Look Ma, I'm Binding

Retreat day #1 was a blast! Victoria picked me up about 9:30 and off we went shopping. We started at Joann's where I found fabric to make curtains for my studio. The fabric was on clearance and instead of paying $13/yard I only paid $4 a yard! Our first quilt shop stop was The Quilt Center. A small shop run in the finished garage of the owner. I bought some fat-eighths in red and white for my quilt and two heart stencils, one is horizontal and one is vertical. I convinced Victoria to purchase both issues of Quilter's Home magazine as the owner had both of them. She started reading them this afternoon and loves the magazine.

Our next stop was Emma's Quilt Cupboard. Now this is a quilt shop worth shopping at! She has everything you could think of in terms of fabric choices, class choices and even special events. She has a Quilt Book Club, a Quilter's Tea and once a month does Quilter's Anonymous - this is a Friday night where you can come and work on any project you'd like and she makes dinner for you. Victoria and I are going to attend the one in December. I found a fun pattern for chalkboard mats called Just For Fun. I think this will be a great gift for my younger nieces and nephews and perhaps a few for my DIL's two-year-old class.

Our final stop was at the Quilter's Stash. This is small shop, but big on choices. I found some more white fabric and some fun polka dot fabric to add to my collection. We also walked through a furniture consignment store. I saw a small table that would have been great in my studio for my laptop, but it was a too wobbly.

After stopping for lunch we came back to my hotel room and started my binding. I forgot to mention the Victoria bought me the Perfect Binding Miter by Glenna. What a great little tool! You can see from my pictures below how well it works. The first one is me holding my first pinned mitered corner on my mom's quilt. The second one shows the start of my hand work on the back of the binding. I've done about 18 inches so far and I'm enjoying it. Victoria has been working on scrap quilt she is making for herself. It's made of floral fabric scraps using crumb blocks and green sashing.




Tonight we treated ourselves to dinner at Bugaboo Creek, yummy! Beef and chocolate, my perfect dinner. Tomorrow Victoria will be coming over after church in the morning and we will work on our projects and watch football all day. Well it's late andI'm off to bed. I've learned a lot today and my brain is tired.