crafty friends

You know you have a crafty friend when...

They visit for the weekend (along with two kids, sister and brother-in-law), and they just happen to bring their sewing machine and 3 quilts to baste and quilt! And, then they decide to also bake and decorate a fancy cake to take back home for a party! All in less than 2 days!! My friend is a maniac. Only (ha!) one quilt got basted and quilted, but the cake was made and it was awesome (dang - I wish I'd taken a picture!). I wish a picture could capture the sense of chaos in the house, but there is just no way. Instead, here's a picture of her quilt (for a charity auction) and my trashed living room...

AND, we girls got to spend Saturday morning going garage saling! Yippee! It's almost the end of the season, so it was great to have one last fling. :-) Here's a bit of the crafty loot I picked up:

These are 4 practically brand-new hand-made curtain panels, about 1.5 yards of fabric each. All for $1! They will at least make some great quilt backs.

And this is just a portion of a $1 bag of scrap fabric. Nothing fantastic, but definitely some usable bits, and I sure do love the "mystery" of a random mix of scraps!

So, I have one more week until the quilt retreat. I'm excited, but I'm not at all prepared! I've made a list of all the crafty projects I'd like to do, and sort of prioritized them, but I haven't put anything together yet. Has anyone been to a quilt retreat before? Any words of wisdom about what to bring, what not to bring, how to prep projects, etc.?

And does anyone have any exciting projects that they're doing for xmas gifts that they'd like to share? My main "friend" gift this year is going to be this project - I've already ordered a gazillion (okay, 24) notebooks, and am trying to pick out some cool fabrics and get the pieces cut so that I can just assembly-line them at the retreat. I think I'll try to whip up a trial version this weekend, so that I can make sure I know what I'm doing... :-)