Retreat Recap

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend two days of a four-day quilting retreat at our local Senior Center. It was a day-only retreat, and Saturday night all equipment is packed up & stored in a locked room as a local church uses the large meeting room for services until late afternoon.

The projects worked on included Mystery Quilt #3 (the blocks are completed, the center assembled), Arkansas Traveler (the 4-patch diamonds are sewn) and a new jewel-tone 4-patch charity quilt. My goal was to work on things already in progress, and the new charity quilt snuck itself in the mix.

I prefer to cut borders at home, so fabric was auditioned for two borders and binding for the MQ#3. My half-dowel pressing stick wasn't packed, so the 4-patch diamonds still need to be pressed, and the 4-patch charity quilt segments were my to-the-last-minute project, so the irons and boards were packed up by the time they were stitched.

Bonus items: Quilt Lovers Favorites - vol. 5 and two pieces of flannel and a starburst fat quarter from the give-away items.

And, today I won a blog hop drawing from Pat Sloan's website for Nancy Zieman's book Seams Unlikely. I really like Nancy Zieman, have enjoyed her shows and products for years, and will give a review when it arrives.

Something Sweet

 

This little quilt usually hangs in my studio this time of year. The center panel is in one piece, and they are echo quilted around the designs. I learned how to make scallops in Electric Quilt, and like the corner accents and two-color scallops. They are also embroidered to mimic a lace trim.

I came across patterns with clear instructions for what I called "Woven Bias" or the Riley block at the United Notions website, under Free Patterns. They have one version called Surrounded by Love and another called Honky Tonk, both with the same block, using the same 2.5" strips that I used, where the other versions found had much larger strips.

A couple of 2013 finishes

Woven Bias, inspired by a quilt seen on a blog, then I found that the block "Riley" is in Blockbase/EQ, and played with the dimensions. There are a couple of version online--one free version with good assembly instructions at windhamfabrics.net called “Fresh Connections”. Their version has the links interlocking, while I chose to make my blocks more random, trying to distribute the colors. Size is 71" x 60"

 

 Crazy giant fish on the back--the largest are 24" long!

This pattern came from the Missouri Star tutorials, called “Amazing Jelly Roll Quilt Pattern by 3 Dudes”. Their versions look much different, using all the fabrics from a jelly roll, while this used only 4 fabrics. It was fun to see the secondary pattern of hearts appear. There are several layouts of the blocks that look very different. Size 50" x 39"

 

This month I've finished two preemie quilts and knitted a chemo cap for a friend (Odessa by Grumperina.)

Projects in progress update – the old

Baby Owls – quilted with a new leafy pantograph pattern. It sat for a while as I stressed over how to quilt the top, and the finished quilt pleases me. It’s currently hanging in my studio. 42.5" x 32.5".

Chevron Strippie - quilted & donated. This was a quilt-as-you-go scrap project, where I pieced the strips onto scrap batting strips of different widths, then assembled the top by zig-zagging the strips together, then layered the backing and quilted  along some of the chevrons, then added vertical sashing strips. An interesting experiment. Approximately 55" x 60".

Dancing Stars - still waiting to be quilted.

Diamond 4-patch - quilted & gifted to the neighbor who had given me the batik fabrics. She had to be talked into keeping it by her cousin, as it didn’t match her décor. It’s in her guest room now. This is the last surprise quilt I will make for anyone. Full-sized quilt.

 

Postage Stamp Blocks?  I don’t even remember what this was.