Monday Meandering 7 - 17 - 2023

What a great week!  I had a wonderful, productive time at the retreat.  There were eight of us ready to quilt our hearts out.  We were paired up to make dinner one of the four nights. Breakfast and lunch were on our own. There were no quilt stores near the location so we pretty much sewed from getting up until going to bed at night with breaks for meals. Before I share retreat pictures I'll share my goals for this past week and next week. 

7/10/23

✅Finish stitching on needlepoint -- photo to come soon

✅Go to retreat and enjoy sewing and friends

✅Finish all Flower Song blocks, put the center together — didn’t sew it together yet

Make progress on ✅Two by Two, ✅String Bean, and ✅30 Something blocks

And this week's goals: 

7/17/23

Bind Moose in Winter quilt

Read a book 

Pick up the studio especially the front of the cutting table

Find backing and quilt the String Bean Blocks 

Have fun with Sharon who is visiting at the end of the week 

Here are photos of a couple of the goals I worked on at retreat.

I couldn't turn these Two by Two blocks into a top because I was missing one of the white rectangles for the last block.  But here is one of the many photos I took trying to balance the light and dark blocks through out the quilt. I think there are some more changes coming to this one. I forget which color I have left. 

I think I'll call this one Floral String Bean quilt.  It's ready to be quilted. I fussed with the Two by Two top trying to get the darks and lights evenly spaced. This one I just laid out on my bed and called it done.  I hope to get it quilted some time this week. I think I have a floral fabric that will have enough for the backing. 

This wasn't on my goal list but I threw these blocks into the car in case I ran out of things to work on.  I was able to sew them together without a lot of block moving.  I made the blocks a while ago. I used a navy blue dimple as the center string which gives it a strong geometric look to it.  Sadly, I ran out of fabric so this is the size the quilt will be. (Blocks are 7" unf. I stitched them on paper from a small phone book.) I have several left that may be put on the back.

I did make progress on the 30 Something blocks. I think all of the units are done for the center blocks which still need to be sewn together. I still have to make some of the border blocks.  Not sure when I'll get back to this one but I did make great progress on it. 

I didn't take very many photos of the retreat but here are a few two of them. 

Serenity Cottage home during our retreat. 

Bea and Dorothy sharing their lamb blocks. 

Yikes!  I really didn't take many pictures of the facilities.  If you are interested you can check out more about it and see pictures at Serenity Cottage. It was originally set up as a scrapbooking space but works as well for quilters.  I was invited to go as a replacement for someone who couldn't make it this year. I hope there is an open spot next year! 

The day before I left I stopped at a friend's house to pick out some decorator fabric she was ready to move out of her space. She makes table runners, ironing board covers and other crafty items with decorator fabrics. She had 2 big boxes for me to go through. I was picking out fabric that would be suitable to make walker bags. Virginia Star Quilters Guild will be using the fabric to make the bags. I hope we can make some kits and I can move this stuff out of my house. 

Now back to our Scandinavia trip. Last week I shared our first day in Kiel, Germany. On to the second day -- a walking tour of the city and a brewery tour.  Again, I didn't go wild taking photos but several I did take I found interesting. 

This is a statue of Peter III of Russia. He was born in Kiel and became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (the area Kiel is in) at the age of 11. When he was 14 he became the heir apparent of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia.  At the age of 17 in 1745, he was married to Sophia. (Yikes is all I can say!) He became the Emperor of Russia on January 5, 1762 and was overthrown by his wife on July 9, 1762.  She became Catherine the Great. You can read more about him and his life on Wikipedia.  He had connections with many of the royal houses around the Baltic Sea area. This statue is in Kiel honoring him.     

I thought the the chair and hassock was interesting. Yep feet of a bird of some sort.

Most of the towns and cities we visited had lots of bicycles and lanes especially for them.  We had to keep a sharp look out for bikes whizzing by and remember to not wander into their lanes.  

We walked by many interesting buildings and areas in the city. Our next stop was at a pub. (I have no idea what the place we went to was called so I'm using the well known concept of a pub.)  It looked similar to a pub except it had big vats as we walked in. There was more apparatus in the basement that we were able to see but I don't remember much about it. 

We sat in a back area and had 3 pitchers of beer to taste and giant pretzels.  

Not being a beer fan I enjoyed the pretzel.  (And, no that wasn't my beer. I had one sip of the lightest beer and then drank water!) 

Somehow we were sitting at a table with just 2 other people, most held 8.  We realized there were a few extra pretzels left. I asked if we could take them with us and was able to take two back to the ship. I know we didn't need to bring any food to the ship but they were so very good. (I did nibble on one off and on for the rest of the days on board. But we decided to take what was left home with us. Because they were going stale we decided to make croutons with it in our air fryer. YUM!) 

By the way you only have to be 16 to drink beer in Germany. In 2020 Germany ranked third in per capita beer consumption in Europe. (Hum, I wonder how America ranks? You can check out world wide beer consumption here. Scroll down to find the per capita consumption of beer world wide. Did the results surprise you?)

One of the cool things about Kiev is that the cruise docks were within walking distance to the city. After our beer tasting we went to a big craft store thinking  maybe it was a fabric store.  It was quite amazing at how big it was and the variety of craft supplies you could find there. They had a bit of precut fabrics (probably meters not yards,) but I decided not to purchase any.  I did buy a wonderfully soft sock yarn and a wooden whale decoration that is sitting on our mantle. I'll try to remember to show you them later. 

I took several pictures of the Kiel Week logo. (artwork? I'm not sure what to call it.) I liked how some of it used elements from a quilt design. No, I don't intend to make any quilts based on the artwork. Maybe I'll utilize the color scheme someday. Notice the beautiful sail boats on the right side panel.  

Our next port of call was Estonia.  Pat's mother's family is from Lithuania so he was sorry we didn't have a stop there. But Estonia was the next country over from Lithuania. Look for our time in Tallinn, Estonia next Monday. 

I'm linking up with my regular Linky Parties:

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing

To Do Tuesday 

I'm giving myself a day or two off from quilting this week but then I hope to get right back in finishing up some quilts. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie