Retreat Show and Tell

We had 13 quilters at retreat. 

Here are most of the show and tell quilts plus projects that were worked on at retreat. Since I was the photographer...my quilt projects from retreat at missing but I will cover those in a separate post.

The first two photos are from Joyce who loves to make little quilts. She has been the main person to inspire me to go small.  

All of Joyce's little quilts were from the monthly program designed by Kim Diehl called the Whatnot Club. 

The next two are from Jill. This scrap-tastic quilt is queen-sized with over 2,000, 2-inch squares. She thought this project would really bust her scrap stash but she just made a little dent in the pile.

And here is Jill with a quilt she was making for her son who is graduating with a degree in architecture. Sew perfect.

Jan is our most senior member of the group and is Jill's mother. She worked on a new Halloween quilt. 

Jan really liked those red, demonic eyes she gave the mice.

Kathy brought finished two quilt tops, this colorful Maple Island BQ3.

Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the pattern for Kathy's second quilt top. 

Kaye brought several runners to finish up. She sells quilts at a couple of Christmas bazaars every year. Looks like runners are popular in her booth. 

Marcia brought a second panel quilt for show and tell. This is the pattern, "Bricks," designed to work with panels.

Marcia is the leader of Breakfast Club and she was working with a new set of floral panels by Teresa Ascone and made two quilt tops at retreat. Both are stunning.

The second version with the floral panels.

And Marcia brought a mini quilt kit for all of us using an Alaska motive fabric as the center of and octagon. I need to piece mine before Breakfast Club next week.

Mary gets so much done at every retreat even though she usually is the last to arrive and the first to leave. She pieced, quilted and bound this quilt her first day.

This quilt top got pieced by Mary the second day.

And she also made this adorable dress for her granddaughter.

Sandy brought a suitcase of quilts that needed binding...enjoy her "trunk show."

And here is a flimsy she worked on after getting all the machine stitching done on all the quilts needing binding.

Lots of great quilting in our group. 

May Quilt Retreat

I belong to a quilt group, "Material Girls." We have three retreats every year at a great Bed and Breakfast in Wasilla. Sometimes the weather cooperates and we get this beautiful view while we are stitching.

The white dots in the photo above are lights reflecting off the glass of the window.

At our quilt retreat in May of 2017 a challenge was agreed upon...make something "quilty," with a panel and have it completed by May of 2018. Here is the reveal of our projects.

The quilt below is one panel...not just the center. We were all fooled into thinking just the center picture was the panel and everything else was pieced. 

Here's a beautiful art panel. The photo doesn't capture all the beading and embroidery stitching that was added to the piece. 

A fun panel series of wildlife. This is a commercial pattern, "Stepping Up."

Not the best lighting for quilt photos. The cats in this panel quilt as so much more colorful in person.

The center, "Alaska," panel is by Teresa Ascone. She is a popular Alaskan artist whose work as been reproduced on fabric. 

Next is a series of Hoffman panels with original design blocks added. Just needs quilting.

Below is another Teresa Ascone panel, framed by Kaye.

Yes, another Teresa Ascone panel. This was given an embellishment of fireweed in wool.

An attic window treatment. The maker of this, Mindy, also added a flanged binding. 

And my Hawaiian applique panels.

 I will have more to share about my quilt later.

I'm planning another post with the projects made at the retreat, plus show and tell.

April Recap

Last Thursday was Breakfast Club. We worked with the ruler, "Hex and More," to make jewel shapes and little triangles. The class sample is on the left in purples. My version on the right. The block finishes at 20" x 23." The pattern is Sweetheart Table Topper, free and available at this link from Jaybird Quilts.

I had time in class to make two blocks since I had everything cut out the night before.

So nice when that happens. 

I was pretty remiss at getting photos of show and tell. There were only a few items but I did get the a photo of one called, "Sea Glass," designed by Talk of the Town.

It only took me one day to quilt my little 32" quilt made from the scraps of a larger quilt.

 Nothing fancy but it is done! I had so much fun playing with my scraps and piecing this. 

I plan to hang it in my sewing room

I have been getting back to my Bucilla kit projects. I finished a little airplane ornament.

It came with the Airplane Santa kit.

I waited for many years for a pilot Santa theme stocking from Bucilla. 

It was a quick and easy kit except for working around the cardboard that is placed in the plane body, wing and propeller.

We had a big windstorm last week. Lots of power surges and now the garbage disposal and cooktop downdraft are cranky and don't want to work.  Hoping hubby can fix them when he gets home. In the meantime...the wind uncovered some new trash for McKinley to play with on our walk.

She was kind enough to carry the rigid piece of black plastic all the way home. 

Logan wasn't too interested in it but he did take time to strike a pose for a photo. 

I have a quilt retreat coming up this weekend. I am going to work on kits from my Row by Row collection. A new summer of Row by Row designs is approaching. I need to ease my conscience so I feel good about buying more kits. 

Good Thing I Don't Have to Make A Living Quilting

I have been working for several weeks on my latest quilting design. 

I keep thinking of the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he races the turtle and the turtle says,

"Slow and steady wins the race." 

That appears to be my quilting motto.

I outlined the faux Hawaiian applique blocks with off-center circles.

Then I got stuck for a few days figuring out what to do next!

A little ruler work around the triangles is a good time to clear the mind.

Straight lines help curves pop...I think.

Then I was just down to figuring our how to fill in the background. 

I didn't want a really dense filler...

It seems a little counter intuitive to do a doodle meander with some flower-like

pops on a fabric with a busy look but that's what I did! 

I  like it. 

I like it a lot.

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

Below is what my garden beds looked like halfway through the summer.

 I am trying out the German method of Hugelkulter. 

Layers of organic matter...

starting with large pieces like logs and layering with smaller pieces like twigs and leaves.

Then garden soil. 

A quilting friend did her garden beds like this several years ago and it is a great success. 

By the end of the fall I was ready to add soil. 

Major dilemma about how to get it around the side of the house that is on a little hill. 

No way was I trying to fill these raised boxes with a wheel barrow and a million trips. 

So we bought a pallet of bagged garden soil from Lowe's and filled them in that way.

 One bag at a time...

but we were able to put four bags on our four wheeler 

and drive it from our driveway to the garden boxes. 

Once filled, I covered them with black plastic sheeting to kill any weed seed in my organic matter. 

That worked so well...I convinced my husband to get two more pallets of garden soil for the perennial bed I outlined with rock last fall.

Here's what the back yard looked like for our two weeks of fall weather...

Below is delivery day for the bags the first week of April. 

We found having some snow covering our rocked driveway edge

 gave us an ice slide to drop the bags from the bed of the pickup.

As I recall, there were 48 bags on each pallet.

A few days later with sunny skies and temps above freezing every night

 and we are almost done with our snow. 

It is all rather mushy and muddy right now. 

That part is really not fun with dogs!

I am so excited to have the major obstacle of soil positioned in my beds already. 

There was still a foot of snow in the perennial bed when we threw the bags in 

so I didn't open them up yet. 

That can wait. 

I need to figure out a way to keep the dogs out of the perennial bed before I open up all that dirt!

Back to needlework...

I finished a set of felt Christmas ornaments.

Ugly Christmas Sweaters.

Some are so ugly...they are cute. Like the Meowy Christmas sweater.

Oops...back to gardening!

Those bare root perennials I bought from Costco are growing.

The two freezers we have in our garage appear to be a great area to start plants. 

Three bleeding heart plants are looking fabulous. This plant loves Alaska!

I have several Astilbe sharing some of these yogurt containers. 

Going to need to transplant them to their own containers very soon.

Seeing new green life is always very exciting to me.

I almost shared a photo of every container.

Very anxious for the growing season.