Month: May 2023

Before we could check in to the Retreat center we spent some time in downtown (old town?) San Juan Batista. We had lunch at the Jardines de San Juan. The food there was really good. We sat outside at a big table and enjoyed the sunshine. The restaurant was down the street from the quilt shop.

There weren’t very many people around the town as in it wasn’t packed, but there were plenty of people around.

After lunch we walked around the old part of the town. They had a lot of porches over the sidewalks and a lot of old buildings.

I couldn’t tell if this building was tin, but Julie and SIL #2 said it was decorative brick.

This building is a style that I really like, because of the big windows. I always thought it would be great to have a studio in a building like this, because of the light. I know that light isn’t good for fabric, but I really like working in a nice bright space.

In this building one of the shops was a candy and ice cream store.

There was a San Juan Batista Historic Park. There was a HUGE cactus, which had a lot of cactus apples on it. Julie knew that they weren’t ripe yet and what color they would be when they were ripe.

It’s interesting how many different textures there are on this plant.

There were also a lot of flowers and blooming plants around. I don’t spend a lot of time outside beyond my walks. I seem to enjoy it when I am outside. I also seem to take photos of a lot of flowers and plants.

 

 

One thing we did was put all the projects, both finished and unfinished, up on the wall and take a picture of them. I thought it was a good way to acknowledge all the work we had done and all the progress we made.

Other people made amazing projects as well. That big amazing quilt with all the curves is Mary C’s project, Kaleidobloom, Crafty Nomad Block of the Month project. I have seen the pattern and many people in the guild are working on, but I wasn’t very impressed until I saw the blocks on the wall.

I think there is just a border or two left, but I wish those corners would be built out some more. I’ll have to wait and see before I make some pronouncements beyond: awesome!

Lynette, bagmaker extraordinaire, and my partner in bags for the Ultimate Carry All Bag-a-long. Lynette showed us her project, which uses a bag from Amazon**.

She cuts off the top and adds fabric to the bottom, then boxes the bottom using a 1 inch square. The bonus is that she doesn’t have to insert a zipper and the plastic bags are pretty inexpensive. She is working on developing a project that uses the bottom part of the bag as well. She may do a class or tutorial. I said I would be her tester, so you may see a few of these here later.

Amy worked on her Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern, Metro Twist. Amy’s looks awesome! I love the Tula Pink True Colors dots and stripes she used and want to make one exactly like it. 😉 This is made with the Quick Curve Ruler, a ruler I thought worked very well. Amy talked about the certified teacher from whom she took the class and getting that person to come to the guild. Somehow that morphed into Amy and I teaching the class! If we do it, it’ll be fun. We’ll see.

Anna finished a Kaffe Fassett quilt she has been working on for awhile. It looks a little like a watercolor quilt. Remember those? She has a goal of only working on UFOs this year. This was encouraged by the President’s challenge, which is to work on (and maybe finish?) projects that have not been worked on in over 6 months. I plan to finish some of the bags from the 2018 Crafty Gemini Organizer Club. Remember I gathered all the pieces and parts recently? I just haven’t done anything about it yet.

Melinda and Mary M were working together to make a quilt for Mary M’s daughter. They used an Elizabeth Hartman pattern called Allie Owl**. The owls were quite large and will make a lap quilt. The pattern shows brighter fabric; these fabrics look nice, too. I was really amazed at the size.

Some of my blocks are under the owls.

Deb is a new member and this was her first retreat. Where I worked on 3+ projects, Deb worked on one project and she ended up with a quilt top.

I haven’t seen most of the fabrics she used in awhile. Some of them looked like aboriginal style fabric. This pattern doesn’t look like one that I have seen, but there are some elements that look familiar. The zigzag sashing looks like a Streak of Lighting quilt, but the blocks don’t fit with that design. It’s definitely interesting.

Melinda, Bonnie and Julie  have their projects above Amy’s Metro Twist. Melinda’s blue and brown piece will be part of the San Mateo County Fair climate change challenge. It depicts the amount of rain in sort of a graph format that her hometown got this winter.

Bonnie has been working on the circle piece for a few months. She had some acrylic templates made by Tap Plastics and has been steadily making progress. It looks good.

The piece with the fuchsia in the middle to the right of the circle piece is the back of a quilt Julie is making. She wrote a post about it recently. This back goes on the Stitch Happens quilt I talked about recently. I really like the little HSTs surrounded by the fuchsia.

Maria’s climate challenge is on the left of this picture.  I didn’t have a chance to talk to Maria about her piece, but I will later.

Alison’s blocks are underneath it . They are from the Tula Pink City Sampler book**. She is using some of Denyse Schmidt’s fabrics she got in some swaps.

You get a peek at another one of my blocks.

It is amazing how much we got done in a short amount of time. I love seeing everyone’s projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.