!

She flew all the way from her little Tasmanian island off the mainland of Australia, for our IG Farm Girl Vintage quilt retreat.

She was the "star" of the group :)

She then flew to Sundance, Wyoming to visit Vanessa, Bartlesville, Oklahoma to visit Joanna, then to my place and I drove her to San Francisco where we met up with Lynette from Idaho Falls.

Here is my main wall of half yards and one yards of fabric.

I have them folded over comic book cardboards, it takes up less space than folding the fabric.

The shelf with the vintage woman head planter is most of my Lori Holt fabric, and underneath to the left is my Sarah Jane fabric.

Next to Sarah Jane is my Tasha Noel collection.

I have other collections too, but they are on the opposite wall.

This is the other side of my sewing room.

My husband surprised me 2 l/2 years ago with a room remodel.

He bought me all the furniture, he has very good taste!

My sewing table is made of recycled telephone poles, and there are some holes in it that I string my sewing machine and light cords through.

These are Cathy's kaleidoscope squares before she sewed them together.

She chose an older charm pack I had, from Chez Moi, by Moda.

I made a sever cutting mistake on mine, so they are now pinwheel blocks and have been thrown in my "orphan" box.

I trimmed my blocks to 4" before I trimmed them with the kaleidoscope ruler, and it just won't work.

More quilty fun gifts!

Vanessa made me and all of her friends this adorable bag.

It's a free tutorial at the Jolly Jabber blog.

It's the Kimberly Sac pattern by Fig Tree quilts.

This is the front when the flap is lifted up.

This is the back of the bag, the fabrics are adorable!!!

Vanessa added pockets on the inside, a zipper one on one side, and two pockets on the opposite side, a very convenient feature.

Vanessa gave all of us her very special bags at retreat, each one reflects the fabric and colors that we love!

Joanna made this beautiful pincushion for me, I think it's so beautiful!

Look at all the fine, tiny handwork!

This is the back of the pincushion, darling!

This is who's visiting me this week!

Two of my darling and adorable grand daughters, Reagan and Paisley.

Reagan is 5 and will start Kindergarten in a week, and Paisley is 2 years old.

This is our son Jordan and his wife Kim and their 3 cute girls.

Taylor is 5 l/2 months and is always smiling!

I'll see you next week :)

Quilty Fun Gifts

There are a lot of benefits to having quilty fun friends!

They are fun, and loads of laughs, are very generous and thoughtful, and all share the same interest, stitching!

Cathy (Tazzie) made me this beautiful little embroidered mini quilt with lots of cute goodies to go with it!

The mini quilt was my birthday gift :)

Here's a close up of her beautiful embroidery :)

  I love the striped binding and the fabrics she used too!

Leanne wasn't able to come from Australia this trip, but she's planning a visit in two years.

She made me this darling fabric envelope or clutch for my birthday.

I love the Lucien fabric!!!

She quilted it herself and also included so many cute souvenirs from Australia.

Christie made me and all of her other quilty friends this pretty little zip pouch, and each one was different.

She let me choose, I just loved the pears and the text background with the pop of red on the tag and the lining.

It's all made out of Lori Holt fabric which I really love, and especially Sew Cherry :)

I keep my little and square rulers in it.

Lori taught Kristie how to perfect her appliqué, using the cozy shapes she designed.

Kristie gave me the first appliqué she did on this zip pouch, to me for my birthday :)

Lynette gave me all these beautiful gifts!

The embroidered thimble is a pin cushion :)

Here is the mini quilt Lynette made for me, it is really adorable!

Shanna and Rosanna gave everyone farm animal kitchen timers to go with our Farm Girl Vintage theme.

Very original!

Rae Ann embroidered everyone this darling duck pin cushion.

She also made some lamb ones and they were all in different colors.

My quilty friend Natalie isn't in the Instagram group, but she gave me this beautiful 2 yard piece of fabric and I'm going to use it to back my Freddy Moran quilt if I can ever get back to it!

Her packaging is so clever :)

The tag and buttons were from her grandmother's sewing stash.

Natalie's so creative, look at the cute little tag she wrote!

Cathy stitched this little bunny for me too :)

Anette gave us all these cute beehive gifts, exclusive to the state of Utah.

She and her husband had made little beehive shaped chocolates and chocolate covered cinnamon bears, they were delicious!!!

Celeste and Kayse gave us these sweet mementos from Texas.

Thimbles and Threads quilt shop hosted the retreat.

I won this, it's enough fabric to make one of Lori's 12" flower blocks.

Thimbles and Threads even gave us a gift!

One of Lori Holt's 12" design boards, a fat quarter, an awesome ruler and a name tag :)

My darling quilty friend Vanessa made this mini quilt for me!

I love it!!!

She also made me 2 large design boards, and included a Little Red Riding Hood fat quarter (she knows I have a romance with Little Red) and two frisson pens!

I am rich with my friends, especially my quilty fun ones :)

We received lots of other gifts, and a lot of candy and chocolate.

Diana and Jenn made us all Italian sodas, so fun!

You can't sew without munching, right?

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Instagram Farm Girl Vintage Retreat

About 2 years ago, a chat group originated on Instagram between five ladies who had quilting in common, mainly quilty fun ideas from Lori Holt.

Since that time, two other ladies have joined the group to make seven.

Last summer, we planned a quilt retreat, and Lori Holt was so kind to design a Farm Girl Vintage quilt for us and teach us and give us lots of her quilty fun tips.

Three of the ladies had met last summer at one of Lori's retreats, but the rest of us hadn't.

We all gave each other nicknames too!

Cathy (Tazzie) traveled all the way from Australia to meet us, and was thrilled to also meet our Queen Bee, Lori :)

Kristie (Krusty Oats) traveled from southeastern Utah, Joanna (Jojo) traveled from Oklahoma, Vanessa (Nessa) traveled

 from Wyoming, Lynette (Dimples) traveled from Idaho, and I (Cindy Lou) traveled from Northern California.  Leanne (Lizzie) wasn't able to make it this time, from Australia.
We missed you Leanne :(

Lori brought her quilty peeps and some other IG friends were invited.

Celeste and Kayse traveled from Houston :)

The day before our quilt retreat, those of us who could, met at Gardner Village for lunch.

This is my IG Bestie group, minus Lynette.

Me, Kristie, Vanessa, Joanna and Cathy (from Australia).

It was incredible to finally meet them!!!

We were like long, lost friends :)

The next morning, we went on a fast walk with my daughter Lindsay and her friend Kara, and looked at all the pretty houses in Daybreak along the way.
Lynette, Cathy, me, Vanessa and Joanna :)

Retreat day, at last!
We stayed at Thimbles and Threads, a quilt shop and retreat lodge in Draper, Utah.
This is the room I shared with Joanna and Vanessa.
Each bed came with a robe, the room was so comfortable, and so was the bed!
I had the best sleeps, but it was also because I stayed up so late and was exhausted.

Every room was named after a quilter, her portrait and a quilt block were framed with a story about her quilt journey :)
All the rooms were decorated the same way, but with different color schemes.

My roommates, Joanna and Vanessa :)

This was my sewing spot, next to Joanna and Lynette, across from Vanessa and Kristie and down the lane from Cathy :)

My friend Beth, and one of Lori's quilty peeps, made everyone an instagram block with their IG name embroidered on it.
How cute!!!

Everyone was so generous in their gift giving....
I had never been to a retreat before, so I didn't know what to expect.
The next time, I'm making quilty gifts for everyone.
I'm going to feature all the individual handmade gifts in another post.

 We were constantly taking photos!
Anette, Kristie, Cathy, Celeste, Kayse, Betty, Juli, Joanna and me!
We are all quilty besties now :)

This is the lovely gift that Thimbles and Threads gave us.
A Lori Holt design board, fat quarter, name tag and ruler.

These are Lori's quilty peeps, they go on two retreats a year together, and have sew day once a month or more!
These sweet ladies also help Lori with a lot of her quilts and know how to keep quilty secrets really well :)
Each of the women told some memorable stories about Lori, we laughed a lot!
Suzann, Betty, Juli, Beth, Rosanna, Shanna and Judy.

We were entertained with a trunk show from Farm Girl Vintage.
I love this quilt with the houses and the trees.
It's the same layout as the next one with the pigs, but different blocks were used and it looks totally different!

This is one of my favorites, with the red tractor and all the dancing pinwheels.

I love all these mason jars, this quilt is just another on my long list!

This Farm Girl quilt is darling, and Anette made hers into a Hallowe'en quilt with a witch.
Lori always tells us to make our quilt our own!

Lori says that this vintage apron quilt is her best selling pattern.
Everyone has a memory of their mom or grandmother in the kitchen wearing an apron like this :)

This is the quilt that Lori designed for our retreat.
She told us to bring specific yardage of tan and off white for a background, and reds, greens, blues, pinks, oranges and yellows.
I'm working really hard on my quilt, I hope to be able to show it to you soon.
My tan color is much lighter than Lori's, it's hard to choose a color or shade when you don't what the quilt looks like!
I was also limited to what fabric was available.

A package arrived from England from lucky_shake on Instagram.
She made us each these adorable pear pincushions!

This is a cute photo of Lori with her beautiful green featherweight.

I have wanted to meet Rae Ann for years!
She said the same thing about me!
She's just as sweet in person as she looks in her photos :)

I hardly ever drink soda, let alone soda with caffeine.
I had a caffeinated soda everyday, because we stayed up so late and didn't get much sleep :)
We were getting dirty diet cokes (coke with coconut syrup and fresh squeezed lime) at Swig, and a mouth watering sugar cookie with pink frosting, while in my convertible.

When we returned to the retreat from dinner and snacking, we were really giddy.
We teased our hair all up as if it was windblown from the drive in the convertible, and walked into the retreat.
We got a bunch of laughs!!!

I saw this on someone's car!
A serial quilter!!!

Lori and me, don't you love her quilty glasses?

This is a photo of all the ladies at our IG Farm Girl Vintage retreat.

Do you notice our cute bags?
Vanessa made one for each of us and we're modeling them :)
She chose the fabric to match our favorite color schemes.

It was Cathy's dream come true to meet Lori in person!

 Joanna took this photo of me, we sewed, talked, laughed, ate, ate, ate, and posted and looked at Instagram.
Lori designed the Farm Fresh quilt for us last summer and gave the pattern to her quilty peeps to sew at a retreat.
They were under security lock down, not to say a word!
They had to wait an entire year, lol!

I haven't laughed so hard or stayed up so late, or eaten so much chocolate and frosted sugar cookies, in a long time!!!
I'm making a photo book to cherish these memories, and show my grandchildren what a fun time their Grammy has when she's with her IG Besties :)

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