Forever Quilting 4 You

October brings on another Island Batik challenge, sponsored by ByAnnie.com. ByAnnie.com has been so generous to the Island Batik ambassadors by allowing us to go to their website and pick out any pattern we wanted to make for this month’s challenge. How does one choose what to make with so many bags to choose from on ByAnnie.com? Sometimes I just look and look and don’t really see anything I want to make. So, I stopped and thought about it, wondering “what will I do with a ByAnnie bag that I select for my project?” With that in mind I was certain that I would see something that piqued my interest. And sure enough, I picked a bag called Catch All Caddy 2.0. Who doesn’t need a bag to carry all their tools to their next quilting retreat!?

Speaking of retreats, I went to one in September, and boy, it was a doozie! There were 2 retreats scheduled, back-to-back. I’m not quite sure why I let my sissy influence me, but she talked me into signing up for both retreats when she was at a retreat at the same place in April. The September retreat turned out to be 7 days long. I usually don’t like taking my projects out of the house to work on but with this week-long retreat I needed something to keep me busy, so I decided to take this month’s project to work on. There was a bonus to this 7-day retreat, we woke up every morning to a beautiful view of Mt Shasta, which still had a little bit of snow on its peaks.

Island Batik lets their ambassadors pick the fabrics they want to use for their projects and this time I chose the Daisy May collection by Kathy Engle. This collection’s fabrics are rich with oranges, teals and a splash of rainbow colors. Even though I welcomed working with “tranquil” fabrics for last month’s project, I found myself being drawn to the rich colors again. I picked out the 3 fabrics I wanted to use, and to complete the project, I needed some additional items. Graciously, one of our sponsors – ByAnnie.com – sent those items to me in the mid-year shipment of free goodies from Island Batik.

Having everything I needed for this month’s challenge – the ByAnnie.com pattern, Island Batik fabrics, and all other supplies – I packed up my project and headed out the door with my sissy to join our long-time friend, Lorri, as she was driving us to the retreat. The three of us are known in some quilting circles as the trifecta, and more recently as “a walnut.” This first came about because my sissy and I often think about the same things at the same time, and often comment about how we “share a brain,” and how “two brains are better than one!” This leads to us acting silly, which then turns into uncontrollable laughter, and ultimately results in filling our “heart tanks” for many weeks to come. And sometimes we laugh so hard we have tears running down our legs. During one of these laughing sessions, it dawned on me that brains look like walnuts! I told sissy this, and then we said the same thing at the same time – “my brain is half of the walnut and yours is the other half, making our brains ‘one walnut’!” Then at this retreat, out of nowhere I figured out how the three of us made up “a whole walnut, shell and all!” Lorri is the shell that holds us together, and we are bound to stick together for another 60 years, if that is remotely possible. LOL! Or as silly sisters say, ROTFLOL!!!

Ok, back to heading out the door for the retreat. As we watched Lorri pack her (small) SUV with more than enough goodies for the weeklong retreat, my sissy and I wondered how she manages to get everything into the back of the SUV… and marvel at how she does it every single trip with room to spare. With everything packed and ready to go, this trifecta/walnut “gets on the road again” for the 4.5-hour drive (which we’ve done before), talking and laughing the entire time as we reminisce about the days of yore.

Once we arrived at the McCloud Mercantile Inn, we grabbed our lunches and then set out to empty the car. With the help of a wagon and 3 large Tutto bags (where our machines were safely packed) we managed to get everything to the room in one trip. Once we organized the room and picked our beds, it was time to get to the sewing room and set up our spots. We were greeted by about 30 ladies with hugs and happy faces (Dana Earl). The trifecta’s/walnut’s spots were at a set of tables that were very close to one another, which would keep the trifecta/walnut intact. We had plenty of space, good lighting and prizes waiting for us at our spots.

I started the weeklong retreat with a bang and finished up a different project that I had started at home. I then proceeded to start working on the Catch All Caddy 2.0, but quickly realized that I didn’t bring a big enough rotary cutter. So, we headed out to a quilt store in Shasta City. Usually going to a new quilt store is exciting, except when it is packed wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with stuff! So much so that we couldn’t even make it through the isles, even one at a time! It was musty too, and the walls started to close in on me! I bought my rotary cutter and some blades and got out of the store lickity-split!

Once we got back to the retreat, I was ready to get started on October’s challenge. I read through all of the instructions and made labels for each piece of fabric and stabilizer that I would be cutting. As I began to cut the fabric, I made sure to apply the labels to each piece so when it came time for the assembly, I would know exactly which piece to grab next.

I adhered the fabric to the stabilizer with Free Fuse, which is a powder-like substance that is sprinkled between the fabric and the stabilizer, then ironed to make them stick together. This will keep the pieces from moving around when I’m ready to quilt them together. If you have not yet tried Free Fuse by Alex Anderson, I highly recommend that you give it a try – it totally changed my mind about quilting at home.

With all my pieces quilted I cut them to the right size and started the assembly process. By following the ByAnnie.com instructions and marking them off as each step is complete, you’ll have a better chance of having your project come out perfectly! With the handles made and set aside, I then worked on the binding on the pockets and the top of the Catch All Caddy. ByAnnie.com has the assembly details worked out so well that the bag goes together like a dream. Adding the quilted pockets was a breeze, too, but when it came to doing the inner multi-folded pockets, it was a bit of a challenge.

With 3 or 4 days of the retreat behind us, I started to not feel very well. My progress on the bag started to slow down because I needed to take more breaks than usual when I sew at home. After getting the inner pockets made and set aside, I decided to take a nap and regroup before continuing with my project. After napping, I felt refreshed and returned to working on my project. I got the inner pockets attached to the section they belonged on and realized that I had made a few mistakes with my measurements. But not to worry, even with the wrong measurements the inner pockets went in with ease; no one will ever know that I made a mistake. I won’t tell if you don’t!

Now for the final construction of the bag, I put the front, back and sides together. This too was a bit of a challenge, because I was feeling worse as the days went on. I was able to get the bag assembled and started to add the final two bindings, but as time went on, I realized that I was having more trouble than usual because I wasn’t feeling good. I decided I needed to lay down again, so I excused myself and went back to the room to lay down. I had no idea that it would be the last time I’d be in the sewing room, at my machine working on my project. I stayed in bed for the rest of the retreat, getting sicker and sicker with each new day.

On the last day of the retreat, the other 2/3rds of the trifecta/walnut packed up my stuff in the sewing room and prepared to head home. Lorri and my sissy packed the car, and we headed out to get coffee and breakfast for the long drive home. I was out of breath and exhausted. This isn’t that unusual for me because I have asthma, advanced COPD and emphysema. After about an hour in the car I started to feel a bit better, and with each mile I continued to feel better and better. At that point I started thinking that there had to be something in the old, refurbished hotel room that was agitating my lungs causing me to have more and more difficulty breathing; this was one of the worst asthma flare-ups I have had in a long time. Leaving the hotel turned out to be the best thing for me. By the time we got to my house (4.5 hours later) I was about 85% better with a little pain remaining in my chest because of my lungs working so hard to catch a breath.

My Catch All Caddy binding still needs to be finished. It should only take a few more hours to finish this month’s challenge, and then I’ll take pictures and post them to my blog so I can share it with all of you!

So, what did I learn this month?

Working with a ByAnnie.com pattern is always amazing. Even though I didn’t get the measurements right it still came out great.

Having 2/3rds of the trifecta/walnut take care of me when I was at my worst was the very best! And as a bonus, the “other half of my brain” knew exactly how I like my coffee but decided to change it up by bringing me the most delicious HOT coffee ever instead of my usual iced coffee! Who knew that I would fall in love with HOT coffee!!! It was probably all the caramel that she had the baristas add to the coffee!

Making new friends at a retreat and getting a teaching job out of it was a blessing I didn’t see coming. I realized that my sissy is really good at building me up and opening doors for me to share my love for what I do!

One of the best parts of the retreat was that I only gained 1 pound, even with all the goodies that were on hand, probably because I had to walk so far to get to the bathroom! I got my steps in for sure!

Thank you to our sponsors for making this challenge possible:

Island Batik

ByAnnie.com

Aurifil Thread

Schmetz Needles

Free Fuse

Until next time what is on your sewing table today?

Victoria aka Tori