Retreat Project Quilt Top

 

 

I made this with a Victoria Findlay Wolfe fat quarter pack and the Repair quilt pattern by Eudaimonia Studio.

It was a lot of fun to piece and came together easily in a weekend. I left the retreat once it was done on Sunday morning. 

I'd had the fat quarter pack around for a long time and was excited to find the perfect pattern for it. I didn't need any other fabric and had plenty of scraps left over too!

Retreat!

Last weekend was my guild's retreat; we have two per year, one in January and one usually in May.

This is a block from my project. The pattern is called Resilient; it's by Brooke Shankland of Eudaimonia Studio. I believe the pattern was a free download from Art Gallery Fabrics. Eudaimonia's website is EudaimoniaStudio.com and you can find them on Instagram at @EudaimoniaStudioUS.

The fabric is from a 22-fat quarter pack of Anna Maria Horner fabrics I won at a giveaway a couple of years ago. I used 16 of the fats for the blocks; I'll use another for the binding along with scraps leftover from the blocks.

I finished 12 of the 16 blocks during the retreat and I have two more to go now. 

I'm happy with how it's coming out. I think the fabric is a great fit for the pattern and I can't wait to get the whole thing pieced up. It's going to be about 52 inches square when done.

Winter Retreat!

So last weekend I got to go to a three-day retreat in suburban New York City with my guild, the New York City Metro Mod guild. People come from all over New York City, Long Island and New Jersey- last spring a member flew in from San Francisco, and this year our Boston guy showed up too. That's how great our community is and how committed our members are. 

Anyway I was debating what project to bring, and I settled on my crumb project. At home, I can do a crumb block in about an hour. I had 19 crumb blocks to make to complete the quilt and I thought I could at least get a start on it over the weekend. At the retreat, I was making three blocks an hour and I had all of my blocks completed before lunch on Saturday.

I did bring a backup project- this little charm pack quilt- but I was done with that by dinnertime on Saturday.

The fabric was a charm pack I picked up in the Berkshires last year and the pattern is here if you want to check it out on the SewMeBlog.

I was lucky enough to find a half-jelly-roll of Christmas fabric at the giveaway table Friday night and so I started a partial-seam herringbone just before dinner on Saturday.  I got all of the pieces sewn into four long strips by bedtime. Which is whenever you want at retreat but for me was around 10pm.

My husband often comes with me to retreats because he can do work or read with no distractions and it's a great break from the routine for him. This time he worked on a big project for his job in between saying hi to my pals and relaxing.

But unfortunately we had to leave first thing on Sunday so I cleaned up my machine and doodads on Saturday evening and we headed out right after breakfast. We had a death in the family on New Year's Day and needed to do some family stuff. 

Despite everything I had a truly wonderful time with old friends and new ones, and got so much done. It was a great weekend and I can't wait for the next retreat!

Sew Much Going On

 First of all last weekend was my guild's retreat and it was awesome.

Of course Eugenie came with me and helped me with my projects. She's the best!

It was sew amazing to catch up with my friends. I have not seen most of these folks in person for over two years and I think none of us missed a beat. I love when you haven't seen someone in ages and you catch up like no time has passed. Of course it would be better to just see everyone on the regular but who does that anymore?

Anyway it was great. 

These are the two quilt tops I completed during the weekend; both of them are made with precuts and have been "maybe someday" projects for me for a while. Sometimes the easy projects take the longest to get to because you just think, "oh that will only take a minute, so I'll procrastinate!"

The peachy pink quilt on top was made with a charm pack I got in a subscription box from Fat Quarter Shop and some scrap yardage. The pattern can be found at this link.

The purple and orange quilt was made with a Halloween layer cake called Spooky Hollow and a pattern from Moda, which you can find here. This is my favorite go-to pattern to show off a cute layer cake. I've used it at least twice already.

Both patterns work up fast. I completed the peachy quilt on Friday afternoon into the evening and easily completed the second quilt top by lunchtime on Sunday. The peachy quilt will be donated to a guild charity drive and the Halloween quilt is destined for a friend.

Since I Can't Be at the Retreat...

This weekend is my guild's winter retreat and I am super bummed I'm not there. All weekend long I'm looking at pictures of my friends hanging out and making things and I'm envious of the camaraderie and the opportunity to sew sew sew all day long.

I tried to make up for it a little bit though.

I spent yesterday at my machine learning Victoria Findlay Wolfe's technique for Y-seam-free herringbone quilts. The design's not the best and I picked those scraps to practice with because I didn't think I would miss them lol.

However it was fun and not even very difficult. Findlay Wolfe teaches the technique in her book Modern Quilt Magic.

I have a pattern from Etsy that uses this technique and I've already started picking fabrics for that- and of course I have a million other ideas for things I'd like to make with herringbones.

Then this morning before work I spent about a half hour working on a different project that's further along. I'll have pics and more about that soon.

What are you sewing this weekend?

My First Quilting Retreat

I just came back from my first weekend quilting retreat, with the NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild. I'm not an official member yet; I attended two meetings this spring and plan to join officially in the fall, when they recommence. Nevertheless when they announced the retreat plans I signed up right away because I didn't want to miss the opportunity to get to know this community of crafters.

The retreat was held at the Ladore Camp, Retreat and Conference Center in Waymart, PA, about a three hour ride from NYC. Lots of people carpooled and I traveled with four other quilters, three of whom live in my neighborhood in Queens (the driver is from Manhattan). We left on Friday morning and arrived mid-afternoon after a nice ride including lunch in Stradsbourg PA, a pretty town with a fabric store right on main street.

My finished quilt top

Since this was my first retreat I made a number of misjudgements when it came to packing and equipment. I didn't bring my extended sewing table or have a decent ironing station, so next time I need to remember the table, which is just a plastic surface with little legs that attaches to my sewing machine and gives me a larger flat surface to sew on. And I need to find (or buy) a sew-and-press station, which again is a small surface with a cutting mat on one side and a soft pressing surface on the other, and a travel iron to go with all that. I have a small iron designed for applique, which I did bring and use, but my improvised pressing surface was insufficient to my needs and the iron was adequate but not really that great.

My worktable at dinnertime on Friday

I also did not bring enough work to do. I brought a small quilt to put together; I had pieced the blocks and sashing strips in advance, and just needed to assemble them. This turned out to be roughly three hours or work, which would seem like a lot stretched out over a couple of days of sewing time at home but went by very quickly indeed when I had nothing else to do but sew. I finished early Saturday morning and then had exactly nothing to do afterwards.

Selections from the scrap tables

Which was a blessing and a curse. The weekend included several group activities starting with a scrap challenge where we took a paper bag filled with scraps and had to come up with something in 45 minutes; I made two blocks which I later combined into a long piece perfect for purse making. I also spent time experimenting with the generous scrap pile up for grabs and trying out some of those tutorials I'd been saving on Pinterest forever. And I did some reading, and since the weather was glorious I did a lot of that outside.

This is what I ended up making from the scrap challenge. It's the perfect size to be made into a small purse using the Clobird Fallon pattern, available on Etsy and Craftsy. I have made several bags with this pattern before- it works great.

I also stitched a label for the "Where are my dragons?" quilt.

Next time though I'd bring more work because it really wasn't a nice feeling to be struggling to fill the time.

We also did a Yankee swap (I came home with a gag gift for my husband), a raffle of handmade items and a block lotto, which I did not win but to which I contributed one of the blocks I made from Pinterest tutorials over the weekend. The doll pictured above was my contribution to the raffle.

And of course I got the chance to meet lots of quilters in my guild, which was the main reason for going in the first place. And that was the best part! I would love to do another retreat this winter but I'm going to plan things a little differently!