Great Escape #30

 I'm unpacking from a terrific retreat weekend. I brought waaaay too much stuff! What was I thinking? For Julia and myself, I brought about 9 different projects (only touched 3) and 3 machines (never took out the Bernina).

Here's Julia with our quilting idol, Barbara W. Barber. At last year's retreat, Barbara was telling a story about the "illness" she suffers when she finishes a quilt and doesn't know what to do next. Julia diagnosed her with "Between Quilts Syndrome" and a quilt was born! If you click on the photo you can read the first panel of the comic strip.

 

Since there's not a really good picture of us together, I thought I'd go with this one that made me laugh.

 

Julia and I have wanted to make a NY Beauty quilt together for a long time. Last year, my LQS was kitting up block of the month blocks and I couldn't resist. I almost never work from a kit, but I knew we would never make this quilt without one. Julia pieced all the points after a little refresher and some new tips from mom. She sewed the curves on two blocks, and I sewed the other two. Please pretend that the blocks are perfectly square. They have been starched into submission! After we make the rest, we'll trim them up.

 

Our Saturday workshop was the Sunset pattern by Julie Popa. We did some prep work in advance, so many quilters were able to finish the top during the day. This is mine on the left and Suzy's on the right.

 

 I used my stash of orange, pink and red. Surprisingly, I did not use a white background. It is a cream with green dots that softens the whole piece.

One of the instructor's friends had pieced all her cut off scraps for the border, which I loved, so I did it too. I was able to get it finished just in time for workshop show & tell before lunch on Sunday.

 

It's time to start planning for 2016!

WIP Wednesday

 I'm packing for a weekend retreat, so my house is turned upside down! I want to bring everything, but that is just silly. How do you decide which projects to bring with you to retreats and sew-in days? To complicate things, this is the retreat that I organize. And. Julia is meeting me there, so I need to bring projects and supplies for her, too. Yup. My car will be FULL!

I did finish a quilt this week- last year's retreat project. I wanted to have it done for show & tell. It looks a little odd, but it makes more sense with Julia's quilt next to it (which is not done yet). Read more about them here.

Holy crap! I just found a 24 year old UFO! I made this wall hanging top with leftovers from the first quilt I made by myself after I took a beginner class in 1990. So this is probably from 1991 or 1992. My points are bad, and the fabric screams 1990's, but it's a good design. Maybe I'll reproduce it this weekend with modern scraps. You know, because I don't have enough projects packed already.

I'm going to pack some more. I'll be surfing the linkup when I need a break.

The One Year Quilt

You've all seen the meme: How long does it take to finish a quilt you're not working on? For this quilt, the answer is one year!  Actual working time? Three or four days. It was a coincidence, really, that I completed it exactly one year after it was started.

At our retreat last year, Julia and I made these jelly roll race tops.

The workshop included instruction on adding piece-lique circles. It was Julia's idea that our circles should make a heart when our quilts are together. Since we wanted to work on this project together, and last summer flew by, we buckled down and applied the circles during Christmas break. OK, I may have leaned on her pretty hard to carve out the time for this.

Not wanting to wait any longer, I quilted mine yesterday. Just before midnight, I took the final stitches on the binding. I'm happy that I'll have it for show & tell this weekend.

 

My quilting plan revolves around my dislike for marking and burying threads. I quilted organic wavy lines across the rows with my walking foot. When I ran into a circle, I just wrapped around it and continued on.

 

I did want to do something fun in the circles, which required burying threads. It couldn't be avoided. To make the flower shape, I divided the circle in 8ths with a hera marker. No pen or pencil lines to wash out is almost as good as no marking at all.

For the back, I wanted to use more batiks, but I had previously chopped up my entire batik stash into 9" squares for future Anita's Arrowhead blocks.  I pulled all the colors that coordinated with my top and started piecing. In no time at all, I had a pieced back that really made this a two-sided quilt. I used the same blues and greens from the circles to piece together the binding.

 I'm happy it is done, but it needs its mate! Half of a heart is not very exciting. Maybe I can get Julia to quilt hers this weekend.

 Jelly Roll Heart

Started 3/8/14

Completed 3/8/15

Workshop with Pat Harrison at Great Escape Weekend

Setting In Circles

 Last weekend, Julia and I worked on our retreat projects from last March. During the retreat, we made the jelly roll race tops. Pat Harrison's design had a lovely swirl of circles that were set in using Sharon Schamber's piece-lique method. Julia and I thought we could arrange our circles so the quilts would work together. I first thought of a yin-yang type deisgn. The heart was Julia's brilliant idea.

The original method requires cutting holes in the background first, then piecing in the circle. We reversed that and prepared the circles first by pressing under the seam allowance. Then we glue basted them to the background and cut away the inside of the circle from the background. Finally, we machine stitched the seam. If you've done any piece-lique, this might make sense. It's hard to describe, but it worked for us. Anyway, don't our finished tops look cool together?

When I went to my stash to look for a backing, I found my bin full of Anita's Arrowhead blocks and batik squares waiting to be pieced. About a year ago, I cut up my entire batik stash into squares for these blocks. I pulled all the yellow, orange, pink and green and went to town piecing blocks. I absolutely love making these blocks! Anita's process makes me happy! Now I have a pieced backing that will make this a two-sided quilt.

The binding is pieced from scraps leftover from my circles.

My top, backing, and binding are ready and waiting for me to buy some batting.

I set aside all the blues for Julia, but she won't be able to work on hers again until Spring break.