Monday, May 21, 2012

Retreat : recap two

Saturday  - Quilting Lessons

Love love this sample.

This was a sample that Amanda Jean brought along, and I super loved it. The herringbone is awesome, and I am especially drawn to straight line against curvy free motion.

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Right after breakfast we dove into our first lesson.

It must be noted how wonderful the food was all weekend. There was a woman who worked for the retreat location who fed us amazing, fresh comfort food. Tacos with all the fixings, pancakes fresh fruit and 4 different syrups, pulled pork sandwiches with home made coleslaw and the best chocolate chip cookies ever. (she shared her recipe, too!) You get the picture...it was so fun to be working along and then you hear the call that the next meal is ready. You didn't have to make any of it, clean up, nor realize hours later that you had forgotten to eat :)

So, our first lesson covered basics and then ideas for walking foot quilting beyond plain straight lines. Even though I have quite a bit of quilting and walking foot experience, there were still new things to learn. Then, the fun of trying it out on our squares.

Angela's herringbone quilting

Had to do the herring bone on one of my blocks. As always though, I became bored with the straight line process, so I added a couple strategic gaps. I really like the look of straight lines, but have very little patience for the monotony. It was nice to be able to try them out on our 17" blocks instead of a whole quilt.

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If we got stuck, Amanda Jean would help us out.

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It didn't take long before we had stuff all over the place. I had commandeered the couch behind me as well was my table.

amanda's quilt
A close-up of a favorite section on Amanda Jean's quilt.

In the afternoon we switched over to free motion. I was excited to get ideas and learn some patterns beyond my standard stipple.

Some of my favorites:

Angela's mod bumps quilting

Angela's dandelion quilting
I made this one up to look like dandelion seed heads flowing up and down the print.

Angela's flower quilting
And I was super proud of how my flowers turned out.

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Karen, sitting at the table next to me, had an amazing ability to keep things in a straight line. Where I had to spend time measuring and marking guidelines, she was able to keep things straight and evenly spaced BY EYE!

melinda's lilly pads
Melinda turned her Echo into fabulous lily pads!

We spent a lot of time laughing - we certainly weren't a quiet bunch. Then there was quilter fun, like laughing about a spray bottle filled with Vodka Water.

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A total groupie, this was some of the most fun...Amanda Jean would happily sit and demonstrate whatever free motion you were stuck on. It was the short video on her blog demonstrating stippling that got me started quilting 3 years ago.

amanda jean creating and teaching

I thought I would be done with my 20 squares on Saturday, but it was hard to decided between all the FMQ designs. So focused on my squares, I didn't even realize that Terry was talking photos at all that weekend until she posted them on our flickr page!

Hard at work

We would walk around and question Amanda Jean or survey each other when trying to decided which pattern to use on each block.

quilt day 2

Way too soon the day was done, and I had been up since about 4:30, so I turned in before midnight. Final day would be learning to join up our blocks!

11 comments:

Stephanie said...

That's really cool, what a great retreat! So many great ideas I see!! Love it all :)

Stephanie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sharon T said...

Whoa! Where did that wooden ironing board come from? Love it!

CitricSugar said...

Oh, thanks for another great recap - someday, I'm going to have to save my pennies and hit a retreat/workshop! I just live so far away...

Lee said...

You are making me so sad that I didn't go to this! It looks like you guys learned a ton! I really need to break out of my stippling rut, so thanks for the ideas/inspiration.

Leslie said...

i am floored...these patterns of FMQ are so amazing. so clever! you did such a great job.

amy smart said...

Angela, What a FABULOUS retreat! I'm so glad you were able to go. And I'm so glad you shared the wonderful photos - they are inspiring me to pull out scraps and start new projects. And maybe even to do more machine quilting! :)

Emily said...

I am beyond jealous! All that quilting looks so fabulous! :) You should be very proud of yourself - yours looks great!

Rene' said...

You really learned a lot!!! I can see why you are so proud of the block with your flower quilting! Amazing! Thanks for sharing photos.

Amanda Jean said...

i'm sooooo glad that you were able to come to the retreat. it was a blast to finally meet you and sew with you for the entire weekend. you rocked the machine quilting, girl!

quirky granola girl said...

what a fantastic post! i may just link to your post rather than trying to do one of my own. and you have a great eye for picking the best photos to show of the weekend.