Retreat at Dayspring

 For the last 10 years, our Guild has spent a weekend at Dayspring in Ellenton as a quilt retreat.

The property belongs to the Episcopal diocese and has a small chapel with Florida roof.

 We have a large well-lit room to sew in, and meals are provded.

The retreat committee this year put on a lovely tea party for us on Saturday night with delicious cakes and fruit.

In the middle of the property there is a lake facing the dining room where you can see the fish jump.

I did quite a lot of piecing on a new quilt, and took my Featherweight to do it on.  I wanted to get more familiar with this old machine and knew there were others present who could help me if I ran into problems - and of course I did !  Nevertheless, the Featherweight is a real pleasure to sew on, makes a lovely straight stitch and is small enough that you can still talk to the people sitting opposite !  Every year I think I will get so much done, and take far too many projects.  It's fun being able to choose what you want to work on !  And also this year I did quite a lot of shopping - one of the shops nearby had a sale, and I was able to buy some more of the Winterthur museum's John Hewson prints.  

Pinterest ???

  Since I had been hearing so much about it, I looked at Pinterest this morning - of course on my favorite subject, boutis.  I was astounded to see some of my own photos from this blog.  Some ladies had the courtesy to cite the source, and I thank them for their honesty.  Others simply copy blog photos and pin them without showing where they came from.  I recognized photos that I know belong to other people and were copied from their blogs.  Is it just me ?  Is no one else bothered by this thoughtless copying ?  I do have a note in the sidebar saying please do not copy content, but I suppose we have all become so used to open use of images that no one thinks twice about it and no one bothers to ask.
Maybe I am overly sensitive, but I have decided to no longer post photos of my antique pieces, or my own original or adapted designs.  What are your thoughts on the matter ?  Please write me comments, because I really want to understand other opinions.  So here goes:  should we assume that everything we show on blogs is no longer ours ?
UPDATE:  There are a couple of things that individuals can do to prevent this happening.  One is to watermark photos, although this can also be manipulated.  The other is to block photos from being pinned, and Pinterest has a html code to enter under the section of your blog template to do that.  Apparently, Pinterest requires that users obtain permission before pinning images, but clearly no one actually does it.  Even if Pinterest is blocked on a blog or website, people can still copy google images and de-identify those.  So the bottom line is this:  the only way to prevent copying of images is not to post them on the web.

New Boutis Pouch

Winston loves anything to do with sewing and often helps out when working on projects

You can see he is a big encouragement !

Our Guild retreat sets a theme as a challenge each year - at the last retreat the theme of Dresden Plate was chosen, and three of us have made a small boutis pouch with a Dresden plate pattern.  I used a batiste on the top, and apple green cotton underneath and for the front - so pale green shows through the batiste.  Roni and Janet have almost finished theirs, so will show pictures of theirs soon.

The pattern was originally offered in the Fil Blanc of France Boutis, design adapted from Hiromi, a pattern with birds in a nest drawn by Isabelle, and the directions (French version) written by Lou and translated by me - so a real group effort !

New Boutis Link

Henriette  sent me a link to a group blog of boutisseuses who meet on Fridays.  The intention is to show their progress on various projects and there is a list of participants on the blog, so you can look at each member's work.  An excellent opportunity to see what people are working on and track their progress !   Visit them at Boutis

Boutis Expo at Pierrefeu du var

As every year for the past 8 years at this time, the association Lei Roucas dou Barri held a boutis show this past weekend.  There were 24 individual exhibitors of boutis pieces, as well as two shops for supplies and a bookstore.  The show is organized by the wonderful and lively Henriette, and always includes either an exchange or a challenge on alternate years.  This year was a challenge to design a bag with the theme of the "sea" which should be all white and completely stuffed. The items were displayed in a "pointu" small boat - such a good idea.
Several ladies were able to take photos and have posted them on their blogs.  Here is a brief list -go and look at them, and enjoy the beautiful, traditional boutis - which I am pleased to say is alive and well in Provence.

Henriette

Lou

Boutis divins

Marie Silvestre

Lei roucas dou barri   for this one, look for the photo albums to the left of the page

And some more .....

The lady pictured here with her wonderful Dear Jane had just been informed that her quilt has been chosen to be shown in Bennington, Vt.    I believe it is Rebecca Hoffmann.

More Feather Princess photos ....

 I loved this little mouse on the cat quilt !

Blogger stopped me loading pictures on the last post, so here are some more ....

Fabulous Feather Princesses !

Yesterday I went to the Feather Princesses Applique quilt show in Tampa.  This is a show I always look forward to because of the wonderful organization, fabulous applique quilts, and just overall very high quality show.  I really enjoyed it and took a lot of pictures.  The group currently has about 170 members, and I was a member myself for several years,starting on the group's 1st anniversary.  However, they meet during the day and I could not attend meetings.  Dorothy and Laura have been co-presidents since the start, and have consistently had an ambitious and quality program.

No, this is not bad lighting - the quilt is made in neutrals !

Judge for yourselves !

Quilt Show Season !

It's quilt show season here on the west coast of Florida.  This morning I went to the Tampa show of the Quilters workshop.  They had some nice quilts hanging, and everything was very well organized.  I took some photos, but unfortunately I had some trouble with my camera and most are out of focus, but I will show a few.

I also did a little shopping ..... half  the fun of going to a show !  I met the delightful owner of an online quilt shop Worn Threads and bought a kit and a surprise for Lou.  Here are a couple of pictures of her very pretty booth - just my favorite style !  Funnily enough, after the show I met some friends and of course, we found that we were all complimenting the same booth (where they had also done some shopping ...!)

Next week - next show !