Lotti, what a happy, happy quilt for your cousin's baby girl - a proper I-Spy-Quilt. Breakfast in the hills sounds divine but look out for lightning - 2 people were sadly killed last week-end in the local mountains here when a sudden thunder storm came up! Horrible

Artmomma - I dithered for a long time before deciding to join Pinterest but am so glad I did. It's amazing when you need a jump start
Dorothy; just making all the blocks is a huge achievement in my book. Congratulations!

Ritzy! what a gorgeous Critter quilt - that must have been such fun to make. Never made a child's quilt, never thought I wanted to but this one and Lotti's makes me wonder if I should give it a go. I think I should adopt the hippo and use it as my avatar or maybe the pink elephant????????

Rosemary - don't worry about the cowl neck alterations - I'll go duckduck'ing and see what I come across or go into the attic and dig out my pattern drafting book. Couldn't find it when I read your post so it must be up there. If you don't here from me next week send a rescue team!

Annis - good luck with the move. It is hard to yo-yo between two homes (tried that several times) so I hope you'll now get to spend your time in the country and your town house will sell as soon as you put it on the market. Great quilt btw

Lois et al - what happened to the blogs from the old site - did they end in a black hole or are they so well hidden that a newbie can't find them?

Barb - Wendy is not the only one who is envious!!!!!!

Update for end of week - messed up my back-up Husqvarna machine (skipping stitches - again after an expensive repair in late spring when a part was replaced ) but got the Bernina sewing again after running a silk buttonhole thread through the upper tension several times (always downwards!) and it seem to have sorted it for now the so will continue my quil-ket on that. A funny observation - I use the triple zig-zag stitch and used exactly the same setting for the stitch on the Bernina as I had on the Husqvarna but had to adjust as 5mm was obviously not the same in Switzerland in 2006 as it was in Sweden in 1994 and the length had to be adjusted too in order for the stitches look the same. Now back to quilting the machine cover.
Marianne

Barb I'm so jealous!

I'm sitting here..... excuse me, let me swallow this mouth full of m&ms, (here Rita, let me pass you the peanut m&ms. Thanks to Karen we have plenty.)

Now where was I? Oh yes.I was telling my sweetie about all my wonderful friends around the world. You guys are awesome. You make me laugh and say "oooh" and try to reach out to give you a hug. Thanks.

Rosemary my package is in the mail. Let's hope the postal clerk at the west Richland post office typed everything in correctly. I'm not sure she knew there was an England.

Ritzy, love the quilts. They look wonderful. I bet you are getting excited. Your grandson looks like you, handsome devil.

Margarita just do a little a day.

Lotti, you brighten up our retreat with your beautiful pictures. Thanks.

Annis. Your quilt is very nice. Hope your transfer of belongings goes smoothly.

I got the binding done on the art quilt. I'm bored of it now, so will be glad to get it done.

We are going to visit friends this weekend over on the cool side of Washington. I understand wineries and quilt stores are on the agenda. Oh ya!

Barb, I will wave as you drive by!
Take care everyone. Geneva

Oh that will be so much fun Barb! I can't wait to hear all about Sisters.

Hurray - We've made it to Bend, OR. Off to Sisters tomorrow to take a look around then back to Sisters on Saturday to see the show.
Barb

Karen, Your post made me remember all the fun blogs you wrote about your wonderful family vacations. And now there would be babies in matching sunsuits if only we had blogs. I think a Vertural Retreat is the perfect place for a Grandma to show off her beautiful family in matching attire and babies in sunsuits. Have a wonderful time.

Good for you Rosemary!
I haven't been doing much sewing but I am trying to get a couple matching sun suits made for the two grands to wear on vacation. In the meantime I'll just sit here at the retreat and do my wrist exercises.
Rita and Geneva you might want to sit by me as you may remember I am the self proclaimed M and M Grandma! I always have a bowl full here.

Rita, you are not the only one that wants my Dear Jane finished, I still have to wait a while to get back to it, since it is heavy to move around. I do not think that anybody wants me to finish it as much as I wish it was done.

Margarita

Lotti, thanks for the reminder about that youtube tutorial on wrist exercises. I had forgotten about it. I just hope the other one doesn't make anybody too trigger happy! More beautiful quilts from everybody. Margarita, so glad you are getting better. Now will you please get on with that Dear Jane quilt, I have been very patiently waiting for you to finish it so that I can see it! I spent the afternoon with a friend working on catching up with the TQS BOM - didn't quite catch up but got some of the last couple of months' work done. I have such a craving for chocolate after reading the last two pages of this thread but there's none in the house and all the shops are closed here now. Pass me a few M&Ms Geneva will you please? I prefer the peanut ones!

Congratulations. Rosemary
So good Luann

Annis, your DBIL will love his quilt!
And I love that fabric - will be great!

Rosemary, congrats on winning some lovely hand dyed fabric.

Beautiful quilts as usual, Ritzy. I love all of the critters.

Lotti, your photos are amazing!

My DBIL's quilt is pieced. It finished at about 78" x 94". No borders, just fussy cut wildlife alternating with scrappy hourglass blocks, mostly a stash quilt. I purchased a light fabric and the backing. The main fabrics were from an estate sale a few years ago. I didn't make much of a dent in my stash. There's enough of these fabrics left to make another quilt!



And I found a few fabrics so far for the king size quilt. Will have to shop out of town for the rest.



For now I'm packing most of the rest of my quilting stuff and moving it to my country home. I'm hoping to start packing the bookkeeping stuff next week. It's time to get moved after living in 2 homes for 2 years. There's no guarantee that some of the stuff might boomerang back and forth for awhile as our house isn't on the market yet, but I'm hoping to spend most of my time in the country soon. And I have a lot of shopping to do for the retreat center so won't be doing much sewing when I'm in town. There's always night time though so will keep a couple projects handy.

AnnieLu wrote: Wow I wasn't expecting to win

Lois--The critters are not my own design--I don't have those drawing skills unless I am looking at a picture. I went online and searched for coloring book animals. Searched and saved the ones I thought would be easy enough to quilt--the lizard was the first that I found. Then I had to convert them to a size that would fit inside the sized blocks I had. Then it was just a matter of printing them on vellum and sewing them on to the quilts. There are twelve animals on each quilt.

Posy P,
I have some hand dyed fabric with your name on it!!
Thanks for your comments on my blog
Www.letscreatetoday.blogspot.com
Please send your proper name and mailing address
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And, if you view the posts that followed the first giveaway post, you can let me know if you have a fabric preference. I'll see if I still have some of it available.

Looking forward to sending you a package
Luann