Retreat, Retreat and Retreat

I have been busy, busy, busy, one quilting retreat after another. Our Fyber Café group took their annual retreat to the Oregon coast. We stay at the retreat center above Forget Me Knots quilt shop for 4 days in Bandon, Oregon. Lots of fun, good friends, good food, and walks on the beach. I got a lots of sewing done. In an effort to finish things, I put together the blocks of a hand applique Hawaiian quilt that I made years ago. I was going to quilt it a block at a time, but decided now that I have a long arm, just to go ahead and assemble it. At one time I had lost a block, argggh!! It took me years to find it, accidentally pulling out some paper pads from a rack, the block had gotten wedged into the back of the slot, weird, how it ever got back there. Thankfully I found it and finished up all the hand stitching. It is rather pastel colors on purpose, it was going to be mostly pink and purple. I had a purple batik fabric for the border but it was too gray and dulled it down a lot. So the teal sashing and border helped perk it up a bit. I am happy to have one more project done, now it is in a pile to long arm quilt, instead of a shoe box of unfinished projects. And bonus, I get an empty shoe box to fill with another project!

At the first retreat I got the pieces sewn for baby Emelia's baby quilt, my nephew's new baby. I used 1920-30's conversation prints, in a simple rail fence pattern. I had a beautiful soft print of vintage children and ladies with parasols in a garden that I used for the border. At the 2nd retreat I got it mostly quilted, but the muslin I bought for the backing had shrunk too much in the prewashing, so I needed to get home and buy more fabric and piece it onto the backing. I have that done now, and it is just waiting for the binding. The little girl is almost a year old now, but it is toddler size, a bit bigger than a baby quilt.

I also got the top done of inset circles for my second marble quilt. The first one was called "Marble Madness," made with my hand dyed fabrics. The second is "Marble Mania" made with hand dyed fabrics from a resist dyeing class. The prints are made with different resists, soy wax, potato dextrin, corn syrup, water soluble gutta and school glue. I had cut out the fabrics a while ago, another unfinished project (see a theme?) and got them all sewn into the backing. At the second retreat I managed to get it all quilted with lots of detail and rayon threads. After I got back from the first retreat at Forget Me Knots, they were having their retreat the next week at the Big K Guest Ranch, near where we live, so one of the ladies and I signed up for that too. Five more days quilting and sewing at the lodge, very intense, 12 hour days at the sewing machine. They had a retriever dog trials at the ranch, so we were able to watch them from the sewing room balcony as they played in the pond and fetched ducks. It was the last of the beautiful warm weather, we even sat out in the sun and did some hand stitching. I did not stay at the ranch cabins, as my friend only lived about 5 miles away, so we stayed at her place. After 5 days home, I went back to the Big K ranch for a 4 day art quilting class with Claudia Law from Ashland, Oregon. I did stay in the cabins that time. More about the class on the next post. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check out what other talented art quilters are doing this week.