A Special Edition Retreat for Ovarian Cancer!

When one of your sewing sisters receives an unexpected and serious diagnosis what do you do? Whatever you can to support her and your community, that's what. I like to stick with what I know (yes we already made a lovely quilt to keep her cozy at chemo), so this weekend I'm hosting a special edition Quilt By the Bay for the members of her three stitch groups.

A growing group of friends have signed up for the Ovarian Cancer Walk of Hope taking place in September. We are doing this because we have the #ladyballs to take action; to support our friend and the thousands of Canadian women who are currently in treatment and need support plus the thousands more who will receive this frightening diagnosis in the future.

Our non-profit retreat on Saturday will result in a hefty donation in support of our team. Because everyone is paying a premium to attend (and will receive a charitable receipt for a portion of their registration fee), I thought I'd reach out to some of my industry contacts to make this an extra awesome & celebratory day with goody bags!. Everyone kindly jumped in with fabulous items for us, plus a few extras. That's where YOU come in!

This Saturday, during retreat, I'll be posting on IG. There are a couple of extra goody bags and a special donation from me that will be up for grabs in exchange for a donation to our team.  I hope you'll check in to @poppyprint to see what we are up to and share words of support for our pal, who is rocking her way through chemo on the way to surgery later this summer.

To give you a little teaser, here is a list of our generous sponsors (mostly wonderful Canadian companies), to whom I say a heartfelt thank you!

Firstly, a huge thanks to the friendly folks at TrendTex Fabrics for supplying our actual goody bags, plus lovely fabric treats and other fun items! Located in Port Coquitlam, BC, TrendTex is a leading Wholesale Distributor in Canada for quilt shops and manufacturers. They are proud to represent some of the best fabric companies in the world such as Benartex, Cotton + Steel, Hoffman, Michael Miller, Moda, RJR Fabrics and Stof. 

And speaking of RJR Fabrics, they've sent us a gorgeous brand new Cotton and Steel print by Rashida in the Ovarian Cancer colour of support (teal). This fabric isn't even in stores yet!

  

Canadian companies Emmaline Bags (the best source for your bag hardware needs and the awesome FREE Retreat Bag pattern), Camelot Fabrics out of Montreal and N. Jefferson (local wholesale distributor that has been so supportive of me and my business) have all happily participated.

And finally, my publisher Martingale sent some fabulous books. I appreciate that they are always up for supporting their authors!

Tune in on IG this Saturday, or feel free to donate to our walking team anytime! Help us help Ovarian Cancer Canada to support patients, their families and the search for a cure.

Structural Improv Weekend openings

Anyone up for a fun weekend away with other creatives? There are a couple of spots left in my two-day Structural Improv workshop on Friday and Saturday October 21-22. The workshop is part of an annual event on beautiful Denman Island known as the Creative Threads Conspiracy. You can find all of the course information here.  There are still accommodations available on the island - check it out! It's the perfect time for a mid-autumn creative retreat.

Here is some of the work I've created using my Improv Under the Influence piecing technique. With a two-day workshop, we have time to go beyond re-creating my Temperature Check pattern (bottom two pictures in the mosaic). We'll use the improv units as structural elements in  your very own original quilt design.

Improv Under the Influcence work by Poppyprint

1. Icy Pillow by Poppyprint, 2. Variegated Threads by Poppyprint, 3. Ice Road Quilt, 4. The Five by Poppyprint, 5. Chess On the Steps by Poppyprint, 6. Improv Under the Influence by Poppyprint

Light of May, 2014 (shown at QuiltCon 2015 in the Michael Miller challenge exhibit)

If you happen to live on Vancouver Island, this is a great opportunity for a relatively inexpensive weekend away. Check it out! I hope you'll join me on Denman.

Pouch Production and Sewing Beyond Cotton

While at our annual Loon Lake retreat in mid-November, several of us got busy trying out some of the awesome projects in Krista Fleckenstein's new book Beyond Cotton. Krista is super clever and an amazing artist to boot, so she's got some incredible ideas on how to expand our work beyond cotton just like the title says.

I started out making pouches using Krista's easy pattern. I didn't have leather on hand with me at retreat, so I substituted Craft-Tex (a C&T paper product that is totally washable and strong like leather!). I'd pre-washed and crinkled my Craft-Tex before retreat, hoping that I'd be able to use it for some project or other.  These pouches will be gifted at Christmastime. I was nervous using chunky metal zips, but I didn't break a single needle and I'm so pleased with how nicely the zipper ends appear once the pouch is turned right-side out. Plus, I got to use some of my treasured Japanese linen collection!

I made these smaller versions after returning home and getting my hands on some lovely upholstery-grade vegan leather (otherwise known as vinyl).

I also followed Krista's pattern to make leather boxes (again using Craft-Tex) and got to try riveting thanks to friends that had brought along the hardware and tools. There was a lot of banging on this retreat as we were riveting all the things with hammers!  This is a very tiny box, so to avoid confusion I stamped exactly what might fit in it onto the bottom of the box *wink*.

Finally, Krista had sent along a few leather cuff kits for us to try our hand at punching a pattern of holes and then using them to embroider a design with floss. I was feeling a bit lazy, so I stole Katie's carefully prepared design template and copied her bracelet completely.  Here's a photo with all of our lovely leather cuffs!

I've since visited a leather supply store here in Vancouver. I must say, it is not a cheap endeavour. Keep an eye out for free leather couches on Craigslist!! There may also be some industrial felt winging it's way to me right now for some more fun projects out of the book. Next, I want to try some stamping on canvas. Check out Krista's sweet tutorial and make your own wrapping paper this year.

Thank you for so much fun, Krista!! 

Where Pat and I Chat about Sweden & Retreats

I was so excited when Pat Sloan asked if I would like to be a guest on Pat Sloan Radio again so that we could talk in more detail about retreats and the Retreat Host Manual e-book that I'm working on. Pat found out that I'd just been to Sweden, so she wanted to talk about my teaching abroad experience as well. You can listen to our chat here.

I'm just now going through my photos from Sweden and hope to get a couple of posts together before I leave on my annual Loon Lake retreat on Saturday. Wish me luck - I still have to sort out what I'm going to work on for 5 days...so many unfinished projects and new ideas.

Here are some of the lovely quilters I met at the Rikstacket meeting in Upplands Vasby (just outside Stockholm) and their in-progress Temperature Check quilts!

This is the sweet group of women that took my workshop

 in the northern town of Pitea (pronouced Pit-ay-o) on the 65th parallel. My friend Stina (far left) worked so hard to organize my visit....wait until you see the quilt that she, Marica and Louise made for me!

More coming soon!

Selvage and Stars

It's another day on the Make It, Take It blog tour which means more chances to win your own copy of the book! Two more lovely friends and contributors are sharing. Cindy is giving away a digital edition as well as a hard copy. Check out her fun selvage project plus a couple of extra sweet makes from the book here.  A machine mat is super useful at retreat; not only can it help with vibration on long banquet tables (for those of us that like to sew at turbo speed), it also allows you to quickly slide your machine to one side, clearing table space for cutting & organizing.

Photo Brent Kane for Martingale, Inc. All rights reserved.

I just love the handy vinyl pockets on Cindy's cute machine mat!

Also up today is the prolifically talented Lynne Goldsworthy of Lilysquilts (yup, her name is Lynne, not Lily, however I'm sure she answers to both).  Although she lives miles away in the UK, I got to meet her and her family a couple of years ago when I travelled over for the Fat Quarterly retreat.  With four busy teenagers I don't know where she finds the time, but Lynne is a member of the Fat Quarterly team, she supports many publications and fabric manufacturers with her gorgeous traditionally-inspired modern quilt designs and even makes all the quilts herself!  I'm so happy she was able to share her Lonestar Circle quilt in the book....beautifully made with luscious Oakshott shot cottons.

Photo Brent Kane for Martingale, Inc. All rights reserved.

Shame Lynne couldn't be in Seattle for the photo shoot. Instead you get me holding her quilt! One day we'll have to figure out a way to get her over to this side of the Atlantic.  I took her quilt with me on a recent trip to the Arctic and took a fun photo for her - have a look at her blogpost and don't forget to leave a comment there to win a digital copy.

If you can read Spanish (or like a quirky translation) then check out this fun post. My book was reviewed by the lovely Alejandra in Mexico! I cannot tell you how much I love the title of her post: Escapadas con Amigas.  I love Mexican food and always serve homemade salsa fresca at my day retreats; perhaps I should consider renaming Quilt By the Bay. Escapadas con Amigas sounds like the best day ever! After all, isn't that what retreats are all about? Escaping the laundry and dishes to sew with girlfriends?

Big News - of the BOOK VARIETY!

Keeping secrets is really hard work. When there are 12 women involved, all of whom blog and actively participate on social media, it is almost impossible. So, just in case you haven't yet caught wind of my exciting news, here goes:

I WROTE A BOOK!

MARTINGALE PUBLISHED THE BOOK!

THE BOOK WILL SHIP IN MID-FEBRUARY, 2015!

The best part about this book project? I got a lot of help from my friends. You know that retreats are my thing; I've been running a day-retreat business for almost 10 years and hosting 25 women on a 4-day annual retreat  for 8 years.  My dream for this book was to bring together a virtual retreat of my talented online pals (80% of whom I've had the pleasure of retreating with in real life!) and to share our ideas for useful projects that will help get you and your sewing stuff from home to retreat.  Plus, I wanted there to be a bunch of great patterns to sew once you got there! I've even included a fun group activity for an afternoon sew-in with friends at home if a sleepover isn't in the cards for you just yet.

The amazing people at Martingale worked with me to refine my proposal and I think we've come up with a really unique concept book full of gorgeous projects that everyone will want to make! There is truly something for everyone here. I can't wait to share more with all of you in the new year. For now, thanks to the gorgeous cover, you can have a preview of what to expect inside:

Martingale is based just outside of Seattle, an easy 3-hour drive south for me, so I've been to visit a few times. The staff are incredibly supportive and kind and their offices are so lovely - as you might expect there are gorgeous quilts hanging everywhere!  Perhaps one of the most fun and unexpected parts of the project was being able to participate in the photo shoot.  You know photography is a bit part of my life, but I've never had the chance to work with a true professional before.  For this, and for absolutely all of the aspects of Make It, Take It, including concept development, design, editing and layout, I feel so fortunate for their expert guidance.

Now that I've seen the book listed on Amazon and had the thrill of knowing the publisher likes the projects enough to feature them on the cover of Martingale's latest trade magazine, it is all becoming a reality that feels so satisfying and exciting.

In the new year, I'll be able to introduce you to all of the amazing designers who helped me fill this book with exciting projects. All of them will get to share their own projects and tell you a bit about their designs.  It'll be a blog hop, so of course, there will be books to give away! 

I wish we didn't have to wait so long, but the busy Christmas season is just around the corner, then many of us will be off to QuiltCon.  Let's face it, I've been waiting almost 2 years to hold this baby in my hands, so few more months isn't going to break me.....I don't think. Wink.

Uhm, You Missed a Spot

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Thormanby Island again. My generous friend A invited our little gang of island-hopping quilters that usually descend on Mayne Island every February for a retreat. As you can imagine, our February weekends are almost always spent indoors, enjoying the cozy sewing room while buckets of cold winter rain fall outside.  Let me just say that our August weekend together had 90% more sunshine and about 20 degrees of Celcius more to enjoy (as an August weekend should!).

The perfect cabin quilt!

It stood to reason that I should bring along my almost finished scrap vomit quilt - which, by the way, I will now refer to as the Scrapalicious quilt. This quilt has been over a year and a half in the making (actually I've pieced two of these tops and have enough squares cut to make a few more!).

• Katy's fab tutorial for the quilt is here
• See my Anti-Voodoo piecing tutorial for making sure your squares make it from the design wall to the machine in the right order using a method I learned years ago from a favourite quilting teacher. This works for efficiently piecing blocks into a quilt top as well.
• A post including a pic of the second top I've pieced with different coloured "B" blocks is here 

Back in February I'd finished the quilting and attached the binding while on Mayne.  As I do with all large quilt bindings, I pressed the binding to the back and temporarily secured it with tiny dots of Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It.  Hand-sewing the binding has been a hit and miss 'whenever I feel like it' activity for months and it needed to just. get. done. I figured if I brought the quilt along to sleep under, I could finish off the binding in the daylight hours while sitting on the sunny deck. Which I did. Wearing a bikini. OMG. That's all I'm saying about that.

And then I came home and washed the quilt. When I pulled it from the washer and saw batting and frayed thread, I had a momentary coronary event thinking that something had ripped the quilt, until my brain registered that, in fact, I had missed sewing down about 20" of binding!!! So, yeah, I missed a spot. Oops.

Scrapalicious: the Full Frontal

So, although you've seen several iterations of this quilt from blocks, to top, to quilted top, now it is finally complete, washed and folded on the back of our family room couch for everyone to enjoy.  Even this little gnomey.

I free-motion quilted it in an all-over interlocking flower pattern that I learned last year in a FMQ class with local teacher Lynne Fanthorpe.  I had so much difficulty with the Sulky 40wt thread I was using - it was breaking constantly and driving me mental with stopping/starting and burying threads. I finally had to abandon it from frustration but when I resumed quilting at Mayne my friends helped me discover that the variegated spool I was using was simply 'bad thread'. It broke with a gentle tug! I had pulled my hair out and came very close to tears thinking that my machine, the tension, the batting, the many needles I tried, or my skills were to blame. I've never experienced bad thread before. Luckily, I had a second spool of the exact same brand and colour variegation that I purchased on the same day as the offensive spool. The second one worked PERFECTLY FINE. Bizarre. 

Next time I'm sticking with Aurifil thread and less involved quilting. I'll also do a more careful check of the binding before my quilt gets its first wash!

VMQG's first overnight retreat!

The VMQG had a sleepover!  Planning for this special weekend had been in the works for over a year. When then-President Holly asked if I would like to organize the guild's first retreat I was more than happy to get started. Of course I want to retreat with my modern quilty peeps!

We stayed at a beautifully secluded and quietly comfortable retreat center, with freshly planted herb and flower gardens, about an hour out of Vancouver. I had been there four times before, but not for a few years because my regular retreat group is too large for this work room (I fear that once the other members of the guild find out what a great time the 22 of us had, so many will want to attend our next one that we'll need a bigger venue, too!).

On our first night we had a fun wine and cheese welcome that included our pillowcase swap. Prior to retreat I'd sent everyone a tutorial for making a French-seamed and piped pillow case using the "sausage roll" method (google it, there are lots of tutes!).  It was a brown paper bag swap with stealing - despite some speedy steals, we all ended up with a fun pillowcase.

I made the AMH Drawing Room one scored by Jo Anne on the left there.

I'm afraid that's all I've got for photos. When I wasn't giving away draw prizes, hosting wine and cheese swap and show & tell, or painting my nails with the lovely Soakwash Lizzy House nail lacquer set (at midnight!) I had my head down working on a VSQ.  That's a Very Special Quilt.  Please come back tomorrow for my Bloggers Quilt Festival entry....you'll see it then.

A Closer Look

It has been ages since I took my camera out. I'm talking about the one with the lenses, the strap and the memory card. As opposed to that other thing that's called a phone, but is really a flat camera for me. iPhone photos look great on an iphone, but I find them altogether unsatisfactory for blog posting....they are dark, typically grainy, high contrast, and while fun, they are not the kind of images I like to share here.   I've been missing my Nikon and spending time focusing on a subject and composing an image, so I decided to spend a few minutes in the garden yesterday doing just that.  I feel really out of practice, but here are a few of the shots I took.  And just for the record, I find the new and ever-changing Flickr interface extremely difficult to use, so that is another reason I am struggling share much these days.

All of these images were shot with my Micro NIKKOR 40mm 1:2.8 lens.  The lens was a Christmas gift from B in 2012 so that I could take more detailed photos of my work. It's an amazing lens!

This is my favourite shot from the exercise. The light, layers and bokeh effect all make me happy.

The vast majority of my sewing time over the past several weeks has involved many, many yards of Spandex. You see, it's show time again. In fact, the curtain opens at 12:30 on Thursday for the first matinee and we still have plenty to do. I've been doing 4 or 5 hour shifts three times per week. It's actually a lot of fun as the volunteer team is really great and we're enjoying the process of cutting, serging, trimming and fitting the costumes to the performers.  Racks of bodysuits on hangers aren't really suited to blogging....

Quilting will be back on the program starting Friday morning. It's the VMQG's first sleepover retreat!! I'm sad to miss a lot of the show action, but I'm also excited about retreating with my modern guild peeps at the beautiful Edenvale Retreat Centre. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous, so hopefully we'll get to see some sweet trilliums and wild orchids on the forest walk behind the house. I'll be working on a comfort quilt for a friend who is in need of a miracle.  Thanks to the generosity of local quilt friends and moms in our community I have almost 70 blocks to sew together and get basted this weekend. That's another thing that's been occupying my mind a lot over the past few weeks: our friend community has really suffered a tremendous amount of heartbreak over the past year.  It's a real time of reflection and introspection for me. I know you understand.

Krista
xo

Cargo Duffle Cameras

Along with five of my fun quilty peeps, we're heading off to our annual long weekend sewing retreat on Mayne Island in a couple of days. This calls for a new travel bag, n'est-ce pas?  Who am I kidding, I rarely need an excuse to try a new bag pattern!  Plus I love everything Anna designs and knew I'd make her Cargo Duffle as soon as I saw her first one posted. The best part? This pattern is 100% FREE! Thanks Anna.

I was recently in Seattle and had a lovely visit with Keli at my favourite little fabric shop, Drygood Designs. I was thrilled that she had new Echino cameras in stock, so I purchased a yard to use for my duffle. In addition to sewing, photography is another passion of mine, so I just love this print.

(just cause photography is a passion doesn't mean I'm an expert...pardon the sunspot!)

All of the panels of this bag are quilted. I decided this was the perfect project to try ByAnnie's Soft & Stable for the first time. I'd heard good things about it and it didn't disappoint!  It's 3/8" thick foam batting/interfacing that has some sort of fabric-y surface. It's not fusible, but the surface took 505 spray baste very well.   It cost about $18 for enough to make this bag, so it's more than triple what cotton batting would cost, but I think well worth it for the structure it adds to this bag. It was no harder to sew through than batting and it has almost no weight.

I quilted the Echino panels with a cream Aurifil 28 wt cotton thread and a 4.5 stitch length. I pieced the bag using polyester Gutermann thread for strength.  Although I followed the pattern and covered the seam allowance (on the inside of the bag) where the bottom and zipper gussets meet with a single fold binding, I decided not to tackle covering the main seams with the binding.  I just wasn't confident I could do a nice job of it.

Instead, I followed this tutorial and lined the bag with a quilting cotton. In lieu of pinning the lining along the zipper tape (as recommended in the tute), I first held the lining in place with Clover Wonder Clips, then glue-basted it prior to topstitching all along both sides of the zipper.

Finally, the only other change I made was to add in a fabric pull-tab at each end of the zipper.  I love this duffle and will definitely make more in the future. I think that I'll add 3" or more to the width next time to make it a larger bag (and that will necessitate slightly longer straps, as they'll sit further apart).

Fabrics used:

Echino cameras

"Deer Valley" by Joel Dewberry (handles and pocket lining)

Essex yard dyed linen in black (handles, panels)

"County Fair" by Denyse Schmidt in home-dec (weight outer pockets).

"Giverny" by Marianne Elizabeth for Bernatex (main lining)

Winner, winner, Christmas dinner!

I felt so lucky (and for a moment, a little guilty) for winning the block lotto at my annual November retreat last month. I've been running this retreat for 8 years and never won, so I guess it was bound to happen. Can I just say how happy I am that it was this year? Happy, happy, happy!  Katy's Christmas scrappy trip inspired me to set the Scrappy Trip Around the World block as this year's lotto - it's a super quick make and everyone's got holiday fabric to use up!

Although I'd been sewing with my pals for 4 days non-stop, I returned home Monday night and put the blocks right up on my design wall. There were 30 blocks, so a 5 x 6 layout made the most sense. The odd number across the quilt meant I couldn't use the 'normal' diamond setting. As much as I love this block, I didn't really feel like making 6 more - I just wanted to get this thing together in time for Christmas! Using the strong diagonal reds, I opted for zigzags.

I busted out the wiggly stitch on my Pfaff for diagonal quilting lines through every second square. The wiggly stitch is excellent for diagnonal lines on a quilt with 2" squares because you don't have to mark the quilting lines!  Just aim for the corners of each square and you're all set. The wiggly line doesn't have to hit the corners dead on like you'd want to do with straight-line stitching.

I considered a flannel backing, but also had yardage of this super soft Kaffe Fasset shot cotton in green that's been lying around for years. Using up stash won over buying new flannel and I framed in this extra block with some Kona red so that there's a sweet little present on the back. The binding is a sweet candy cane stripe that was printed on the bias that I've been saving for just this kind of quilt (JOY by Kate Spain for Moda).

All washed and cuddly and keeping us warm on the couch!

Advent Giveaway!

On the first day of Christmas, I'm going to give someone this magazine.

That someone could be YOU! All you have to do is leave a comment below and let me know if you've ever been on a quilting retreat before, if you'd love to attend one in the future, or if you dream of organizing a retreat in your own community!

I've written an article for this edition of Canada's very own Quilter's Connection magazine, sharing my tips and advice for organizing a day retreat. There are other fantastic articles on packing and preparing for retreats, a story about the Fibre Art Network's latest retreat by fellow VMQG member Terry Aske, an exclusive interview with Ricky Tims, some cute quilt patterns and lots more.  

The article is a bit of a teaser for a project I'm working on for the new year. My plan is to self publish an e-book. It will be a manual for people interested in starting a day retreat business like I've run here for the past 9 years. I can't wait to share all of my experience with others who would like to start up an exciting small business based on their passion for quilting and bringing creative people together.  I receive regular requests for retreat advice and always do my best to share information.  I finally decided that writing everything down and putting it all together in one manual would be the most efficient way to share.  I look forward to doing just that!

In the meantime, enter the giveaway and on Sunday night I'll chose a winner! Double your chances by leaving a comment on my Instagram photo of the magazine cover. There will be two winners - one from the blog and another on IG where you can find me as @poppyprint.

Happy Weekend!

ETA: The giveaway is now closed and the random number generator chose comment #39, Nessa, as the winner! Congratulations! Please email me your address so I can get the magazine in the mail to you!

Retreat Wrap

Hello all!!! I'm waving at you as I run by my laptop, upload a few pictures and let you know all is well here, just all-consumed by volunteer work, Project Big Project (one of those "I'm working on it but I can't talk about it" things that drives me insane online, sorry), an impromptu visit by my far away sister and a few orders to churn out. 

My annual Loon Lake 4-day retreat has been and gone. Total success. I swear every year it gets more fun as the group becomes more and more comfortable with each other. We squeezed 29 quilters in this year and at times the sewing room was deafening - all that cackling was truly divine, though. A sure sign that people were enjoying every minute! 

 

See those scrappy Trip Around the World blocks taped to the far wall? Those were the Block Lotto blocks this year and guess who finally won? Yup, MEEEEEEE!  Apparently I even jumped for joy when I realized my luck. The guilt of walking away (as the retreat organizer) with thirty 12 1/2" blocks soon wore off. In fact I returned home and pieced the top the very next day.

I settled on a zig zag arrangement - here it is on my design wall. I'm thinking a diagonal grid every second square, with wavy stitch for the quilting. Keeping it simple and gettin 'er done for the holidays.

It just makes me all happy inside that people are willing to travel to this gathering. Kristi came all the way from Winnipeg (read her lovely post about her weekend here), Krista K3 from Anchorage and Krista K2 and Sandie from Seattle. Amazing!! Plus all of my incredibly supportive quilting friends from right here in the Lower Mainland (that's what we call Vancouver and surrounding cities), whom I adore.

The Krista's together again! K3, K2 and me, K1. 

Just some little Liberty bookmarks I made to say 'thanks' to the traveling gals for coming all this way to play.

For the first time in years I did not bring any Christmas gift projects. My plan was to focus on making one large twin sized quilt, and if that was accomplished, I brought some bee blocks along to piece as well. This was my view daily (as of 4:00 p.m.).

I haven't worked on a chain-piecing repetitive quilt project for a while and if it weren't for the pretty Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley prints I might have given up in boredom. This is a sweet pattern, though and I'm glad that I stuck with it. The scale of prints perfectly matched those used by Lori in her sample and I think that's what makes the pattern so effective.  I had two charm packs won from Amanda  (Sasikirana on IG) and found almost all of the line in my stash, which was rather shocking to me. I didn't know I liked Hope Valley so much. Thanks to scrap donations from K3 and Kristi, my selection was complete!

Just have to add the 2 1/2" borders all around and then this top can join the (long) line awaiting quilting.

Here's the nighttime show and tell shot from retreat.

Just a couple of days after retreat, my sister came to town for a conference and we spent as much of her 'free' time together as possible. Shopping, eating, having fun without kids. A very strange concept for both of us. She brought along my birthday gift (from summer) which I am in love with.

There's your update friends. See you soon!