Coeur D'Alene Retreat

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to be invited to spend the weekend with fellow longarmer Ma, from Grand Forks. (See blog entry Jan 30). She and her husband have a time share at Arrowpoint Resort on Lake Coeur D'Alene, and it was the perfect opportunity for us to shop, get to know one another, and encourage one another in our longarming adventures.

We shopped in Spokane on our way down last Friday, spent Saturday and Sunday at the resort, then shopped again our our way back through Spokane on Monday. It was great!

Ma cooked up some of her Thai specialties, and I came home with a bunch of food from the Asian Market! In addition to eating and learning to cook, we watched DVD's, walked, swam, and practiced our thread paths on white boards.

The resort was 1st class! I'm not used to such luxury! Each suite had a murphy bed, fireplace, tv, nice kitchen, deck with a bar-b-q, washer/dryer, and gorgeous master bathrooms with 2 sinks and lots of storage! And let's not forget the underground parking!


Notice the photo of the amazing house built on a rock, with no yardwork!

Thanks, Ma, for a great weekend!

Scrap Happy

Here is a photo of a scrap quilt by Olga S. Scraps are her signature. She loves them! Her daughter said "Mom, this is you!" Olga chose one of my simplest designs, as she likes to use the fluffier poly batting, and most pantographs are just too dense for that type of batting.

This quilt is unique in the way that it was constructed simultaneously along with another quilt! Some people use bits of fabric to start and end their piecing, so the threads don't get sucked down into the bobbin case, but instead of wasting her thread on that, she pieced together her squares in between steps of piecing another quilt top! How clever! You have to be pretty organized to do this, I don't know if I will ever be that capable!

A friend, Donna, recently shared an awesome website she found on the internet belonging to Bonnie Hunter, another Queen of scrap quilting. Here is the link: http://www.quiltville.com/ . Bonnie shares alot of great info on how to organize and use up your scraps, and there are a ton of free patterns as well. It's worth the browse!