Chicken Fried Quilting

What do you get when you cross the Canadian backwoods with fourteen quilters and a few bottles of wine?


Rubber chicken legs hanging out of the corner of your mouth!

This is May with...yep...a rubber chicken leg hanging out of the corner of her mouth!

Let me back up a minute to explain...


My sister loves to quilt and has been attending a quilting retreat up in Canada for the past several years. Each year she returned home with tales of high adventure, hilarity and large amounts of quilting. I knew I wanted to be part of the fun.

I mean what could be better? Making quilts like this:

Caroline and her pretty pinwheel quilt.

Or this?

Caroline, our roommate Cheryle, and me leaning on the king size sister quilt Caroline and I made together.

You can even wear them as you make them if you want!

Caroline in her hula quilt skirt.

So this year, I wheedled my way in the trip (much like I did when we were kids no doubt).


Imagine a girl scout camp tucked away in the forest with nothing to worry about except thread snarls...or..

Very welcoming sign posting don't you think???

Well we didn't see any bears...but we did see a fair amount of rain which made for some snugly quilting weather.


The quilters themselves were full of Canadian fun and frolic - an obvious side effect of:

1. Loads of tasty food (we were fed approximately every 3 hours much like hobbits prefer);
2. Wine; and
3. Full permission to stay in our jammies all day (okay I may have been the only one to actually do that).


There was just one odd addition to our band of merry quilters...a rubber chicken.

This was my first rubber chicken encounter.

"Ms. Wild Woman Chicken" first appeared on my sewing machine when I foolishly stepped away to have another cup of tea and some treats. At first I didn't know what to think (it's hard to think when tea is coming out your nose from laughing too hard) but then it all started to come clear...


It seems the tradition with these crazy quilters is that the rubber chicken must be secretly placed when the victim quilter is otherwise distracted. They also told me it was expected that you add something to the chicken...at least I thought that's what they said.


So I added a batman mask (to protect Ms. Wild Woman Chicken's identity) and placed her discreetly on another sewing machine. Other additions included: bloomers, bra, bonnet and even a nose piercing! (The vet in our group used her hemostats to turn a quilting pin into something resembling a bull's nose ring).

The jelly bean necklace is all the rage on the runway this year I've heard.

The laughter rang loud and long over this "Chicken Run". We even managed to get some quilting done...

That's me in my jammies...at 3 in the afternoon...

All went well until the last lunch on Sunday...and then I saw the featured sandwich:

Monica - shop-owner, retreat sponsor, and chef.

I was sad to leave the retreat - what a fun group of women with terrific sense of humor! I'll never forget Ms. Wild Woman Chicken either...

I can't.



Really...



Because when I went to pack my luggage for the flight home, guess who stowed away in my bag?

Yup - Ms. WWC herself. I didn't think she'd make it through the TSA security check but with her own ticket and Canadian passport she sailed right through.


She was a good traveling companion and really seemed to enjoy the flight.

No telling what the other passengers thought of my traveling companion...