Back from the retreat

We had one Scrapbooker working her magic. The results were very impressive. Her equipment was mind boggling! Looks as if she brought her entire craft room!

Ellen was my "table mate". She finished this hand quilting project on Saturday. She then started quilting another small wall hanging made from our guild's mystery quilt.

Here is Susan, one of our GREAT waitresses. She is a quilter too! She showed us her purse she had made. Beautiful. She promises that next year she will bring some of her work to share with us!

The food was unreal. We were treated like royalty. Two musical shows, Prime Rib, Broasted Chicken, Shrimp, full salad bar, full dessert bar....we sewed, ate, sewed, slept, ate, sewed all weekend.

Deb managed to get all this sewn by Saturday night! Beautiful work Deb! She is working on a Flying Geese border for this beauty!

My view from my little cottage. They were so quaint and tidy. I do not know how many cottages there are but they also have log cabins to rent and a campground. So nice and quiet back off a country road. You can hear cows mooing and donkeys braying.

All in all we had a great time. I knew I had brought way too much stuff. I will know better next time. And my 1938 Featherweight, Sissy, sewed like a champion. All the quilters came over to admire her beauty and the lovely sound she makes as she sews.

100th post!!!!! Going to a quilt retreat.

Wow! 100 posts! I amaze myself at times.

I am all packed and waiting to join a convoy of my fellow guild members for a 3 day retreat at Bear Creek Farms in Bryant Indiana.

I have never been to a quilt retreat. What to take? I need all my sewing gear! So I ended up with a small tote with my clothes and toiletries and 6 large totes with my sewing supplies. I am taking a chance and am bringing my 1938 Featherweight, Sissy. She was a bad girl at my paper piecing class. Her light would not stay on but she sewed ok. So...she is freshly oiled and lubed and her light was behaving as of yesterday. In case she decides she does not want to sew this weekend I brought two hand sewing projects and another tote with fabric for cutting. I have in mind to make a scrappy tumbler quilt. Years ago I bought a 2000 piece 4" square assortment from Keepsake Quilting. That is my cutting project. I keep opening the lovely gift box they came in and fondle the squares. I cannot take them with me when I die so they are going to be cut up.

I know I am going to miss my DH and my five cats. He understands. They will not. For an animal every moment is forever. Sigh!

Country Lanes pattern by Kaye England

I bought this batik off EBay. They called it Taupe and the picture looked very light taupe. But this is what I received. Looks gray to me.

Anyway, I went to a Gathering of quilters a few weeks ago and met Kaye England. I also bought several of her patterns. This is the first one I am doing. It is called Country Lanes. I am using the bagillion pink/white 3 1/2" 9-patches I had leftover from the Double Delight. And throwing in a few of my precious neutrals.

I still need to make 100 9-patches that have an extra light square in them.

I modified it to a 1 1/2"x 2 1/2" piece to make the odd square. I found some deep cigar boxes at the smokers' store. They are about 4" deep...great for patches.

Yes, I know...looks like a mess but I am totally in control until a cat decides to patch-out on my stuff!!! MaggieMae you know who I mean!

Another stash giveaway

http://turningturning.com/giveaway-granny-day-2009/

Great site and fun to read!

Bitten by the Hexagon bug

Today I worked on some 4 patches for an exchange from the Quiltville chat Yahoo group. I am about halfway done with the 100 blocks needed by May.

I have fallen in love with the EPP! (English Paper Piecing) I tried this when I was 11 (1961). I found the box in the attic. Then there was a demo at my guild's last meeting. I bought some papers off EBay and when they came I was bitten hard! Don't know when I will ever hand quilt again. This is supposed to be a take along project but all I want to do is make little hexes!

Give away of 30 FQ's

Here is the link to a great site and a super great give away!
http://www.pigtalesandquilts.com/2009/04/give-away-time.html

I love the primitive patterns that seem to abound today. This site has some great patterns!

Eyes on me

Check out this weird sunlight reflection from my back window onto Jim's man shed. Doesn't it look like an eye??? It did not come from the camera flash. I saw it as I was walking into the kitchen. It did not last very long. I wonder what made it. I will have to check tomorrow to see if "my eye" returns.

Bess posed for me today. She seems anxious. MaggieMae came home late yesterday after an overnight stay at the vets for spaying. MaggieMae is being so quiet and the rest of the cats seem concerned. There was no hissing when she returned. Sometimes kitties do not like the scents on a kitty who has visited the vet.

Black and White 9-patch assembled!!!!

Here are the rows being assembled this morning. I cannot believe how fast the assembly of this quilt has been!

Here are the rows on a hanger after pressing. I always do quilts this way. It keeps them clean and flat and I can just grab the next row off and the rest remain!

Here are the hourglass blocks during assembly. I used a chalk marker to extend the lines on the dark fabrics. I used pencil for the lights. And the blocks ended up being more black/gray than black/white as I had planned. But I think this will be a plus as the border fabric has gray in it.

easy, peasy sewing...just straight lines over and over and over. I made these blocks yesterday.

So, here it is on the design wall without the borders yet. When I made Amanda's quilt it turned out 66" square. This one is a rectangle and I plan on it being 72X90. Laura always wants bigger quilts. But since I plan on quilting it on my DSM I will not make it much larger.

Black and White 9-patch

Yes, I am starting another black and white 9-patch. My daughter #2 saw Amanda's black and white and went nuts over it.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jDwTRsOTRXk/SbFKGaXaAiI/AAAAAAAAAdg/8ovpCxUKkUc/s1600-h/DSC02340.JPG

So I started on Friday with pressing and cutting. By Sunday afternoon I had 77 blocks made. I only need 50 so there may end up being a third black and white 9-patch. I used 18 different black and white prints and 12 white or white on black prints. I have a good selection of blocks so they will all appear different in the quilt.

I bought a beautiful gray/black/white oriental fabric that I plan on using for the back and border. I need to get that cut today. And I need to cut two fabrics for the hourglass alternate blocks. I may use the oriental fabric there too. Need to get them up on the design wall to see how they look.

Batik Virginia Bound progress report DONE!!!!!!!!

Yes it is done! Not on the bed yet as I plan on taking it to the guild meeting tonight. I do not want to take cat fur with me to show the quilt. SO I will do the bedroom tomorrow and add the quilt to the bed.
Hubby said I need to take a break from sewing after he saw how long and hard I worked on this huge quilt. I do not feel like I need a break. I did ask him if he wanted me to stop and do some spring cleaning. "No" he said....he fears furniture moving is involved in spring cleaning. HA!

Here it is all folded and waiting to be loaded into the truck. We are getting snow today. Just a couple wet inches. The roads are not slick but it is only 33 outside. BRRRRRR!

I accordion fold my binding and leave it on the bed of the machine. It feeds off as I need it. I have been using my binding this way for years. If there is a lull between making and using the binding I use selvedges to tie the bundle up neatly.

And as you can see I used many many different neutrals for the binding. I love multicolored bindings. They spiral around the quilt in a riot of color saying "look at me".

The only real pain besides the quilting was the joining of the three units. I used my big Board to cut and pin the backs. You cannot even tell from the front where these seams fall! Yep! That's the whole idea!