Retreat - Everybody Else!

This last week has been so jam-packed with stuff that it's simply been impossible to direct my focus on finishing the task of sharing the last of the retreat sewing. I did promise, however, so here ya' go! Special note to Sheryll: I didn't take a single picture of any of your needlework! I'm so sorry!!

In this post you saw what Sharon worked on; in this post I shared what I accomplished. Now let's see what Terry, Becky, Jan, Lisette and Susan created. The variety is inspiring!

Terry is preparing for a patriotic year with this R-W-B stars and stripes quilt. Won't it be spectacular?

Missing at Becky's table was her sewing machine! That's because she didn't even bring it. Her intentions were to do handwork for the duration of the retreat. She has two in progress - stars and Grandmother's Flower Garden. What fun to watch these two quilts grow throughout the week. Becky is very skilled at color placement and fast, yet fine stitching.

Jan's impressive accomplishment was finishing this WIP (work in progress). She came to the retreat with most (maybe all) of the stars made. She constructed the checkerboard blocks and then put the quilt top together. Ever since I've known Jan, her preference for bold colors and strong, graphic designs has been evident in her quilts.

A WIP from Lisette was one of these trees; while at retreat she made and attached two more. She likes working with tiny pieces. For further proof of that, get a look at this next WIP.

 

This quilt is made with the narrowest of strips - scraps, potentially - using paper foundation. It is going to be so stunning when completed.

 This little beauty appeared on the design wall in the vicinity of where both Lisette and Susan were sewing; I'm sorta' thinking it was completed by Lisette. What a lovely little table topper/wall hanging.

Lisette likes to be organized as illustrated by the little clips of all her block units. I'm sure this increases her completion rate; I ought to take heed and try it myself, right?

These lovely flying geese strips are a WIP from the talented hands of Susan. I have forgotten the precise project she is working on, but it seems as though it's a sampler quilt. 

Another of Susan's projects was this pretty poison green/navy star creation. I don't know her eventual plan for this. I do know it was made following instructions using a disappearing 4-patch as the beginning point. The girls who are in a guild together had this demonstrated for them at their last meeting; it all seemed rather too complicated for me!

I mentioned that I did not take pictures of anything from Sheryll. Let me post one I have in my camera roll; I have lots of pics that never make it to the blog. This is representative of the handwork Sheryll specializes in; and it is always lovely.

While I show you this Christmas picture, I can tell you that Sheryll was working on a beautiful red bird design. Additionally, she was piecing some hexies for flowers; I apologize for not doing a better job of fact-gathering.

So our Spring retreat was a wonderful success. We go back in mid-August for another 3-night/4-day retreat. I so look forward to these getaways so much!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Retreat - Lisette, Susan & Jan

Our final installment of last week's retreat will include our 3 remaining seamstresses, Susan, Lisette, and Jan. 

Lisette did lots and lots of small blocks for School Girl Sampler. This is one organized quilter - just look at the labeling and orderly stacks.

She also needed to attach a border to this gorgeous quilt. What a great eye for reproductions she has, as seen in the close-up.

Susan finished off a baseball-themed quilt, a snowball quilt and a reproduction quilt with dozens of flying geese units.

 

Susan hoped to finish this quilt and discovered that she did not bring fabric for the last of those flying geese. It's almost done!

Here's the snowball quilt. Her task for part of one retreat day was making a zigzag border. I really didn't pay attention when Susan shared details on this quilt, so I have no further tidbits to add. I do like the looks of the blues with the tans. It's a great look.

And here is her baseball quilt. I think she shopped locally for the border and added it at retreat. She also prepped the backing for this quilt.

Jan worked on 2 quilts from beginning to end - and by end I mean that she not only attached all borders, but also prepared backing and binding for each. 

From this organized and well-sorted supply of parts, Jan built a Courthouse Steps quilt that looks amazing.

After finishing the Courthouse Steps, Jan pulled out a jelly roll project with some panels stitched into each block. The result is a fine looking Christmas quilt.

And that concludes my wrap-up of last week's retreat. What fun we had. The food was great; the conversations were all over the place; we did a bit of shopping; we did some dreaming and wishing for future projects. Successful in every way.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne
 

Retreat Projects

Last week I attended a 4-day quilt retreat in nearby Jamestown. Several of the Frankfort Girls plus a couple more attended. I thought it would be fun to share some of the projects we were working on. 

Terry: In a patriotic mood, Terry worked on three different projects. Alas, I have pictures of only two.  

The table runner and table topper will no doubt be ready to adorn Terry's lovely home soon. I don't think she used a pattern; rather she made these from pictures she'd seen online. 

Sheryll: In an effort to finish up a couple of UFOs, Sheryll worked on a couple of Kim Diehl projects begun a few years ago. I have only this one picture, but I'm pretty sure she worked on a second one after this. Plus she did some handwork.

Susan: Perhaps the aggravation  award goes to Susan for choosing to work on quite a complicated project. Not her style at all, this Tula Pink project (called Center Stage) was quite involved and at time gave Susan fits. It will ultimately be a gift for her niece.

The blocks were big, but were comprised of much tinier blocks and Susan was fit-to-be-tied at times with construction. It's gonna' have great impact when finished, though, and Susan has been known to create some real beauties; no doubt this will be yet another one.

Jan: As is the norm, Jan gets more out of a quilt retreat than anyone I've ever known. This one was no different. She finished the quilt tops for the two shown below and made a fair amount of progress on another which I did not photograph.

These quilts may look identical, but they are not. The same pattern used with two different fabric combinations. Jan really worked hard on these, then went on to begin at least one more and possibly two - I was rather inattentive at times, so I might have missed more.

Sharon: Yes, my good friend Sharon attended, and she happily finished off a quilt top that she'd been working on at my house for a few weeks. This is a Laundry Basket Quilts kit she'd gotten as a gift last Christmas. 

She finished her star quilt as far as the kit had fabric for, then decided she would make it bigger. She ordered more background fabric, made what remaining stars she could, the moved on to the 9-patch project, shown below.

Sharon had been given a collection of scraps from a dear old friend of her mother's. She sifted through the scraps to come up with a delightful collection of 2.5-inch squares that she proceeded to make into 9-patch blocks. What a wonderful array of vintage fabrics! This promises to be quite a beauty!

Mine: I had good success in my retreat experience. I finished the last of the 42 stars needed for a project I haven't even yet shared here on the blog. In a future post, I will provide some details, but for now I can show you a satisfying stack of stars.

After finishing the stars, I turned to a recently-found project in the depths of a clean-out in my sewing room. A tub of homespun remnants needed to be used up, and in a hurry. So I did the fasted quilt top I know how to make. Plain squares in a diagonal pattern across the quilt. It would be as big as the fabric allowed. The remaining fabric will be pieced for a backing, or turned into pillows.

When I finished this top, I turned to a very old kit I'd made for a retreat back when we were still going to Canter's Cave (2016, I think). I'd prepped about 12 blocks, made one block, discovered a cutting error, and immediately stowed it away for another day. I found it in that sewing room clean-out mentioned above, and decided the time had arrived to deal with it. Turns out the other blocks were all cut correctly. Yay!! I have renewed interest in seeing this little beauty completed, so I intend to stay with it. The pattern is called Best of All.

This pretty well sums up the sewing we did at retreat. This group just blended together so well; we have two more retreats on the calendar for next year.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Retreat Report #2

Retreat sewing. That's what y'all want to see, right? So let's get right into it! 

 

First up, we'll see what Sharon was stitching. She and I are doing the same pattern; it's by It's Sew Emma called Paris Flea Market Find. Sharon is using Etchings fabric by 3Sisters, augmented with some other 3Sisters lines from her stash.

 

Those sashing strips left a great pile of cut-away corners, so Sharon saved them for some eventual HSTs and a project yet to be determined. (I saved mine, too!)

 

Making the 25-patch blocks was lots of fun and so very satisfying as they came together quite speedily. 

 

Becky had two very different projects - one for machine piecing and one for hand work. Below is the book from which her applique pattern comes. It's hard to discern, but it's called Fresh Picked from Blackbird Designs.

Her other project is one that just boggles my mind in its intricacy. Circa 1880 Nine Patch by Pam Buda contains 6,268 pieces, many of which finish at 1/2 inch. Yowza.

Becky had completed this tubful of tiny uneven 9-patches, and her work at retreat involved attaching the setting triangles and forming the long strip of blocks.

 

 

 

The neat stack on Becky's table shows a significant portion of both her projects - the applique on tip and the strips of uneven 9-patches under them.

 

 Jan brought one project to this retreat, very unlike her normal mega-productivity at previous retreats. Her efforts were of the Herculean variety as she finished this overly-involved panel quilt.

 

Each panel required a rather extensive border; after gnashing her teeth on about 4 of these, she began taking short cuts which required fewer seams and fewer fussy bits. We all agreed that the simpler borders were actually better, as they did not deter from the cute panels.

 

Sheryll had two main focuses - these intricate blocks for a quilt she's had under construction for awhile was one of them. 

 

 

 

Her other focus was making HSTs using Primitive Gathering HST papers. I should have asked how many she ended up making, but gosh, that stack was looking mighty intimidating! I think that Jacob's Ladder (above) is also for a Primitive Gatherings project.

Susan (who you met yesterday with her brand new machine) had lots of variety in her week at retreat. First, she made this owl quilt.

 

Next, she worked on this Ohio University table runner. I love the way this looks, and since I have an OU grad in the family, I would very much consider making something like this for her.

 

From the OU project, Susan moved on to this Folk Art/Patriotic house quilt. It was looking mighty fine as we finished out the week.

Susan also shared a 3-yard quilt finish from last summer's retreat. Several of us have made quilts from one of the many 3-Yard Quilt books.

Terry was a busy girl, too, with several finishes to boast. She already had a good start on this Civil War Legacies quilt called Remembrances. It is impressive with all those famous faces highlighted in the center of each block.

She then moved on to this quilt, but I can't tell you anything about its name or pattern. I do know that we discovered an error after this photo was taken, and she did get it all fixed before we left retreat.

Next, Terry moved on to making an OSU quilt for her grand-nephew who attends there. She used a sheet for the center of the OSU blocks, and a variety of theme-related fabrics to build this out. It is quite the impressive flimsy after just a day's hard work.

Our final seamstress is Helen, who worked so hard to get her Alpine quilt cut out. The thinking was that she'd cut here at retreat, then Becky could take the ruler home to cut hers later. Helen got far enough along in the process that she made one block just to be sure that she was on the right track with this project. I think she might have been more than just a little intimidated with these angles. I'm sure she'll get it all squared away.

Another project Helen brought to work on was this kit from Maywood Studio. It is going to look so happy and cheerful, with hints of vintage 30s sprinkled throughout.

And yes, Helen had one more kit - this happy little neighborhood called Farmer's Daughter by Moda. She has quite a bit of this finished!

Here are some final shots of my version of Paris Flea Market Find - I'm using (primarily) Paris Flea Market fabrics along with some stash yardage.

That's it!! A 4-day retreat at Needles and Pines in Nelsonville, Ohio, is all we need to have a fun and productive week. We highly recommend this facility to quilters in the southern Ohio area.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne