Comfort Squares

One of the women from the Mother's Day retreat lost her sister.

So, of course we're making her a quilt.  Flaun proposed the idea, and we all jumped at the chance to be part of a comfort quilt.



We're going to make a large teal and yellow star.  Each of us taking a solid square or HST, and making a QAYG block.



Flaun is going to collect them all, then assemble the final quilt.

I took two of the HSTs - stipple and ribbons on this first one.



My dandelion pattern and pebbles on the second.

It's going to be such a happy quilt when it's done - I can't wait to see what other fabrics and quilting patterns the group will use.

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Retreat : recap two

Saturday  - Quilting Lessons



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.



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.



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.



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



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.


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:




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


And I was super proud of how my flowers turned out.



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 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.



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.



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!



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



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!

Retreat : recap one

I have so much to share with you, I'll break my final retreat post into a couple days.  I don't want to leave out a single, fun photo or moment.

Perhaps it was the fact that this was my first quilt retreat, or that all ten of the other women there just amazing, but I can not imagine a more awesome retreat.

(seriously, I've been gushing about it for the last two days to whomever I can get to listen!)



As everybody arrived Friday afternoon, we uncrammed our packed cars and started loading up the retreat center.



By evening we filled eight banquet rounds and a big rectangle table with an amazing variety of machines and quilty stuff.

Karen had a cool tilted base-thing so that her sewing surface is at perhaps a 10-15deg angle.  And Flaun had a Horizon that I tried not to drool on, along with Amanda's screamin' fast Juki (no fancy stuff, not even a zigzag, but as she said, it has two modes - fast and faster!)



Melinda's cool, vintage Kenmore doesn't have a quilting platform, so she improvised.

With yoga blocks, a few books including e.e.cummings, cardboard, and packing tape....It was super Zen!

After a yummy dinner of tacos and cupcakes (mmm!) we sat together to introduce ourselves more formally with some show & tell and flimsies.



I brought a few, including this dutch pinwheel I made a couple years ago with Snippets turnovers and a bit of stash.  We decided that proudly stippling it and a scrappy binding would be the way to go.

(I love to stipple, and I'm going to own that I'm proud of it - even though it kind of feels like stipple is trending 'out' in blog land lately) 



Melinda's string quilt.  Amazing. Oh, and she brought her voile quilt top as well - too busy gaping at it's wonderfulness to take a photo.  Go visit it....



Flaun had the most awesome aqua suitcase full of stuff.  She's a hoot and has made some cool stuff - you should check out her blog.

Melinda, Amanda, and the rest of us talked over lots of quilting ideas for all the flimsies we brought.



I brought my Figgy Pudding table cloth/quilt to sleep under.  Bummed I didn't take any photos of it in my nice room.

We over-talked.  By a whole big bunch.  It was just too much fun.

So the first class that Amanda was going to do for us go put off until Saturday morning - probably best not to start learning at 10:30 the first night!



That was perfect for me, as I had fallen in love with this quilt by Amanda.  She had been at a book signing the night before, and had all her quilts along - lucky us!

Amanda is truely the queen of scrap quilting.  But I have struggled with it.....How do you get the above out of a bin like this:



So, late Friday night I asked and Amanda happily dove into my bin and taught me how to do it.

Being an engineer to the core, I really just needed SOME basic process, other than - sew scraps together.  Her little improvised lesson was perfect.

Then it was off to bed a little before midnight - we had a big day planned for Saturday.  I was hyped up on caffine....

Diet Dr Pepper and Iced coffee - the drinks of the champion quilters :)

And had my new scrap-piecing skills churning in my head.  I tossed and turned, finally waking up at 4:30am.  I tried really hard to sleep some more, as we weren't starting until 8:30, but I gave up at 5 and hopped into the shower. 



I was up alone, so headed out back for some yogurt.  With the red winged blackbirds, and the sweet grass smell, it was a wonderful start.

Then I dove back into my green bin to try blocks by myself.



And I did it!!  By the time others started joining me around 7:30, I was super excited and waving my green blocks for all to see.



Amanda had started parts of these, and I just ran with it until the call for breakfast came at 8:30.



This one I did all by myself.

After breakfast we start the real lessons - and first up would be using a walking foot.....

Retreat : Time Warp!!

I can still hardly believe I'm already back home!

I had thought I would do a quick post a few more times over the weekend. But I could hardly keep up with the fact that it was already time for the next meal when they rolled around!!

I had a fabulous time with a super cool group of women. But now I have appointments and normal life today.

So, more details will have to wait.



Quickly, the block I was most proud of this weekend.

I actually jumped up, yelled "I did it!" and marched around to show everybody.

I had so much fun trying out new FMQ patterns, especially these flowers.

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Retreat : post 1

I packed like I was going to be away for a month!



And my quilt squares got a prime seat for the ride into Wisconsin.



Made it!



I was early, so I had a chance to hike around the next door forest preserve.



Cliffs, Valleys, and Sweet Grass. Mmmmmmm.

Now onto quilting!

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Retreat Ready

More or less!



My sewing area has a stack of prepped, basted quilt blocks, flimsies, and a couple show & tell quilts. I've been having so much fun this week getting everything ready and thinking about the fun I'll have with Amanda Jean and the other women!

Now, as she suggested, I should start to pack actual clothing....don't want to forget clothing :)


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Values Evaluation

I've been turning pictures black and white, trying to figure out my quilt for the retreat with Amanda Jean.

I'm fairly bad at the values thing, but I thought I would give it a try. I've had these squares on our floor for almost a week now. Every so often, I or my husband will move or replace one. Mostly we walk around it and I stare, trying to decide what to do with my 20 squares.



I've also been using big hunks of My Precious - Echino and Park Slope I have been hoarding.

I'm going with the same colors that I had requested for my 4x5 blocks - cerise, bright blue, acid green.



The color photo is a bit washed as I had to try to level out the shadows. Not enough sun all the way across the floor for the 4x5 layout.

I better decide soon, though.  I have to layout my back as well and get the blocks basted before I go.

Thread Prep

I am so excited!

Over Mother's Day weekend I'm going to a retreat with Amanda Jean.

Perfect timing -
all thread is 50% off,
plus I had an additional 20% coupon at JoAnn's. 

Spools to match
all 40 fat quarters.

It was a blast as I pulled  favorite fabrics to create the front and back of my retreat project quilt.