I just got back from a great weekend at Appel Farm in Elmer, NJ.  “Sewing At The Farm” is an annual event and the sew-ers and quilters came from all over the east coast to be there.  We set up our sewing machines and brought piles of stuff with us and enjoyed a whole weekend of creativity, friendship, yummy food, and free gifts.  I made a lot of new friends and caught up with some I haven’t seen for awhile. 

Prior to the event we received the instructions for a mystery quilt.  I had 6 months to do it but life got in the way.  So I arrived with pieces of the mystery quilt – I was at stage 1 3/4 months – LOL – and I misunderstood the directions.  Another opportunity for creative re-direction and I ended up with this mysterious un-named quilt block….

The borders not sewn on but are in place as I tried to figure out what to do next.  On our side trip on Saturday to the Mullica Hill Quilt Shop (highly recommend this quaint little shop jammed with beautiful fabrics)  I picked up some beautiful fabrics to add to the quilt.  What would have been a wall hanging is going to eventually be a full size quilt for me – yup for me!!  How odd that is – something for me to keep…

At each meal and whenever Jean felt like it we had “event” time.  This meant gifts.  Oh my!  I got sooooo spoiled having a gifts on my sewing machine each morning and after each meal and many other times throughout the 3 days.  This was a super cute idea made by Heather for our dessert after dinner so we “could have our cake and eat it too”.  She made us all cupcake pin cushions and home made cupcakes – it was fun to pick them to match.  The real cupcake is gone but I will treasure my chocolate pin cushion for a long time!

My tablemate, Susann shared her pattern and we made these cute bags.  She was the queen of the pins and I could not stop laughing when she showed me her bag and how I supposed to pin it.  I assured Susann that I didn’t even bring that many pins with me and my bottom was already in place.  Wow! Mine would never be perfect if I had to use so many pins – but in the end hers did look awesome and mine look ok too.  We had alot of fun making them together.  Susann and Patsy spent most of their weekend making “Cool Ties” that they are sending overseas to our military at the rate of 200 every 3 weeks.  Quite an undertaking and a neat idea to help keep them cool in the dessert temperatures.  Ironically all the “Cool Ties” that Susann made I never saw her use a pin once.  We laughed again about that one.

A personal excitement for me was the logo.  At dinner on Thursday Dutch announced that we would have “Sewing At The Farm” again in 2010 and a logo was needed.  She asked if any of us had ideas to let her know.  Well after a night of sewing I sat at the picnic table near our cabin and sketched a little design in my journal.  I showed it to Dutch the next day and the conversation went like this “lose this, like that, move this, this is great, adjust that…”  to which I answered OK a bunch of times.  Friday night I sat at the picnic table again, this time with a watercolor sketch pad and started again making note of all the changes and adding a few of my own ideas that I had pondered throughout the day while sewing.  Saturday I presented it to Dutch at breakfast – it seemed that she and Jean would enjoy a gift with their meal as well.  She thought it was great and suggested a few more changes.  I did those and then worked on inking the design.  So here it is, the beginnings of the logo for the event designed by me, Holly Doyle.  It was a real encouragement to me and something that I was really inspired to draw.  I know it will be well used.  The final draft will be altered slightly to make the digitizaiton process smoother cause is will be embroidered onto something.  My artwork will be in stitches – how cool that is for me!

The Appel Farm is an art and music center.  During the summer they do camps for kids and it is a conference and retreat center the rest of the year.  In the center behind the farmhouse is a concrete pool filled with these painted finger-like cement structures.  At night they are lit and it is quite a conversation piece.

I had never been to a retreat like this before.  It was fun to spend time sewing and quilting and for me it was a long weekend mini-vacation.  Did I mention that it rained off and on for the whole 3 days?  Well it wasn’t really an issue and we still enjoyed being around the farm and doing what we love.

Sure am looking forward to “Sewing At The Farm 2010″…