Canter's Cave Wrap-Up - Part 4

I have been able to stretch the fun of quilt retreat out over 4 days! It's as if I can't bear to leave it and move on. Today's focus is on all the extras, and we had plenty. From shopping at Guhl's in Jackson (a discount store with a huge fabric section), and food and goodie bags, we were certainly pampered in one way or another.

The first night of retreat we ate a popular local restaurant called Arch and Eddie's. It is what I would consider a bit upscale, but still quite reasonably priced and extremely varied in its menu. On Tuesdays the special is $2 off on all burgers. So that top picture is my dinner, cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. Yum-o!

The strawberry pie was Susan's contribution to the food we had on hand at the lodge. Her mother is a world-class pie baker, and we frequently get to be the recipients of her fantastic creations. This was as mouth-watering as it looks.

The bottom picture is a typical in-house meal. We put out a variety of sandwich fixings, snacks and desserts and make whatever we are in the mood for. There was fruit salad, black bean salsa, pimiento cheese spread, ham salad, all manner of chips and munchies. We certainly did not go hungry.

Last week you saw the tower of little fabric baskets I made for each retreat participant. I hadn't yet shown the goodies I included in my little baskets, so the picture above is a representation of my stash. I used a variety of bite-size Easter candy, along with a single-serving of Nutella and crackers, and a pack of sticky notes. Not much, but enough. 

Above are the goodies presented by Laura and Terry. Laura wrapped the cloth labels in the ribbon on the starch bottle and gave one to each of us. Clever! And Terry had a little box of sewing band-aids and a package of sewing tissues.

And the over-achiever of the group, Jan, presented each of us with this treasure trove. She works off of themes (a retired elementary school teacher) - can you guess? The theme was chevrons. So we had a large chevron re-usable bag, and inside were all these items! A chevron goodie bag of one-serving packages of popcorn, cookies and crackers. A bag of goldfish in rainbow colors. A jar of jelly beans arranged by color and topped with a piece of chevron fabric. A quilting coloring book. A zipper bag that she made and in it are colored pencils (among other things) for the coloring book. And, finally, drum-roll please, over on the far right is a zip-lock bag of a quilt kit ready to sew - solids for a chevron quilt! Jan is over-the-top when it comes to themes and goodies. I have been on the receiving end of much of her generosity. What a sweetheart she is!

And now for the shopping. A store in Jackson - Guhl's Country Store - is an outlet for all manner of household items, some food, and decorative items. The link above is to their Facebook page; they don't have a website. Can you imagine fabric shopping when the price is $3.99/yard? And we are talking about some really nice fabrics - not all, but quite a lot is just overage yardage that fabric companies needed to unload to make room for new stuff. Here are my purchases, and you can be sure that most of the others had equally impressive purchases, too.

These prints all look like they will be useful with plans I have in my mind for a great-granny square quilt. the possible exception is the red and black shirting on the bottom, which might instead get matched up to some red quilts I have swirling around in my mind.

The prints above are my inspiration for an EPP quilt. I will show the exact plans later, and I certainly have way, way more yardage here than my quilt will require (good stash builders, though!). It is supposed to evoke a look of water or cool waterfalls. Eh? Maybe? Well, I will be revisiting this soon, so bear with me.

Finally, I bought a small amount of black, white and OU green for a wall hanging that DD2 has been wanting. I have a pattern (thanks to Pinterest!) and it isn't large, so I should be able to get right on this ASAP.

That totally wraps up our 2017 version of Canter's Cave Quilt Camp. It was a wonderful 3-day get-away, and I am already looking forward to next year!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Canter's Cave Wrap-Up - Part 3

It's show time today, dear readers! You are in for a treat, getting to see the fantastic finishes and additional show-and-tell quilts from the ladies at the retreat. Let's get right to it.

This is a sweet baby quilt made by Anita - not a camper - she owns Canter's Cave! She was free for a good portion of the time we were there and joined us for sewing, sharing and dinner. Isn't it a great quilt?

Becky brought a quilt that she is ready to begin quilting and isn't it grand?!? Let's have some close-up shots.

I am giving serious consideration to beginning some sort of EPP quilt, and this is so very tempting. Becky brought two other in-progress quilts for show-and-tell - a smaller hexie quilt and a tumbling block quilt.

This sweet mini quilt is the type of EPP that one could work on and be able to finish in a reasonable time frame. Those big ones with a gazillion pieces are too intimidating. Becky is in the process of big-stitch hand quilting this mini.

Can you tell Becky has a thing for reproduction prints? These examples plus the Snail's Trails from yesterday's post all feature her love of repros.

The two quilts above are from Jan. The top one is her Thimbleberries finish. The bottom one is one she is making for a friend who lost her husband recently. These flannels are from his shirts. Jan is so thoughtful.

Laura finished her quilt - almost. She still has one border to add. The top picture shows her quilt with the first 2 borders; the next 2 pictures show the fabric she intends to use for the outer border. Very striking and perfectly suited.

Sharon's Christmas quilt looks spectacular. She will very likely have this quilted in plenty of time for the holidays. Or maybe she will gift it?

Jan and Sharon were the first to finish their Thimbleberries quilt tops, so they displayed their work on the furniture around the fire place to provide inspiration to those of us still working. Pretty nice view, I think you'd agree.

Susan got her quilt top together before we left. The lighting in the room gives this picture a fuzzy look, but it's gorgeous and tempting to place on my wish list.

This king-size beauty is Terry's finish. You can see why she didn't turn down Jan's offer of helping to pin and  match all those rows of blocks with the rows of sashing. It is supposed to get a border, but Terry is seriously considering leaving it off. The quilt is so heavy now that adding any more too it seem unnecessary. Plus, how will she ever get in to fit in her long-arm? Once finished, it will look fantastic with her decor.

Okay. So there you have all our finishes. Now, I still have stuff to share - namely food, shopping and goodies. All the really important stuff!! Since this post is already long, I think I will eke out one more post to finish off this retreat wrap-up. Gosh we had fun, and it was so super-productive!

See you tomorrow for the final installment of 2017 Canter's Cave Retreat.
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Canter's Cave Wrap-Up - Part 2

Part 1 of our retreat wrap-up was about what I did at Canter's Cave. Today I will share with you all of the in-process work all the other quilters did while at retreat. Then, tomorrow I will show finishes. And food. And shopping. Maybe more. *smile* 

I filed my pictures alphabetically by first names, so I suppose that makes sense as an order to follow for sharing our pictures.

One of our new campers is Becky who worked on these traditional Snail's Trails blocks. Several of us drooled over these beauties, and when Becky had to leave to go to work (at Old Town Fabric Shop!), we were all tempted to swipe a few blocks. When Becky came back to retreat, she brought some great quilts for show and tell which I will share tomorrow.

Jan chose to participate in our Thimbleberries challenge by making this Flying Geese quilt. I am sure there is a particular name for this version, but I can't locate my book that contains this pattern. Jan also finished another quilt, one that she'd been working on. And then, because all her projects were done, she made herself available to first Terry and then me for "wenching" services. She pressed, pinned, cut, and so on for us - a great time-saver!

Laura, too, participated in the challenge by making this version of Party Mix. It looks like true Lynette Jensen/Thimbleberries fabric, but Laura used what she had in her stash which is a mix of other designers.

Laura worked on several quilts at once, and when she tired of Party Mix, she had this mini-quilt to finish. She said she'd seen the picture in a magazine and tried to duplicate it with poison greens and cheddars.

Sharon P. was also new to our retreat this year. She is a long-time fan of Thimbleberries, so she knew from the start what she would work on. Back in 1999 she bought the fabric for this quilt, then stored it away in a tub just waiting on the right opportunity for construction. What a great feeling to get such an old UFO out and finished.

After finishing Cross Patch, she pulled out some blue and neutral 9-patch blocks to make. And from the looks of the pictures below, she made quite a bit of progress on them. I believe she said she would end up with 48 blocks. I do not know how she will be setting them together, so we will have to wait and see on how this finishes up.

Susan selected the Thimbleberries pattern called Goldenrod Patch for her retreat quilt. I was so happy to see this one, as I made this pattern a year ago and this new color combination might entice me to make another one. Susan's is a Christmas quilt using a variety of reds and greens with a single background. It looks spectacular.

Terry worked very diligently on this king-size blue and white 9-patch quilt. That's a lot of stitching. A similar quilt is on display at Old Town Fabric Shop, and Terry needed a bigger one for her bed. Between each block there is sashing and corner stones, so even for a simple 9-patch quilt, the stitching is precise and labor-intensive.

So you see what our efforts were. Come back tomorrow to see finishes!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Canter's Cave Wrap-Up - Part 1

So much was accomplished at Canter's Cave last week that I feel it necessary to spread out the updates over 2 or 3 posts just to keep the material manageable. Here in this first post, I will share with you the progress I made on my work over the course of the 2-and-a-half day retreat.

The theme (optional) we gave ourselves was to make a Thimbleberries pattern or use Thimbleberries fabrics or do both pattern and fabric. I selected a pattern called Star and Chain from the 1999 book Blue Skies; Star and Chain is featured on the cover, and I chose a darker set of (mostly) Thimbleberries fabrics for my version.

I began my work by making the 30 star blocks. That means 120 flying geese units. It seemed to take forever, but I eventually got them all done. Above are the parts for the red, gold, brown and green stars. I finished the blue stars first.

When I realized I was going to have a boatload of cut-away corners, I decided I would not waste them. I sewed them as I stitched, cut them off and packed them into a plastic bag for future use. Yes, that is a very small seam - about 1/8th inch after cutting.

When I finished the stars, I had the chains to make. For sashing strips, this was an involved step. I needed 120 units that leaned left and 120 units that leaned right. Yes, I sewed those extra cut-away corners, too.  It was like I was making 2 quilts at once, you know?

Thankfully, dear Jan offered assistance with cutting and pressing some of the final chain units. This freed me up to just concentrate on sewing. Whew. All the parts are mostly made and I will soon be ready - hopefully this week - to begin assembling.

Above is sweet Jan in full helper mode. She not only worked on some of my blocks, which you see on either side of her mat, but she helped Terry with pinning her king-sized quilt.

Not all my stitching was smooth-sailing. More than once I found this (above) on the bobbin-side of my blocks. Minor setbacks like this give me time to step away for a minute, get a snack, take a walk, stretch the legs and then get back to it. Generally, a quick clean-up of lint or re-threading the machine was all that I needed to do.

Above you see the fruits of my retreat labors. Thirty stars completed; all the red chains completed; half of the blue, brown, and gold chains completed. Partially completed blue, brown and gold chains. Ah! I need to amend my earlier statement: this is NOT all of my work. Somehow the green chains are MIA. Maybe they are buried further down in my tub. I do believe they are done, though. I need to sew corners on the remaining brown and gold chains, and then cut and press them all.

I will be in connecting mode soon!

Just a point of emphasis here. This pattern requires 736 2.5" squares. Of those, 616 are used in either chain units or flying geese units. This means that I have 616 itty-bitty HSTs - 2" - awaiting me for a future project. And they are all sewn together! I know I will appreciate this bit of extra effort. Right?

Happy Quilting, Friends!