Mary Lou Retreat Finishes Up on a Happy Note with New Friends and Happy Story Quilts Coming Along Nicely

Sandy from Bozeman finishes her background for her Italy quilt...the colors are perfect and she looked so pretty in the middle too! Sandy is as pretty inside as she is outside.

Sandy;s quilt story starts to develop as we talk about warms and cools and tones and clear colors.

NOTE- I would like to suggest you click on OLD POSTS a couple of times since this is a new blog and see the progressions of this retreat...it is fun to see where they began and where they got to in development and what fun we had...
There is going to be a wonderful array of buildings all across this Italian story about her son, husband and she while visiting Florence. Her son attended school there.

Lissa gets the trunk of her tree cut out and her person placed to begin her story

Lissa's girl (herself) starts to take shape

Lissa says "here is to a great time"-isn't she cute?

Sue made her fairy gifts for everyone. These little birds had paper legs she painted and buttons and they were adorable!

Aija added her cruise ship to her piece and now will be cutting out fabric to put it into the quilt.

Wendy and Sandy work on a surprise quilt for their good friend.

Here Wendy works on the sunshine for the birthday gift quilt

Dawn and Aija talk about process and new friendships

On the last day everyone hurries to get things done before they fly home.

Here Sue shows off the colors and clever piecing of her blocks. Sue is a wonderful artist.

Sue's corn and parts of her Idaho potatoes

Sue's wonderful tree

Sandy works on birds and also her Grandmother quilt which is going to be quite wonderful

Lynette sewing on her sashing

Lynette is still imagining what she will do her story about-perhaps herself in the middle with her store name on the outside (pieced)

Sandy working on her diary...no wait, directions or else her drawings....

Dawn's girl begins to take shape in the quilt and she has feathers and flowers coming out of the top of the hat...so cute

Sue's work space with part of her breakfast....

Linda working hard on her piece

A hoochy garden worm becomes a reality

Mary Lou and Lynette discuss what the question might be?

Sandy begins to cut her strata

This is someone's stash and I like how wonderful my plaids looked mixed in there

This little dress that Linda made is a tea towel that fits over your stove in the kitchen-it is so cute...I am not sure my photography does it justice

Mary Lou loves her wonderful friend Laurie who cooked and cleaned the whole retreat. Laurie is the president (she may not know this) of the cupcakes-the cupcakes is a group of friends who started meeting 12 years ago on Lopez Island and now meet on Whidby- we have been through births, deaths, marriages and everything else in between and remained loving friends through the years.

Here Sandy and Mary get ready to say "goodbye: for now....

Sandi looks to see how her story will fit onto her quilt canvas....She is really good with color...and ideas too

Here the three Sandy's pose with Mary Lou (one of them is spelled Sandi)
It got kind of confusing anytime I called Sandy!

I am ending with showing off a stash bag of Laurie's with my name in it.... :0)
Great fun and color with these little things!
All in all we had a wonderful time and made new friends who will keep in touch I am sure. Everything this week has been positive, affirming, creative, happy and fun.
Now I am going to take a nice nap tomorrow after I put away irons and boards and dishes and plates and a million other things........phew.