Perfecting the 2" square - donation!

Take a look at JO's tiny donation of the 2" square! She replicated the exact blocks that she was working on. Outstanding!

This year at the retreat, I am asking everyone to leave behind a scrap of fabric that they are working on - enough to make a 2" square so I can make a 'postage stamp' quilt. The size is a bit bigger than the traditional postage stamp but that is the smallest that I want to work with. Some ladies go the extra step and cut them out for me. **JO comes from a family of tiny producers. Her daughter, Chris makes the hand dyed stained glass pins, earrings, and necklaces that are sold at the retreat. You can also see her fine work on www.ShadyGroveStudios.etsy.com on the etsy site.
A wonderful site to get lost in. All handmade items sold by folks like me and you.

These were wonderful machine embroidered hot pads and kitchen towels made by Mary Jo. I just love this idea and it may just push me into getting an embroidery machine. These were just so cute!

Well, I am off to the big city and then a smaller city for grocery shopping. Yippee and yipes! ** I started walking with the dogs again. Gotta keep things moving! Felt good. Today it is suppose to get in the 50's so must get out again! Have a great day! Patsy

The talents of this week's Retreaters...

There was so many great projects shown this week. I will just show you a sampling of show n tell and some finished at the retreat.

Maple Sugar Time

Here is a brief rundown of how the process goes. The sap that is gathered from the trees is collected once a day and dumped into the bulk tank (usually stores milk in a milkhouse). Once enough gallons are gathered it is poured in the pan that has a wood fire built under it. The 300 gallons is boiled down for 27hours approximately. It takes about 40 gallons collected from the trees to make one gallon of table syrup that you put on your pancakes. Now you know why it is so expensive. The round barrel is where he pours the cold sap into first. It is heated by woodfire and the spickot is open just a bit so it drips into the large 8'x4' stainless pan also heated by wood fire. It is boiled down to the correct sugar content and then removed and taken home to be strained, strained again, and then canned into jars. Please take note of the whiskey bottle behind Shane. I believe this is a very important item to the process. It is used to keep the sap monkeys warm while stoking the fire around the clock.

Shane tells me that this season they are done. The trees taps are pulled and another season is under his belt. Perhaps he will sell a few jars at the retreat and I may have some out for you to try over your french toast.

Good job! Lots of work! Patsy