Last week was our big girls-only sewing trip.
Have you ever been on a trip & said to yourself: We will be here again!
That’s how we felt when we left the Mahoney State Park outside of Ashland, Nebraska.
It is the perfect summertime meeting place between Missouri & South Dakota.
The state park has mini golf, a waterpark, horse riding, a small marina, and trails for nature walks. A brand new local outlet mall is amazing – with everything from Old Navy to Coach. We got the best of the city & the peace of nature.
As my mom said: sewing, shopping, & swimming!
The state park isn’t crowded & the prices are amazingly reasonable! As in – less than $10 for the water park, $7 breakfast buffet & $80 a night for a hotel room. AMAZING!
My mom said she would meet me there for the next 25 years. I think it was the bird watching at breakfast that really sealed the deal for her. The woman loves watching birds & they have about 40 bird feeders outside the lodge restaurant. We already decided that next summer…the baby and I are meeting the girls there again!
Besides laying out at the pool one afternoon and shopping one evening, we did some mega sewing. It started at the Quilted Moose in Gretna on Tuesday.
Then, we continued in our hotel room. Sewing in a hotel room isn’t glamorous, but we made it work.
We left at about 10:30 on Thursday morning, because the sisters had to get back to Missouri to show their beloved piggies at a fair!
Before we took off we snapped these photos of our finished projects. I wrote about this star tutorial last week here on the blog.
It was fun to play with the different color combination options. Far left, Selestia bought four different pink fat quarters and one yard of the blue. We really liked the solid background. We thought it made her star ‘pop.’ Do you agree?
In the middle, Schyler did a great job of picking out gray & pink fabrics. We had fun creating the diamond in the center & using the darkest pink in the corners for contrast. She learned quite a bit about color tones while we picked out her grays, too. We eliminated several options because they had a touch of brown in the gray.
We used six inch borders & bought 1 yard of fabric for that. We will need to buy more fabric for binding.
I have 3 whole yards of this yellow, so I used it around the whole edge. I picked the green chevron to compliment the green trees in the owl fabric. (Also, yes, I’m throwing back to high school and wearing my gray Converse sneakers, again.)
This will be the baby’s first quilt! I am so glad I got to make it with my mom & sisters around. 
My mom’s quilt is for a small wall in a bathroom, so she chose not to add a border. Her colors will compliment the bathroom decor. We used light & dark fabrics to make a diamond in her center, too.
Yes, I am wearing shorts. Sorry for the awkward photo below. These are the other two non-star quilts that Mom and I worked on while the younger girls ran out of attention span. I was just playing with the scraps from my other star that I started last week. Mom was working with a charm pack & jelly roll strips. She thinks she will use hers as a table topper.
That’s pretty much a wrap! We made six, small simple quilts in from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday morning. This was quite an ambitious project. It took FAR longer than I expected. Soon, I’ll post my tips for packing & planning a sewing retreat. I definitely made several mistakes & learned a few things!
The distraction-free time with these ladies was wonderful. I am so glad we found this meeting place that we all adore. I can’t wait to tote a little baby & a gray star quilt in that direction next summer. We might need two hotel rooms next year. 
A final quick update on my sisters & mom since I just got to spend some quality time with them.
Selestia is almost a senior in high school! Yikes! Hooray! She loves shopping, pigs, mowing yards and working outside. She doesn’t even mind weed eating. She is going to be an intern at a local quilt shop for one of her classes as a senior.
Schyler is officially a pre-teen @ 11 years old. She loves taking pictures, showing pigs, her puppies, and Instagram. Also, she’s going through a little bit of a Miss Missouri/pageant queen phase. She is currently following several of the state beauty queens on Instagram. Who knew? I just finished reading Notes from a Liar and Her Dog and sent it home with Schyler to read. It is a cute Young Adult novel.
And, my mom is so tickled to have found this state park. She hates traffic and driving in cities. This route didn’t involve any of those things. Mom’s cows are doing good & she is excited for daughter #2, Savannah, to come home from New Zealand. Mom also says my baby CANNOT come before her bull sale on October 18th. The due date is October 28, so I’ll see what I can do. No promises.
Thanks for reading about our sewing trip in Lincoln!
Where do you and your family enjoy going in the summer time?
Do you have any tips for packing on a sewing trip?
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So enjoy all your post!!! I am a friend of your moms from college and grew up on a livestock farm in Hermann. My father still farms there and really enjoyed all your articles in the Cattleman’s magazine especially all the Luther ones. Your mom quilted a wall hanging for me as a wedding gift 23 years ago. I still treasure it as it still hangs on my wall. I tried my hand at quilting this spring with several friends. I am still trying to get all “squared up”. That process could potential take a few more years. I might have to visit your mom for assistance. Thanks for sharing your family with us. I live in St. Louis and often miss the farm life. It is toughest yet most rewarding job.