My sewing station early on Sunday morning.
Last weekend I was enjoying the cocoon-like experience of a quilt retreat. In the mix: Forty sewing enthusiasts, an awarding winning quilter, board & lodging plus access to our sewing machines from 7am ’til 11.59pm. Result: a perfect four course ‘meal’ – sewing, good company, great teaching and a break from domestic routines – lasting 50 hours 🙂
Trudi Wood guided us through drawing and stitching free motion quilting patterns onto 1″ grids (both on paper and marked out on practice quilt sandwiches).
Creating an even Orange Peel design is a real challenge for me but I know it will be worth continuing to practice… In the meantime the wavy Orange Peel is a more forgiving alternative (see extreme right of photo below). Stitching Clamshells was a first for me and it was fun adding in the little ‘fronds’, leaves and bobbly flowers (bottom left of photo).
However I didn’t stitch out any of the free motion designs onto the table runners I’d taken because I got too engrossed in my scrappy quilt project: using the 2½” squares and 2½” x 5½” rectangles I’d cut out the week before. I bought the background fabric on the Friday morning and rinsed it out in my hotel room bathroom that same evening – I wanted to pre-shrink it so it would be compatible with the pre-washed scrap fabrics.
Most of the blocks and strips were made on retreat, I just had the final columns to stitch together when I got home. I’ve ordered a piece of extra wide backing fabric that was on sale and a piece of Sew Simple’s EcoBlend 70/30wadding. I’m curious to try out the wadding, a new one on me (have you used EcoBlend wadding or read any reviews?). As for the quilting ‘plan’, I’m toying with various FMQ designs, determined not to fall back on walking foot quilting.
Surprise! Or no surprise? This quilt top has hardly made a dent in my collection of squares and rectangles! How is that the supply of fabric scraps seems to be unquenchable? I’m not to be defeated though! I’ve come up with a cunning plan to stitch that bottomless box of scraps into a quilt top.
I’m calling this block ‘Dash, Dash, Dot’. So far I have made four blocks. They are a rather odd size being 11½” x 12½” unfinished. But hey! it’s a scrap quilt and blocks don’t have to be square do they? As long as I keep them orientated the same way it should all go together.
So one weekend at Sewcial Retreat has resulted in quite a legacy of projects and creativity. When I arrived home I had the fun of unpacking my retreat goodie bag.
Such a lot of useful and inspiring notions, including mermaid make-up applicators given to us patchwork-quilters in the expectation we’d re-purpose them as cleaning tools for our sewing machines!
Linking with Alycia for Finished or Not Friday. I spied one of the links in the gallery is a scrappy quilt made of rectangles – not dissimilar to the ‘Dash, Dash, Dot’ quilt I’m making. Go to Gretchen’s blog post to see some photos of the ‘brick quilt’ and others being finished ready to donate.
Happy Stitching!
Allison
Your retreat is interesting… different than the retreats we have here where we simply sew and sew and sew. No goodie bags; no teaching/instruction. And wow! You got 40 quilters into one space?! That’s amazing. Other than renting a hotel meeting room/convention room, I don’t know of any place quilters in Central Florida can go that accommodate 40 quilters and their machines. Our modern quilt group is going on retreat in May, for four nights. We are accommodating 24 quilters onsite with rooms and food provided in the price. We can sew all night long if we wish, and I am often the last one to go to bed, near to 1 am or so. 🙂 I loved reading the word “orientated” in your blog post. Silly, I know, but I am a journalist, and have always been interested in the use of that word. While both of us understand the same meaning, here in the US we say “oriented.” “Orientated” means “facing north.” Ha, ha. I love how we’re the same, but different. 🙂 Hugs.
Hi! Linda. Yes! This was definitely an organised, hosted retreat with people coming from far and wide. I know there are lots of small groups of sewing friends around here who arrange their own sewing retreats without all the extras.
Ha! Ha! Interesting how the English language continues to evolve on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘Orient’ is still used here to mean the ‘Far East’ (Asia and Japan) and we sing the Carol about the Wise Men with the opening line ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are…’ I guess pilots on international flights need to be very precise in their use of language or they could be heading east instead of north!
That sounds like an amazing time!! I really like your nine patch quilt! kind of impressed you washed the fabric in your room – that’s commitment there haha!!