Post-Retreat Energy

I came home from last weekend's three-day quilt retreat so full of plans and energy that I haven't stopped long enough to write a blog post... though I did write a retreat blog post for our Central Florida MQG chapter. Go here to see lots of great photos of retreat quilters and their projects.

This retreat was our tenth anniversary retreat to Luther Springs Camp and Conference Center. Exactly ten years ago, WE were the first group of quilters to ever retreat to Luther Springs! And let me tell you, ever since, the word about Luther Springs has spread like wildfire among quilters! Several years ago, Luther Springs built a separate chapel where quilters can gather with all the amenities - good lighting, floor electrical outlets, wine fridge, and coffee bar. We love it.

For being on a modern quilt retreat, to my own surprise I find myself rarely working on modern projects. I think that's because I've learned that it's difficult to design and create modern without being in close proximity to my stash and personal design wall. So, I often make "kits" for myself, pre-cutting fabrics to piece blocks, or making something in particular. 

This time I pre-cut 4½" hexagons to make coasters, resulting in three sets of six coasters made from scraps. I used this free tutorial by Sew Mariana. 

Then, I mostly worked on blocks for the second version of a scrappy quilt from the pattern Diagonal Scrap Quilt by Maryline @mary_and_patch.

This block is much more labor intensive than the black and white blocks I made from the first version of the pattern, but I sure like the intensity of the scrappy design. It definitely has a maximalist vibe. I plan to make the quilt with 72 blocks, so I have 19 more blocks to make. 

Also during retreat, I hand-pieced several more Inner City blocks, and finished round loom knitting another cap for charity. 

Overall, it doesn't seem like I accomplished much, but I'm very satisfied. 

Above all, I had a fantastic time! Several retreaters were in agreement that this was our best quilt retreat ever! That can be attributed to retreating with good friends who know how to poke fun at one another and laugh. I laughed so hard I cried. It was simply a marvelous time!

Here's the group photo of best friends demonstrating how quilters RULE(R)!

On Saturday, Sew Modern Chicky came to retreat from Jacksonville, Florida to set up a pop-up shop. While I had no intentions of buying fabric, owners Paula and Dave brought bolts of Sally Kelly fabric! How could I resist, when it's rare for me to see this fabric in person?! I bought two pieces of Twilight - one quilting cotton and one canvas - both to make garments. I also bought one Alison Glass piece.

After seeing my friend, Lora, wearing a Cielo top during retreat, I returned home to buy the downloadable pattern to make my own Cielo using the newly-purchased Alison Glass fabric.

I'm not counting any of these fabric acquisitions in my May fabric-tracking total. When fabric is for clothing, it doesn't count. There. See how I justify a purchase without damaging my fabric input total?

Lately, every day this week I've had my hands on three or four different projects - proof of how invigorating it is to retreat with friends. I hope you get to do that too! Linda

Three Day Retreat Plans

Whenever I'm going on retreat, I assess which WIPs are candidates for taking along. Over the years I've learned that it's best not to machine quilt while on retreat because there's never enough even surface space to support a quilt. I've discovered - to my dismay - that quilts I've quilted while on retreat finish distorted or wonky. My home set-up is ideal for domestic machine quilting (large tables to support a large quilt) so it's best not to mess with a good thing.

And not wanting to haul piles of stash on retreat to cut out projects, I've been cutting and cutting so I can simply sit and sew during most of retreat. 

Always on the look-out for a good scrap quilt - so I can "scarp my scraps" 😀 (lookin' at you, Char!) - I opened my copy of the book Quilt Lovely by Jen Kingwell, and quickly chose the design "Bonnie Lass." Entirely from my scrap bins, I cut 400 low volume neutrals, and 400 prints in all colors. I should end up with a 59" X 67" quilt.

Also, as luck would have it, Tara Faughnan (Did you know she'll be the keynote speaker at QuiltCon 2025 in Phoenix?) released a new pattern for a quilt I have admired for several years.

"Sunny" is foundation paper pieced. Honestly, when I first saw it, I liked it so much I attempted to duplicate it in EQ8. Well that was a futile attempt! Happily for me, the pattern was released last Thursday - on sale too! - and I snatched it up. 

It's felt very rewarding to dig into my almost-empty large bin of solid fat quarters, some remaining from 2022 when I won all 100 colors of Benartex Superior Solids, to cut pieces. I'm also using-up leftover chunks (bigger than scraps) of other brands of solids. I feel so frugal! 😉

I sewed these blocks during Central Florida MQG's Saturday Sew-In, and I sure like them.

I'll be taking along parts to make 34 "Sunny" blocks.

Since I'm participating in Jeni Baker's (In Color Order) Quilt Along to make a "Plus Quilt" I cut blocks to piece. I'm not following Jeni's table of block size options, but have cut all my pieces 5" X 5". I should end up with a 40½ " X 54" quilt -a nice size for a child. 

After three full days of retreat sewing (I tend to burn the midnight oil) I hope to come home with two completed quilt tops: "Bonnie Lass" and "Plus Quilt"; and make a good start on "Sunny."

As quilters do, everything for sewing time is prepped and packed - including cleaning and oiling, and putting a new needle in my Bernina 440. Now it's time to pack clothes and personal items! Ha! Don't admonish me! Priorities, right? I know you get retreat-ready the same way I do.  Linda

Retreat and What I Did(n't) Do

Our Central Florida MQG quilt retreat was pretty great. I was the fill-in media coordinator, so here's the CFMQG blog post I wrote about retreat.

On Friday, I arrived at Luther Springs by 11:30 am and was one of the last of people to get there. Only two more quilters came after me, making our group 21 people. 

We set up our sewing stations in the chapel, a relatively new building on the grounds that was designed with quilters in mind - electrical outlets in the floor, four large uncovered windows on two sides of the room, and a kitchenette.

An empty space in the kitchenette wall that I thought was meant for a dishwasher will be where a wine frig goes! It's nice that a Lutheran camp isn't rigid about alcohol use. I also learned that an eight-foot long shelf is being constructed to display quilts. When quilters are in the room, the quilts can be rolled up to reveal a cork wall - a design wall! Since Luther Springs also furnishes tables with risers, and cutting mats, it's no wonder 50 quilt groups rented Luther Springs in 2021!

Our room was sort of quiet at first, probably because we have so many new members in our chapter. We're up to 60-some members now. It took a while for us to get acquainted. And with nine of the retreat attendees being first-time retreaters, we happily led by example!

😀

My goodness! I went on my first quilt retreat in 1990 (perhaps?) with Des Moines Area Quilter's Guild that held two retreats a year. For at least a half-dozen years, I attended both. I've also gone on annual retreats to Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp in Story City, Iowa, with Hope Quilters (I created the Hope Quilters blog); private/small group-type retreats with close friends; and Central Florida MQG retreats that began in 2015.

I figure I've gone on at least 50 overnight retreats, ranging from two to six nights! That may seem like a lot, but since I took up quiltmaking in 1976 - 46 years ago - that doesn't seem like too many retreats.... does it?

This retreat is probably the one where I made the least progress on projects.

I sewed. I took pictures. I called my Dad every day (my siblings moved him into assisted living last Friday). I gave an impromptu Instagram lesson to seven quilters. I attended a Central Florida MQG Executive Committee meeting. I practiced the ukulele. I ate. I sewed. I ate. (Miss Sarah is an excellent cook!) I sewed.

I pieced all the blocks for Tilted Tiles, a pattern designed by Charles Cameron for members of the MQG.

I'll be perfectly honest and say that this Tilted Tiles pattern isn't for the faint of heart! It's somewhat challenging to understand Charles' "shifting" method of arranging fabrics, but once you work it out, you'll agree that he has a brilliant acuity for designing! "Who thinks like this?" is what I kept asking myself as I worked my way through making three different blocks. I would have accomplished more if I'd had a design wall, but it was easy enough to pick up another project.

I made 22 of the 64 blocks I need for my improv foundation paper-pieced design. Blocks are nice and easy to sew, almost boring. This is a best I could manage for laying out blocks.

Since we had to be out of Luther Springs by 10 am Monday (another quilting group was coming at 11 am), many quilters packed up Sunday evening. So, Monday morning we sat around and chatted. I worked on this Kawandi. It's my 12th Kawandi since learning this method.

Here's the 11th Kawandi finished just before going on retreat. It measures 15" X 24", is made with my grandma's vintage scraps, and will be given to a relative.

Kawandi #11, 15" X 24"

Oh! Our Peace, Love, and Ukulele Club performance Tuesday evening went very well. Nineteen of us played and sang to a small crowd at a Leesburg (Florida) Presbyterian church. Here's the YouTube video of our performance. 

Book Recommendation 
The Woman in Blue is book #8 in the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths.

 

This story mostly takes place in the historic community of Walsingham, (England) where religious apparitions appear, and an annual Passion Play attracts costumed visitors of all types. When Cathbad, Ruth's druid friend, sees a woman dressed in blue in the cemetery late one night, and that woman is found dead the next day, the case is handled by DCI Harry Nelson and his team - Clough, Tanya, and Tim. One of Ruth's college friends, Hilary, returns to the area to attend a conference for female priests and shares with Ruth some threatening letters she's received. Ruth passes them on to Harry. They begin to deduce that the woman's death and the letters may be related.

Electronically, this book was available through my library only as an E-book. The next title, #9 is available as an audiobook! Isn't it odd how availability of a book series switches back and forth between platforms like that? I don't understand why. 

But, I'm really enjoying these! Thanks for the recommendation, Cindy www.liveacolorfullife.blogspot.com - @liveacolorfullife !

Linda's score 4.0/5.0

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 17, I'm giving a "Ruler Quilting on a Domestic Machine" program at the Central Florida MQG meeting.

The last time I gave this presentation was March 4, 2020 when I went to Maitland to give this program to the Orlando MQG.

I'll begin the program with a Powerpoint presentation followed demonstrating ruler quilting at my Bernina. For the first time, we're setting up an iPhone to mirror video onto a screen. Hope it all works! 

Linda

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

Lotsa Sewing

Stay at home for a prolonged time.

Stay busy. Keep occupied.

But, miss being with friends IRL (in real life). 

Those add up to considering a careful meet-up with friends. Only when beforehand, those friends:

• stay at home for at least two weeks
• wear a mask whenever they must go out
• take every Coronavirus precaution

Then, you agree to form a four-person pod for a week of sewing.

We went to a place with strict cleaning protocol, and also did our own thorough anti-viral wipe-down. And so it happened that last week was the fourth consecutive year I've retreated with friends. It was bliss.

When planning for six days of sewing and making (and eating!), I usually think I'm taking along too much stuff. But as it happens, my hands were on nearly every project I packed. 

With my peg loom, I wove a chair pad with a 65-yard fabric ball I'd prepared before going. 

I took along 1½"-wide yellow strips that I sewed together and ran through a bias tape-maker to turn into a 67 yard fabric ball for another chair pad. Only running out of the chunky yarn for the warp prevented me from weaving it too.

I finished two quilts, which means I quilted two quilt tops, and completed them with binding.

My 46" X 65" Maze quilt began November 7 in a virtual workshop with Malka Dubrawsky @astitchindye. Pictures of it hanging in our Bismarck palm to come.

I cleaned the master bathroom floor so I could crawl around on my knees to pin-baste Maze! By the way, I was satisfied to note that the floor was already clean. 👍

In the navy fabric "maze," I quilted a ribbon design, first using-up a spool of Aurifil #2784 dark navy. Then, I switched to navy Mettler to finish. This little bit is what was left. Believe me, I was holding my breath to make it to the end of the strip!

My 66" X 74" charming postage stamp quilt, pieced during spring Coronavirus days is finished. Pictures of it hanging in our Bismarck palm to come.

From my at-home scrap bins I pre-cut a variety of patches that I sewed into blocks for another Scrap Snap quilt, a free pattern from QuiltsForTheMaking. I made a good start with these 38 blocks that measure 6½" X 6½".

Evenings found me hand-stitching a Kawandi (Indian word for "quilt"). It's a 17" X 21" piece that I started in my November 6 virtual "Siddi Workshop" with Sujata Shah @therootconnection. I learned about this hand-piecing/hand-quilting technique practiced by Siddi women in India. Several new-to-me words were: "fula" - a "flower" at each of the four corners; pillars - fabric repeated at each of the four corners; and "tikli" - tiny fabric patches randomly added here and there. They're a little tedious to stitch down, but I sure like the effect. The tiny turquoise patch near the upper left corner is a tikli.

This Kawandi will be finished soon, and no doubt I'll make another - probably a larger one. It's such a pleasant handwork pastime, and the bonus is that it uses scraps! Only the back is a single piece of fabric.

I went power-walking a couple times, and though I listened to an audiobook, I don't have a title to recommend yet.

When I returned home, Dan wanted to take a golf cart ride across the new golf cart bridge, so we did. 

It's an impressive structure with a walking path alongside the golf cart path. 

The bridge spans Florida highway 44...

... and took us to the south end of The Villages where there are new villages, new rec centers, and hundreds of new homes. Makes us feel like old-timers, living here 8½ years now.

Thanks to each of you who took time to vote for your favorite quilt in the Virtual Quilt Show two weeks ago. Though I didn't place or win, it was fun being able to share a modern quilt with a broader audience.

With the ever-growing number of new COVID-19 cases, Thanksgiving will be quiet at our house. But being cautious benefits you, and those you love.

Be safe, my friends! Linda