Eight WIPs on Retreat

On Thursday, I returned home from six days of retreating with two groups of three friends. This is where we stayed, in a three bedroom/three bath condo (ground level!) in Reunion, Florida. I got out twice to take four-mile power walks too.

In six days of retreating, a quiltmaker can accomplish a lot, but you have to plan ahead. Though I have only one finish to share, I touched all eight of the WIPs I took with me. Here's the check list I hung on the wall near my sewing station.

In the same order as the list, this is the current state of each project:

1. Stitch Club Kantha backing

Instructions for making the top Alison Glass's 2022 Stitch Club will arrive in email boxes on April 19. In the meantime, I followed a suggested piecing diagram to sew together the 60" X 84" backing. Colors were inspired by the Sally Kelly print (center right). That large yellow piece is from PBS/Paintbrush Studios and is an "oops" in-store purchase I made thinking it was Painter's Palette solid. Nope. It's prairie cloth which looks linen-ish/like a woven. It should be great for hand stitching. 

2. Patty's braided rag rug

My dear Texas friend, Patty, sent me a box of cast-off and leftover home dec fabrics, a towel, valances, and such, and I added three men's XL dress shirts and a bed sheet to spiral braid this rag rug. It's about 31½" X 34. It seemed a little cupped, but once I was home lots of steam ironing flattened it good. 

I will send it to her this coming week. 

3. Seaglass quilt #2

I just couldn't resist making another Seaglass quilt, but clearly underestimated how many scraps I'd need for this 38" X 48" piece of natural-colored linen background fabric. 

I'm liking where it's headed. 

4. Architecture Challenge quilt

As a reminder, here's the photo I used as inspiration for my Central Florida MQG Architecture Challenge quilt. It's the Miami Children's Museum as seen from the balcony of the one and only cruise ship we've ever been on, in February 2019. 

Happily - because I certainly didn't expect I could! - I finished my 66" X 80" challenge quilt on retreat, and it was "due" at today's Central Florida MQG meeting! It's what I spent most of my retreat time working on. I took out more quilting (than I had previously).

I am satisfied with those "empty" narrow vertical columns in the sections of bright colors.

I quilted with three weights and several colors of Aurifil thread: 50, 40, and 28-weight.

I spent considerable time on binding, which I pieced at angles on the sides, so both the colors and angles match the quilt top. That was six seams on one side and eight seams on the other!

This quilt is memorable though because of the tough lesson I learned. Don't use a polyester batting when walking foot quilt lots - only! Batting is Quilter's Dream Puff, which I love when I'm free motion quilting. It's not so good for dense walking foot quilting.  

This morning 15 of us showed our finished Central Florida MQG's Architecture Challenge quilts. My friend Beth @blue_dragonfly5 won Viewer's Choice. I received a nice participation gift - this bundle of four solid fat quarters from www.BeachQuilting.com. Solids are always a nice addition to stash. Thank you Beach Quilting Fabric Shop!

5. Prudence English Paper Piecing

I had every intention of laying out all the blocks to determine an the arrangement for these 60 medallions in my Prudence quilt. Sigh. I had only 58 medallions. The last two are ready to EPP, so I hope to move forward on this over the summer. 

6. Clamshell hand appliqué

I've missed hand appliqué! I don't see many modern quilts with hand appliqué, so I don't do it much, but I may try to work this piece into an improv-style quilt. My fabric color choices were inspired by that lime/aqua/black African wax print that I bought from @kianga_art when I attended the Broward Quilt Expo last fall. I'm using 80-weight Aurifil thread, and I love it because my stitches don't show.

7. Glitter blocks

Okay. This is the only project I really didn't touch. Well. I opened the box, and then spilled much of the contents. But I decided to leave this project as-is. Whenever we travel by car, I need something to hand-stitch. And with the Prudence EPP about to get too cumbersome for stitching in my lap, these Glitter blocks will be just the thing. I've machine-pieced the center part of each block, and I'm hand-piecing to add the four Y-seam corner units. 

8. Sunny Lanes (I mis-wrote it as Sunny Days) blocks with 1½" squares

It was a surprise to get more of this scrap quilt put together and realize that I might just call it "enough." It's 52½" X 69" and it's heavy! With so many 1½" X 1½" patches, there are lots of seams. I'd thought to make it larger, but... 

My Sunny Lanes Quilt design is based on a block in The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, and I created a tutorial for it. So if you're interested in sewing leaders and enders from 1½" X 1½" patches, check it out.

By the way, I returned home one day early from retreat because we had tickets to a concert by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. It was a show we had tickets for in April 2020... 'nuf said. No photos allowed, so I'll just say that their show was fantastic! Five guys and two gals played tunes from different genres: bluegrass, jazz, rock, pop, classical, etc. And boy, they can sing too! You can find their videos on YouTube.

I usually have an audiobook recommendation to make here, and I was listening to an audiobook, but abruptly stopped. I returned it yesterday without finishing it, which I rarely do. When I was deep into the story the principal female character began a highly-descriptive same-sex relationship. That's very uncomfortable for me so if you feel the same don't read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

This Tuesday I'll be leading 28 of my fellow Big Cypress Quilters in making thread catchers. I made a bunch of them years ago, and still think they're really handy. They twist to a flattened position and then untwist to stand and hold thread clippings. Great for on-the-go sewing. 

I've cut out three of them, and then partially made each one to show various steps. A heads-up, if you're thinking to make one, be aware that lots of hand-stitching is needed to put one together. The only machine sewing is basting two circles (similar to a yo-yo) and one straight seam. The rest is hand-sewn. But I like that sort of thing, so this is a fun project for me.

It's a good thing I saved this PDF tutorial from www.redhenfabrics because the business no longer exists! Click here to get the PDF. Hoping it goes well Tuesday afternoon, when I share this project, and then the following Monday I'm in Jacksonville to give a Big Stitch Quilting and More program and mini-workshop.

I'm wishing all my blog-readers a blessed Palm Sunday, and a soul-filling Holy Week. Hugs, Linda