I'm so tired!

Well my sewing weekend is done and dusted!  We had a lovely time in a beautiful spot with a great group of ladies so what more could you ask?  Only problem now is my eyes seem a little sore and my throat is a bit husky, seems that when you sew until 12.30am and then sit and talk for another hour on top of talking and laughing all day, it takes it out of you! Who'd have thought?

Anyway we went to a house in Wallaroo on the Esplanade at North Beach overlooking the beach:

Unfortunately the tide was out when I took this photo!  We were a group of six being Kerrie (my sister-in-law who organised the getaway), her neighbour Doreen, a longtime friend Sue C, embroidery machine buddies of Kerrie's Pauline and Beverley and myself!

Sue C and I arrived a little after the others on the Friday night in time to enjoy a lovely home cooked minestrone and crusty bread on the balcony. It was tough I have to tell you!  The other ladies arrived earlier that day and Kerrie and Doreen cooked our beautiful meal. All of them managed to fit in a trip to the local quilt shops in Kadina as well before Sue and I arrived and they were all set up and sewing well by the time we got there! Work does get in the way sometimes!

Anyway we all had different things we were doing. Sue C hadn't sewn for a very long time and decided to dig out her oldest projects and try and finish them so she won the 'Oldest UFO'. However she finished it that night, 30 years after she started it. It was a gorgeous cow apron for her Mum.  Better late than never! Here she is modelling it for us!

Sue also made two tracksuits for her Dad, mostly finished two stuffed rabbits (minus the stuffing) and made two ribbon edged baby cloths. In the process she learned her sewing machine had an overlock stitch and discovered she could make it into a freearm. Sue felt like she had a new machine and was definitely the dark horse of the weekend as far as finishing projects went!

Kerrie was working on a quilt top from a book with the worst instructions but we eventually nutted it out, along with embroidering some hand towels and making a back pack.  I wish I had taken more photos but I was busy sewing. I think next year we will have to have a wrap up photo showing all our achievements! Doreen was working on a calico and lace quilt but was led astray by Beverley who made her some machine embroidered butterflies and other bits and pieces and then generously spent a lot of time helping her make some for herself. In the process I think Doreen was so sold on the embroidering that now she's after a machine for her birthday in June!

Pauline was working on some machine embroidery projects both for her grandchildren and also some orders for towels and a wedding pillow and managed to get almost everything she wanted to do done! Beverley did do some of the project she brought but didn't seem committed to it and was having more fun helping Doreen. After some serious nagging from Pauline and threats of having to walk home if she didn't finish at least three more pieces of her project Bev came through at the very end and was allowed to go home in Pauline's car!  Now she only has 7 more to go out of 30 and she'll be finished.

I finished three of my star blocks, one of my Quilting Block Swaps for March and made myself a tote bag to take to work. I did lose a couple of hours on Saturday morning as I had a lovely walk on the beach and then took Sue into the quilt shops to buy a couple of things she left behind but who doesn't mind a trip to the quilt shop. We found a couple of projects for Sue to put away for next year!  I was disappointed I didn't finish my other two blocks but I find foundation piecing takes forever! Anyway here's a photo of my bag:

We've decided to do it all again next March and I've already decided I'm going to take my scraps and make scrappy blocks until I run out of scraps.  We'll see if that happens I guess!

Now, I'm off to bed to rest my tired eyes and throat!