Quilt Retreat 2010

Seth's mom and Aunt live next door to each other, about 4 1/2 hours from my place. A couple years ago I got the brilliant idea to invade their homes and mooch off them during spring break, fall break, a week during summer, or any other time I felt like inviting myself down. The idea is that I stay with Aunt Emma, who's also a quilt lady, and the kids go back and forth between Emma's and Grandma's. This way I get a lot of projects done and the kids don't have a terrible time. Quilt Retreat, I call it. I just went down there over fall break for a Quilt Retreat.

The first Quilt Retreat I did was maybe last year sometime. I don't really remember. I do remember promising details about it here on the old 'Blog. And here I am keeping that promise.


What I do is, I bring tons of half-finished projects, the bigger the better, and then work on stuff every waking hour, with the end-result being tons of finished projects. The first time, I stuffed the van to over-flowing and barely had room for the children. I also brought a lot of unreasonable projects. The last two times, I have brought stuff that's way more reasonable and do-able. Leaves room enough to bring the children's bikes. Anyway, here are some things I got done this last time, over Fall Break, despite feeling terrible because I have a Baby on Board.

1. Baby quilt. Sorry to spoil the surprise, Yara, if you're reading this. It's for Rafael. I started it during my Spring Break Quilt Retreat and it sat in my work room for 6 months. This time I machine quilted it, free-motion, and Emma helped me hand-stitch the binding on.




2. Wool project. I saw a stunning applique "bed rug" in a quilt catalog. It was a block of the month, costing nearly 1000 dollars when it was all said and done. I set about getting the supplies to make it out of 100% wool, pretty sure I could do it for slightly less than $1000. I'm gathering patterns I like from books and magazines, and for the materials, I've spent less than $200. I think I'm on track to achieve my goal. It's slow-going, though, since I apparently think I have until eternity to get my approximately one billion projects done. This is one I'm not thinking of abandoning. It's machine applique with invisible thread. This pattern is from William Morris in Applique.

3. I actually made two of this baby quilt. They're close to identical, just with different backing fabrics. The one Emma chose, the cuter one, is up top. This one is backed with the fun red print I chose, which is cute, but not the cuter fabric. I love the fronts of these quilts and envy the little boys who will snuggle with them. There are patches made of circuit-board print fabric, for crying out loud! I got this one machine quilted and Emma helped me bind it also.

4. Mending. I found these kids' jeans in a bag and knew they were in there for mending, not picnic quilts. I've mended the knees, which the children will blow out again within seconds of putting them on.

5. The Main Event: I, along with several friends, am making the O Tannenbaum quilt. I've talked about it before. The "block" for November was to make eight log-cabin blocks. I did the October block, another paper-pieced house, and then used the rest of my awake-and-feeling-good-enough-to-do-anything time to piece these monsters. I really had to push myself. I did them all at once, chain piecing and then pressing each log. I feel terrible for the ladies who did/are doing one block at a time. They will be sewing through the millennium, I think. Each log only comes out to 5/8 inch when it's all sewn in, so these seemed to be about 3 inches square for like two days. They never seemed to get any bigger! But I did it. It's a major accomplishment for me. And then the best part, was arranging them in my favorite log-cabin arrangement. They're stunning. Separately, all I see in each block is toil and sick-feelings. Together, they inspire me to make MORE log cabins!! Maybe...

These are some of the main things I accomplished at my Quilt Retreat this fall. I plan to go again, but maybe not until after school lets out and the baby's here and I feel awesome. But then again, maybe for Spring Break! Who knows?!

Quilt Blockin'

Here's a recent installment in the $5 Block o' the Month. They're really going half-square and quarter-square triangle crazy on these. It's a lot of triangles.

O Tannenbaum

I have become involved in a block of the month, self-administered by a group of quilting and crafting friends. There are maybe five of us and we all went in on the pattern for a fabulous christmas quilt called O Tannenbaum. Here's a link to one of the many quilt shops online that have it:

www.quakertownquilts.com/OTannenbaum.shtml

Here's the first month's block. It's paper-foundation piecing. It's fun to see how each lady's fabrics make her block different, plus everyone's interpretation of the instructions...

Block O' the Month

By lucky chance I went to a quilt shop just days before they were starting this year's "Last Saturday Sampler" also known as The Five Dollar Quilt. You pay five bucks. They give you a little kit to make a quilt block, including fabric and pattern. You come to the meeting on the Last Saturday of each month of the year. If you bring last month's finished block with you, you get the next month's kit for free. So at the end of the year, you've been able to make a quilt for five bucks. Plus there are prizes and drawings. At the meeting they just tell you what's going on at the shop and show you new products.

This is the finished block for January. I've done this once before, at a quilt shop in Sandy, Utah. Just last fall I put those blocks together into a quilt for my baby Scotty and it was good I already had them done, nine years ago, or else Scott might not have gotten a good baby quilt from me.

Little Appliqued Duck

We needed quilt tops for a church activity. I had a whole bolt of this blue plaid fabric so I pulled off a baby-quilt-tops worth but then it needed something else. Real quick I drew up the chicken, following the pattern we used in March for another activity, but enlarging it freehand. Pretty proud of myself there. So with the Pfaff (thanks for the loan, Mom!) I machine appliqued it on and I think it turned out pretty ok. Can you see it? I also did a tiny circular buttonhole for the eye. This was a few weeks ago, like maybe almost a month ago.

Sarah's Quilt

Here's the finished product for all those embroidered flowers. I just think it looks so cool with all the different colors from far away. Plus I love any Irish Chain quilt. Up close you can see the different quilters' work and the grub from being on our bed for a couple years, but you can also see the love from everyone that helped make it and how much we miss little sister. It's sideways here, and I just made it whatever size I wanted to instead of a real bed size, so it's 80 x 100.

And the Last Batch

I guess I didn't get a picture of #16. Huh. Anyway, I put in the little feetprints instead. You can't really get the sense of how tiny they were, but take my word for it, in real life they were only about an inch tall, maybe an inch and a quarter.

Other Flowers for Sarah

I think the sunflower was one of my top two or three all-time favorites of the embroidered flowers. I was so proud of myself for conquering french knots. Before this, they would either just flop apart when I would try to cinch them up or else they would pop through the fabric.

More Flowers for Sarah

I had some of the flowers from the quilt guild I belonged to, and then some of them are...don't tell the authorities...rubber stamps that I scanned in to the computer and enlarged. Then I outline-stitched them all.

Flowers for Sarah

So my daughter Sarah was a preemie, and she only lived 16 minutes. Later that summer, searching for some way to make things ok, I made a quilt. I did 16 of these embroidered flowers, one for each minute she was with us. So here are the first four.

Quilts

I made a quilt. This entry is a test. it is seriously only a test.