Quilt Retreats are The Best

A few weeks ago I was invited to a quilt retreat at a quaint secluded spot about an hours drive from my home.  The wonderful thing about retreats is that you are given the time to just quilt and be with a  terrific group of like minded women.  Your meals are prepared and when they call you for meals you sit down to a delicious array of food.  I knew a few of the women there and the rest I got to know over the 4 days that we were away.  It was a great group with lots of chatter and friendships made.  I took a few pictures and wish that I had taken more.  

The room was set up with 3 to a group of three tables.  If you wanted to be closer to friends you could but most of us used our full table.  We blew a few fuses to start with and then settled for three irons on the go instead of everyone using their own iron.  We all shared and just took turns.

A beautiful appliqued wall hanging

It is hard to see the strips of colour in this tote but it was made with beautiful batiks.

The beginning of a beautiful quilt.

Some different squares that were being worked on.

A makeup case started.

  

Tiny squares that went into a lovely baby quilt or teddy bear quilt.

Magic nine patches.

Paper piecing to be made into a quilt.

 

I made three quilt tops over the 4 days and brought them home and quilted them.  They are all lap sized.

Click on any of the pictures so see them enlarged.

What a wonderful 4 days we had; we even had a snow storm while we were there but didn't really care because we were inside surrounded by friends and happily working away on our wonderful hobby.

Peggy

Here it is

I finished the binding on the Hinge Method quilt and I decided to name Double Flavoured Quilt because of the bright colours that remind me of sweet treats.  

 Double Flavoured Quilt

The side borders are larger than the top and bottom because I used 15 squares and not the usual 12 so it was a lot longer than it was wide.  It is 68 x 85 inches and very large for me to work on.  I think it will be a long time before I make another one.  I will help the guild make hinge quilts but I won't be making one myself.

Peggy

Seven New Blocks

Our Guild is going to make some bed size quilts for an organization here for troubled youth.  I decided to make one using the hinge method since a large quilt is too big to quilt on my machine and using the hinge method you quilt the blocks first and then hinge them together to make a quilt.  I am still working on it and hope to have it finished by September.  

It looks a little weird because I still have to add borders and it is long and skinny, but it will look fine when the borders are on.  They are all quilted and ready to be added, I just have to get around to doing it.  The problem is that the quilt is still very large to maneuver around so I have to psyche myself up for it.

The guild has taken my idea and asked the members to make blocks that we can hinge together at a Quilt Bee in the fall, so I decided to make a few.  Once I get started I can't seem to stop.  I ended up making seven.   They were to be 12 1/2 inch squares but leave an edge all around them so that they can be squared up when it is time to quilt them.

Two inch squares

Three and a half inch squares.

Five nine patch blocks.  I tried to get a little creative with different colours and arrangements.

Peggy

My Second Anita's Grecian Wrench

Someone asked me once how is it that I get so many quilts made.  I think my secret is that when I decide that I am going to make a certain pattern, I make a kit up with all the fabric cut to size.  It if is 2 1/2 inch squares or 5 inch squares for example, then I pick the fabric and cut it all and anything else that goes with the pattern. I put it aside until I am ready to start a new project and then I just have to pick a kit and everything is ready to go. 

When I made up my kit to make the first Anita's Grecian Wrench I put a lot of green squares in the kit and then decided that I didn't like some of them together so I pulled them out and added different colours to make it scrappy.  So now I had all these green squares and had to decide what to do with them so I just added more assorted squares and made a second quilt.  I like the way there is a secondary pattern when it is all put together.

Anita's Grecian Wrench

I also completed another quilt.  This one is such a simple block called a nine patch.  I then sashed the nine patches and then added white sashing to all the squares.

Sashed Nine Patch

This was suppose to be a larger quilt but since I like smaller lap sized I just made less squares and came up with a 38 x 50 inch quilt.

Peggy.

Superior Quilt Show

This week-end was the Superior Quilt Show here in Thunder Bay Canada.  It was a great success with over 177 quilts on display.  There were antique quilts, donation quilts and teddy bears with their quilts that are donated at Christmas time to Christmas Cheer Fund.

I thought that I would post pictures of some of the quilts.  These are just random pictures, I didn't know who had quilted them, I just walked around and selected a few.

This wall is all the challenge quilts that were handed in,  We were given three fabrics and could add up to three other fabrics but the quilt had to be less than 36 inches square.  Mine is the small quilt at the bottom left with the bird houses on it.  I made it using foundation paper piecing.

On Saturday night we had our biannual banquet and were treated to a trunk show from Johanna Masko.  She is a quilting instructor at The Workroom in Toronto. 

Here are some of her quilts.

Houses

Farmer's Wife Quilt

Wedding Ring Quilt

Peggy

I'm Back

It has been a while since I did any blogging.  Things have been busy with Christmas and I had to visit my brother in Tallahassee.  He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's so Lynda and I decided that we should go down there and see how he is coping.  Also I have not posted anything that I made for Christmas gifts.

I will start with Christmas gifts.

Joyce's sewing kit,

Maria's sewing kit.

Pierina's sewing kit.

Christine's sewing kit.

Terry's Remote control holder.  A Habs fan.

Lynda's remote control holder.  A rooster fan.

Carole's remote control holder.  She loves flowers.

Colleen's remote control holder.  A cat fan.

New Placemats for Meals on Wheels.

When I travel I carry a first aid kit but it was always in a pencil case so I made a new pouch to carry all my supplies.

A new make-up pouch for me.

When I visited Lynda in December she had purchased new fabric in Europe on her last trip and wanted me to make her a dark purse that she could use in the winter months.  I put lots of pockets in it and also a false gusset on the top.

Everyone in my family has a quilt made by me except my brother Bill.  When we went to visit him I decided that I would take him a quilt.  It isn't fancy since I had very little time to make it.  He said he liked it and had put it on his bed.

Peggy.