SEPT QUILT RETREAT

A long anticipated quilt tetreat, got me to start quilting again. We had postponed it twice because of covid, so we finally got the chance to go. I have NOT been quilting for a long while, when my husband passed away, I thought quilting would be my refuge. Instead I got depressed and three years passed by with almost no sewing. This was so unlike me, I was a prolific art quilter. I did a little bit here and there, but got caught up in paper crafts. I met a friend in a card making group that I joined. I could only make so many greeting cards, so shifted to art journals, then book binding my own journals and decorating them. I have sesveral that are "art" journals, that I do my own painting, sketching, and creating in. Now I make journals with decorative elements, NOT "junk" journaling but more artistic. Journals to use like a diary or travel journal. So anyway, after taking several projects with me to the treat, I got them all finished. My main projrct were these artic animals kit, that I had bought for myself on a quilt cruise to Alaska. it cacme with precut jelly rolls, and I thought it would be quick and easy, with preprinted animals. NOT!!! The animals all had to be fused together from individual pieces. The jelly rolls were cut with pinked edges, horrible to match the points on the diagonal, to make 45' angles.

Also there were 6 white on white prints, that I had to identify and label and cut certain lengths, screw that, I just used an assortment and cut them randomly. It worked out fine. The fused applique was a mess too. The pieces were for a whole area, with other snaller pieces on top of them, so you did not know haw to position a lot of the pieces, that overlapped. I had to enlarge the patterns 200% and I did the over all pattern too, but it was a different scale, so I could not use it for placement. I finally got the whole top put together, but it was a chore, rather than a pleasure, because of the poor pattern instructions. Several of the other ladies had problems with commercial kits and patterns too. One did not have enough of one color to cut all the pieces. Annother told her to cut pieces too small, fortunatly she did have enough fabric to recut the right pieces, but we had to figure out the correct measurements. I am going to use this for my Christmas decor, I have an small table with Christmas Polar Bears on it, this will hang behind the table.

My "Emerald City" got quilted at the retreat!! I had tried to take it to a previous retreat but could not find it, panic!! I had been looking for it for 2 years. It came to light in a pile of unreleated stuff, and I was finally ready to finish it. It is from a book "Happy Villages," the author's were mostly mediteranian hillside views. I added the yellow brick road, and the field of red poppies at the bottom, and red ruby slippers at the very bottom edge. I had a very long debate with a few friends about perspective and how to angle the bricks. We finally worked it out after much thought. It is all raw edge applpique, attached with a glue stick. then light green tulle was placed over it all, then machine free motion quilted in rayon threads. It is very densly quilted to match the outlines and add accents. I did quiet a few other things too, which I will add in another post. The retreat was at "THUMBUDDY SPECIAL" in Eugene Oregon. She has two very nice modern homes, that sleep six each. Sewing room for 12, with good lighting, cutting tables, ironing boards, etc... She has a small quilt shop attached on the back of the house, open while we were there, but by appointment only at other times. It was a beautiful place, with a gazebo, lovely gardens, huge outside picnic tables and dinning tables for our large group of ladies. We had a blast!!