Saturday, February 22, 2014

Shouldn't it be called an Advance?

I was on a quilt retreat last weekend and had a truly mah-velous time!

The retreat was hosted by Sturbridge Quilting and Sewing Center.  They surely know how to throw a party!  From Friday until Monday, all we did was sew, Sew, SEW!

I brought several projects (ok, too many projects), but hoped to make progress on four of them.

One:


I made this little quilt on Friday night.  I was planning post on YouTube how I quilt it, but I'm not sure that the thread will show up on camera.  Time will tell.

Two:


The pattern is called Turbulence.  I didn't like this at all while I was making it.  Once I sewed the blocks together, though, I fell in love with this quilt!  I will probably make another one as there is now some dispute as to who is receiving this quilt.  I had someone in mind, but someone else (cough*my daughter*cough) thinks they should receive it.

Three:


I pretended that I was an archeologist and dug through my pile of quilt kits to find this beauty from 2005.  I have some good kits buried in my studio and hope to pull more out to finish soon!

Four:


I found a pile of quilt blocks and some fabric, but no instructions on how to finish this decade-old block of the month quilt.  I took a few guesses and finished this top.

The retreat was held at a conference center that proudly boasted "Kids' Week!"  Oh, joy.  We had children running around unsupervised and screaming until the wee hours of the morning.  That wasn't so fun.  What was fun, though, was that on Sunday morning a few girls came into our sewing room and asked if we had a few items for their scavenger hunt.  These were some lovely girls and we adopted them.

"OMG! You made that?"  (Yes, they actually said O.  M.  G.)

"How did you put a zipper in a purse?"

"I like that one the best!  No, wait, THAT one!"  (mine was #4 on their list)

The girls won the scavenger hunt and visited us several times during our stay.  A few of our ladies donated some fabric and we let them make their own quilt blocks.  Each girl received her own small purse to take home at the end of the weekend.

Our quilt group did their part to pass quilting to the next generation:


Since we were all so productive, our stashes were dwindling and in need of enhancement.  We took a much-needed trip to Sturbridge Quilting and Sewing Center:


Our stashes are much healthier now!

I don't know when I will next go on quilt retreat (quilt advance?) but I hope it's soon!


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