"Let us make an honorable retreat"

Sunday I returned from a quilting retreat during which I knitted.

It's true, and I wasn't driven out of the place with little bayonets of seam rippers, bless my fellow KansasQuilters. It was the only thing I could do, after all, since I had paid my fee months ago and was determined to go seeing as how I'd escaped practically unscathed from the accident...and yet I didn't relish the notion of pushing one very clumsy, cast-hindered hand toward a motorized needle that was in a frenzy to slash into my fingers Norman Bates-style.

So, instead, I opted for slower pointy sticks and knitted two more Lizard Ridge blocks on Saturday. On the day before that I had brandished a plastic darning needle to finish my Reading Kimono sweater. (I'm done! I'm done!)


Sunday's work consisted of adding to my Toothbrush Rug (using another kind of plastic needle). This last day of the retreat was the only time I got to work with actual fabric. All around me sewing machines hummed all weekend--only once did one of them klunk ominously--and quilt tops were materializing right and left. But not for me. (sigh)


In two weeks, though, this cast comes off for good. That's the plan, anyway. And then I can get back to quilting. My Lumberjack Butterflies quilt is now basted and is waiting for the day I can bend my wrist again.

At this retreat everyone contributed a little something to everyone else's goodie bag. Included in the spoils was a plethora of pincushions, see photo. (The Log Cabin chicken was already mine. I call her Henny Pinny. Now she has a kindred friend from Texas; please meet MoneyPinny.) The little fish pincushion is hereafter FinnyPinny, and she sits atop a thick toothpick and is for keeping one's needles with one's spool of thread. Judy Danz designed it, and she is selling the patterns--one for fish and another for fowl--at a Kansas quilt shop called Needle in a Haystack. I have no affiliation with this money-making venture; I just think they're wee wonders.



Here is a toucan...or crow.