The pictures are here!

The weather outside cooperated today so I could get some pictures of the quilts I worked on at the retreat. This first one is the baby quilt I had sandwiched and ready to quilt when I got to the retreat so it was the first project for me. I got it quilted but since I forgot the binding fabric that was as far as I could go. I finished off the binding once I got home and here it is all finished.Well, not quite finished. As I was hand-sewing the binding I noticed that I missed one line of quilting and I forgot about that until I started writing this so I went in and got it back out of the cupboard so I can finish that up tomorrow!

The next quilt is the other baby quilt that I had the center done on before I left for the retreat and, while there, I added the borders, quilted it and got the binding all done.

Both of these baby quilts came from fabric scraps I got from fellow quilters at the last retreat.

Next up is the quilt I put together out of all the 6.5" crazy quilt blocks that I made at the last several retreats. I got the center of the top done last weekend and once I was home I got some border fabric and got the top finished Tuesday.


This next quilt top I got put together today from half of the Double 4-Patch blocks I finished up yesterday.

The alternate blocks are a daisy print fabric I got 6 1/2 years ago at a quilt shop in Pennsylvania. It is nice to have only a few scraps left of that fabric! I have the other half of the blocks put into rows so I should have another top finished tomorrow. I haven't decided yet whether I will add borders to these two or not.

Hopefully I will have a picture of that quilt for you all tomorrow!

I still haven't gotten pictures taken of my retreat projects but I have been busy. I have been working on cleaning and sorting in the sewing room. I had several bags of fabric that were given to me by several different people along with a huge pile of jeans for denim quilts making it almost impossible to move around the room. I sorted all the fabric out and made 1 top and 4 backs for Lutheran World Relief quilts. It has been quite a while since I made any but I have a lot of fabric that I won't use for other quilts so I need to get to work using it up.

I also sorted out that bag of quilting fabric that I brought home from the retreat last week. There were some pieces that were obviously left over from projects and I pulled out some purples and greens and put together this little doll quilt.
I used only scraps from that bag for the front and the back and binding.

Today I continued with the sorting and tidying. I have one laundry basket full of 'projects'. Some are ones I started, others are items I got from others. I pulled out some blocks I started making quite a while ago using 2" squares and 3.5" squares from my scrap drawers. I finished putting together the rest and now I have 130 6.5" blocks. I think I will just sew them together into a top but I might do alternate them with 6.5" squares of some fabric which means I would get two quilts out of the 130 blocks. I will play around with them more tomorrow.

The floor still has some piles but it is improving and I am feeling good about it!

My goal for this week is to get two cushions made for my friends' window seat and maybe a couple of pillows also. I want to have that project out of the house before the weekend of the 13th/14th since I will probably have my two grandkids here for a week at Grammy World without their parents who are going to have a little vacation at home.

Retreat News

I have been home three days and I haven't posted! Pretty lame, I know. The retreat was awesome! I stayed healthy through the whole weekend. A refreshing change from the last two. As a result I got a lot done, I just don't have any pictures yet to show my projects. I did get both of the baby quilts completely finished and got the hand-sewing done on the little Christmas wall hanging/table topper. I did some work on my Lady of the Lake blocks also but didn't get all 56 finished and hope to finish the rest soon and get that project finished.

My two bigger projects at the retreat were a bag and putting together my crazy quilt blocks. I got the bag done on Friday in spite of not paying close attention to the cutting directions (I am so glad I bought more fabric than was called for) and not enough fusible interfacing (had to make an early morning run to JoAnn's) and a visit from my daughter and grandkids at the retreat. And, in spite of everything, it turned out really great! It is from this pattern. One of the scrapbookers at the retreat has asked me to make her one so I might have to make several and see if they sell.

On Saturday I started out making 6 more crazy quilt blocks so I would have 90 for a 9 X 10 layout. Then I just sewed them to the sashing pieces and made up the sashing/setting block rows without any planning and had it together shortly after dinner and in time for our retreat show-n-tell. I got some border fabric yesterday and added 6 inch blue borders and it ended up being about 76" X 84".

I will get some pictures as soon as the clouds lift around here. The one down side of my trip is that I missed 5 of the 6 sunny days here in Western Washington last week. I could have gotten a lot done outside but who would have thought that mid-February would have been so gorgeous here!

Another upside to the trip was seeing all three of my kids and my grandkids over the course of the weekend. On Wednesday I had dinner with my daughter and her hubby and the kids and my son and his girlfriend. It was my first time meeting Peia and she is very cute and sweet. She passed the 'first impression test' easily because she obviously cares about my little boy and she thinks my grandkids are adorable! She even let Layden have a taste of her Thai iced tea and didn't freak when he didn't like it and spit it back in her glass! My second daughter is currently working at the camp where the retreat is held so we had some fun together there. She even did some sewing - making a few 'ditty' bags out of my bag of 'scraps'. This bag was a reusable grocery type bag that was at least half full of fabrics given to me by other quilters who don't save every little scrap like I do. One of them gave me most of it. She cleaned out her stash and included were some fat quarters of fabric that she just didn't want anymore!

Well, off to the sewing room to get thing sorted out more!

Industry

I was quite industrious today. I went back to the fabrics I found in that bag of scraps and pulled out the rubber ducky prints and put together the rest of the aqua and yellow pinwheels and trimmed them down so they would match up with the 6" squares I could get from the duck print to make this center of a baby quilt.
It needs a border but I don't have the right pink or purple that I want to use so I will have to head to JoAnn's tomorrow. All of this fabric came from there originally so I will see if they still have any of it or something that goes with it.

When that was done I still had time before I had any other plans so I pulled out the dog print blocks that were in that bag. I bought the red, blue and brown yesterday since I just didn't have anything of the right size in the right red or blue or brown. The yellow I had on hand. Decided to use all four colors in each of the 4-patch blocks and then had to figure out the edge triangles. Then had to figure out what to do for a border since any one of the 4 colors would have blended in with part of the triangles and I only have two extra squares of the dog print, so I went with one side of each color using the color that wasn't in the triangles on that side.

Sorry the pictures aren't great but I just didn't have the energy to hang them up higher so I pinned them to the edge of the ironing board!

Hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day! I had fun playing in my sewing room!

Crafty Daughter

Just want to give a shout out to my 2nd daughter, Rebecca, who just set up shop over on Etsy. You might want to take a look at her ceramics. She started her interest in pottery in college at Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, AK where she made at least 50 masks and several other items. This year for Christmas she received time at a pottery studio in Spokane from the family and she made good use of her time making more masks and also some candle holder/screens, vases and other items. Really fun stuff!

Cleaning Up

Yesterday I finished getting all my projects ready to go for the retreat but then had to figure out what to do. I was inspired to work on the projects I am taking to the retreat but then I would have to get things ready all over again!

Looking around my sewing room I realized I need to work on cleaning a bit in case someone decides to come and visit and I have to create my guest room again!!!!

I didn't have a lot of time left yesterday so I started with a small plastic bag of fabric scraps and leftovers that some of my fellow quilters at the last retreat gave me since they know I will make good use of them. In it were a variety of things including 20 HSTs made from Christmas fabrics. I put them together as pinwheels and then laid them out and pulled out my Christmas fabrics and came up with this:
It is about 21" square and I hope to get it quilted and finished this weekend as a table topper/wall hanging that can be sold or given away.

When that is done I will move on to some rubber ducky fabrics leftover from a baby quilt that I think can be turned into another baby quilt top. When that is done I think I will turn 14 dog print squares into another baby quilt if I get some fabrics that will go with them.

Lots of Blocks

I've been spending a little time in my sewing room. I have lots of individual blocks to make for various exchanges/round robins. These first three are for the February Quilt Block Exchange over on Flickr. #1 is for Mary who asked for larger blocks to be made into quilts for preemies at her local hospital.#2 is a second block for Mary - it's a good cause! These are both 15 1/2".
#3 is for Wendy who asked for a Red, White and Blue blocks that will go into American Hero Quilts. Another good cause.
I have one more block to get made for this month and I plan to have them all in the mail by the end of the week.

My niece came over on Saturday to bring her block and her mom's block for one of my Quilt Block Round Robins. So far I have gotten a block done for my niece's (the green/brown/blue one) and hope to get my sister's done later today. I can't show what I make for these as we keep them secret until the big reveal at the end of the year. I have pictures of more of the starter blocks here.

I am working on getting things ready for the retreat next week. I have almost all of my little HST's ready for the Lady of the Lake blocks and then I just need to get everything packed up 'neatly' in bins/baskets and ready to go. I will also have to get my machine, cutting tools, notions, etc. packed up.

Second Round Ready to Go

Today I got two blocks done for Crystal's QBRR2010 quilt.I hope to get them on the way to Lynn today or tomorrow since Crystal was ready to send someone else's on to me yesterday!

I hope to also get two from the WIMM QBRR 2010 in the next day or two and then get them done and on their way to a different Lynn! funny how I send to a Lynn in both round robins!

I am going to a quilt retreat in two weeks so I have been working on trimming HSTs for my Lady of the Lake Leftover quilt. I figure if I do some each day I should have them ready before I go. I will probably also bring my crazy quilt supplies to get a few more of those blocks done, but I think I need another project to work on so I don't get bored! Maybe I will work on some black and white with a splash of bright to add to the blocks I have received in the Quilt Block Exchange so I can get a quilt top put together. I might also bring the fall New York Beauty block supplies.

Well, now I will go and do some hand quilting on Ludvina's Legacy - I would love to have that finished sometime soon!