Busy Busy!

Can you believe it, it's already halfway through May! I feel like 2025 has already been so full and it's just getting started!  So far, I've been to three retreats, two quilt shows as a vendor, and on two cruises! April slowed down a little bit, but May has been crazy!!!  My youngest turned 18 last week and this week, will be graduating from high school, as well as getting her Associates degree.  She plans to head off to Lamar University in the fall to study American Sign Language.  In the middle of all of this, my oldest, who is temporarily back at home, has decided to join the Army!  Lots of big changes in our family!!!  

So, what have I been doing on all of these quilty adventures?  Well, I kicked off the year at Stitchin' Heaven at their Camp New Year retreat and started on the 2025 New Year's Mystery Quilt.  It's currently in the UFO pile, but I plan to get it done this year!  I had a blast at that retreat and have been thinking about attending it again for NYE 2026.

Then it was off to Houston for the quilt show in Stafford.  That was a fun weekend and I loved seeing the fellow vendors that I had met at previous shows.  

After Houston, I flew out to Miami for a quilting cruise with Stitchin' Heaven.  I had a couple friends also on that cruise and we had a blast. It's always fun cruising with friends, but sadly my mom, who is my usual partner in crime, was unable to make that cruise, she was teaching at a retreat that week.  Don't worry, I still haven't heard the end of it.

The week after getting back from the cruise, I headed down to Corpus Christi for another quilt show!  My good friend Dennis joined me and we had a great time.  

I had a week home after that show before heading out on a Friends of Judy Retreat with my mom.  What a great time!!!  We've recently started hosting some small retreats and are loving how different they are from our big retreats.  Don't get me wrong, our big retreats are always so much fun, but at our smaller retreats, we really start to get to know people.  The quilters that come to our retreats have become good friends of ours and we love getting to know them better!

In March, Mom, Helayna, and I embarked on a road trip to Miami!  Mom was teaching on a cruise and we decided that this would be a great senior trip for Helayna!  We had such a great time, made some amazing memories, got Helayna hooked on cruising, and then decided we are NEVER driving to Miami again, it took us 7 business days to drive out of that state!!!  And I'm from Texas, so it's saying something that I felt like we were never going to get out of Florida!  

We had such a great girls trip and Mom and I are counting down the days until we set sail again, on September 18!  

Then, we were right back at it with another retreat at the start of April!  This time, it was our smallest retreat so far at Galveston.  We highly recommend Pelican View Retreat House if you're looking for a place to get away with a small group of friends.  The retreat center has sewing space available for seven overlooking the water.  

Things have been a little slow, business-wise, since then.  I have been busy behind the scenes, but at least I've been home.  Which is good, because my personal life has been super busy this month with Helayna graduating and deciding that maybe the previous plan of a gap year wasn't the best and applying to Lamar University to study American Sign Language with plans to become an ASL interpreter.  She has her graduation ceremony this week and in two weeks, we're going to visit the Lamar campus.  

Now I'm off to pack up my sewing machine and head to one of my monthly sewing groups!  Our local Veteran Outreach Center has started a monthly sewing circle to work on Quilts of Valor and I am so happy to have joined with a lot of other local creative minds to honor local Veterans. 

Stay Creative, my Friends!

~Krista