Alaska Quilting Cruise

Immediately after returning from the retreat, I had 3 days to get ready for an Alaskan Quilting Cruise, whew! I got my laundry done, quilting supplies together, and at the last minute had to go dress shopping for formal nite, 'cause the dress I had planned on wearing was too small :( I stuffed a bunch of friends from the Fyber Cafe group into my RV and we took off for Seattle. After a few quilt shops along the way, and lunch, we made it to Gig Harbor in about 8 hours. One of our dear friends Pat had moved there last year, and we really missed her in our group, we stayed at her house over night. In total we had 6 quilters and two spouses, in the RV, dropped off at the cruise terminal and I went to park. We were all so excited, the Holland America Eurodam, was huge! But docked next to the Princess Cruise ship she was NOT. Pat and I had a veranda room, very nice. Our first quilting class while we traveled North was with Anna Buzzalino, called "Moments" it was a curved machine applique class, where we designed our own pattern abstract from a photo.

I spent most of the day, sketching abstract curves from my photo of a hen and chicks succulent, I ended up where I started with a bulls eye design. Anna helped everyone with their designs, all different and personal. After enlarging it to a 18 x 24 paper, we traced it again so we could mark up a copy with colors, layers, sections and sewing order, and registration marks to match the curves. This took quiet a lot of time and deep thinking. Next we traced it all again on fusible interfacing for our working pattern. We were getting to the end of the day, so she showed us how to iron the fusible to the back of our fabric and paint starch on the seam allowance and iron the edges under. Over lapping the pieces and sewing with a clear monofilament thread in a small zigzag. I managed to get about 4 pieces put together. The designing was fun, I would have made a more accurate copy of my photo by myself, but did abstract the design, which is NOT my thing. I am more of a realist. So I was very happy with the results. When I got home I decided to work on it or it would have been forgotten in my "to do" pile.

I had quiet a puzzle on the fabric choices, I used mostly batiks and finally decided to go bright and light in the middle with very high contrast. Going more subdued and lower contrast, as the colors got darker and faded to the outside. I paid more attention to contrast than value, which was different for me. I ended up using my own technique for construction, not Anna's. I folded the seam allowance under with a glue stick, and glued the layered pieces together. Then I used a blind hem stitch with the clear monofilament thread to applique and quilt all at once. I highly recommend YLI thread, it is thin and very flexible! I was originally thinking of doing some thread painting to shade some of the colors, but I liked the simplicity of the graphic quality so I did not add any additional quilting. I'll post more of the trip next time. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click herecheck it to see what other talented textile artists are doing.

Bandon Retreat 2018

I spent 7 wonderful days at Bandon on the Southern Oregon coast, for a quilting retreat. Barb, in my Fyber Cafe group was having a retreat with her family and friends and had an extra space, and asked me to join them, yea me! The retreat center is above Forget-Me-Knots quilt shop, which provides excellent shopping opportunities. My first priority was making a baby quilt for my niece's new little girl Emelia. At home I had cut 2 1/2" strips from almost all my 1920-30's reproduction prints, pretty pastels with conversation prints, lots of little dogs, cats, chicks, geese, pigs, and children. I put them together in a simple rail fence pattern and added a border of fairy tail print with princesses and castles. Now, a month later I bought the flannel backing fabric, of butterflies, to get it quilted.

My big project for the week was a queen size star kit, that I had gotten for my other niece. All the nieces and nephews have baby quilts, and wall hanging/lap quilts. So now it is time for queen size bed quilts, as they are almost all adults now. She had wanted something modern and I had been looking at gray/black chevron patterns. Finding this kit was perfect, I seldom buy kits, preferring to make my own art patterns. It is a Hoffman kit called "Crystal Clear" and was all batik fabric, gray and white with turquoise accents. I figured it was paper pieced with all the points and angles. But imagine my surprise when I opened the box and it was all pre-cut pieces with number stickers on them. And DOUBLE SURPRISE there were NO DIRECTIONS!!! The box was marked that all the pieces were there, so someone must have opened it, checked off the pieces and forgot to put the papers back in the box. All I had to go on was the photo on the box :( I decided to give it a try, each section was marked A B C etc and they were in number order, it also helped that they had notches snipped in the seam to align the pieces. But I still had to figure how they went together, left to right or reversed, since it was all batik and reversible. I sturdily kept at it, making section by section and sewing for 3 days straight.

It was quiet a challenge and everyone was very impressed that I managed to figure it out, it was NOT easy at all. But preservation paid off. It did not go together well, it had some poofy spots, but the points matched well and it did eventually become one piece!

Wow! If I had not been at retreat I doubt I would have gotten it done. Also being the masochist I am, I decided to make another one for my other niece, in black, gray and magenta. I had traced all the pieces on freezer paper, cut them out and taped them together along the seam lines. I found several glaring mistakes in the pieces, and the way they went together, exactly where the poofy spots were. No wonder it was poofy. Then I used a light box to create a paper pieced pattern for each section. Having no directions I had to guess at the yardage, and bought the entire bolts of black and gray fabrics. I hope I have enough!

I got a good start on it at the retreat. The paper piecing is so much easier and so much more accurate. I should be able to finish it in a reasonable bit of time. We had a great time, going to the quilt shops in Port Orford, Charleston and Coos Bay. Out to lunch a lot and long walks on the beach and shopping in Old Town. The other ladies made some amazing quilt tops and it was fun to watch what they were doing. A week was a bit long, I usually do this retreat in a 3 day session, but it was worth it, and we scheduled for next year too. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here check out what other talented artists are doing.