The Cobblers' Kids Have No Shoes

My Friday Bee (Patchwork Friends) made purple and green nine-patches for me las t Fall when I announced that I was going to be a new grandma! I put the blocks together at the Galveston retreat, and am nearly finished quilting it with an overall freehand feather meader. There is a pretty 30's style fabric on the back from the HELLO BETTY, Chloe's Closet line of fabric from Moda. What a coincidence that my grand-daughters name is Chloe!!! She is growing so much, and I haven't seen her since Christmas. Some of my Bee friends say I am flunking "Grandma" because this will be the first quilt poor little Chloe is going to get from her Grandma! Something about the Cobblers' kids have no shoes!

One of the "Things I want to Do/Try in 2009" items was to "Make silver DANGLE earrings". My buddy Linda gave all of us lessons in different jewelry making techniques - at the same time! Bless her heart - she was teaching 3 different techniques and we were all asking questions at the same time about our project. I think we wore her out!

On one side of the room, Sharon was stringing beads making several strands to go with a shell type necklace. Barb was working on a wire bracelet with Swarovski Crystals, and I was working on several pairs of earrings. I think they turned out pretty cool!
After the earrings I saw Linda some of her Peyote stich bracelets. There were so Anthropologie. Anyway, then she showed me how to get started with that, and I completed a couple of inches worth that last evening.

April Showers - At Galveston Beach

Spent another week on retreat. I am so lucky to live in an area where so many 'quilty' things are happening. I'm also fortunate to have so many friends that are also quilters. The FMLC were on retreat all last week at a beachhouse on Jamaica Beach in Galveston. It is an awesome place if you are in the area. We did have rain & grey skies the whole week. The sun literally came out as we were pulling out of the driveway to leave! We almost decided to stay another day- but I had to get back home since my in-laws were visiting from Tulsa.

We worked on Sharons floor quilt as a group effort. She picked some great pinks and greens. Her sewing cabinet that she bought at Houston Market last fall is that green color! This floorcloth was a whopping 50+inches so it kinda took up the whole floor, so the rest of us decided to practice on hers and do ours at home (well, OK, the rest of us still hadn't decided what fabrics to use for ours!).

We brought lots of projects to work on, not all of them were quilty projects. I managed to get several t-shirt quilt tops pieced and put together a top from 9-patches that were given to me by my Friday bee (Patchwork Friends) made of purples and greens. I also put in some time working on my oldest daughters Double Wedding Ring quilt - the top is nearly complete, but not quite. BUT, I also got some beading lessons from Linda. I (with Linda's help) made a couple of pairs of earrings and started a peyote stitch bracelet. Don't see any pictures of those, so I'll have to take some and post those later.

Oh, I finished up that BAMBOO Quilt and gave it to my nephew and his new wife as a gift on Saturday. So it already has a new home. The wedding was at a Unitarian church and the entire back wall was glass windows overlooking lovely gardens, trees, and bi\rds flying around. It made a lovely backdrop to their special occasion.

Looks like Lindsey managed to get a picture of Jon and me after the wedding.