Fruitful Quilt Retreat

 Trying to have a quilt retreat in the year of the pandemic - what a ridiculous notion! Ours was scheduled for early April, canceled, rescheduled for late August; canceled and finally modified to meet more of our schedules by staying close to home. Terry hosted the retreat at her house! I think I speak for the entire group that it was a roaring success.

 

My week of stitching culminated in the blocks you see above. My goal as we began the retreat was to make all the blocks for True Blue, a churn dash pattern by Linzee Kull McCray. I have had the pattern for a couple of years, and this quilt has been on several to-do lists. Now, I finally have it started and will work on finishing the flimsy in the coming week. I made 40 blocks (42 needed), so I will get the additional blocks made, and then commence with the setting strip and cornerstones. A neat-o secondary design will appear.

 Here's our little group. All 7 of us were present on Wednesday, so we hijacked Terry's husband to take some pictures for us. Some of us made it for partial days while others had to miss entire days. We took turns with lunch provisions M-W, and ordered from a local restaurant the final two days. 

I did not make an effort to document what each of us worked on; instead, I have only documented my own project. From Monday through Friday, here's what I accomplished.

 

My work station all set up, plenty of liquids!

 

Ironing beside my machine; Thangles ready to cut.

Cutting and trimming triangle papers at Terry's countertop island.

Stitching more triangle papers on my Featherweight.

Largely, the time was entirely filled with making those churn dash blocks. I had parts prepared in advance for some, but not all. Had I truly been in chain-piecing mode, I would have made much faster progress. I won't complain, though, that I didn't do enough; the enjoyment of the week was too great to complain. We had the very best week of sewing fellowship. This group is already tight-knit; we are even more so after spending the week together. *All the good feels!*

I have worked out my goals for September; maybe I can get myself back on a better blogging schedule and share that with you soon. Have a great week!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello September

 A new month! Are you ready for September? 

It's strange how this coming month and the approaching season toys with my psyche. I never seem to look forward to autumn like I do with the arrival of spring. I don't dislike the arrival of fall; in fact, I love all the seasons and am glad to live in Ohio where we are fortunate to experience all the delights of four distinct seasons. However, it does make me a bit melancholy to see summer fading, dusk coming earlier and the early signs of fall settling in.  I guess I am a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to fall's coming. Since I can't do a thing about holding summer a little bit longer, I will look forward to crisp, cool mornings, bright blue skies, and brilliant, bold colors. Eternal optimist, I am!

Enough philosophizing. In yesterday's post, I said I would come up with some goals and I am still working on those. In the meantime, let's do an August wrap-up.

My August collage include 6 quilts, probably the most I've ever featured since I began doing these monthly collages. The Frankfort Girls' sew-along quilt is up first; it is in the flimsy stage. The small table topper I'm calling the Key West quilt is my version of a periwinkle quilt; it is finished, as is the little mantle mat made with remnant HSTs. Another flimsy is the Larkspur 9-patch. In the bottom row is another HST quilt made with remnants; it is quilted and needs the binding to be applied and finished. Then, one of my current works-in-progress, the 5-inch churn dash quilt made with reproduction prints and shirtings.

The non-quilt pictures feature two of my kiddos who had birthdays this month, Emma, my youngest and Adam, my oldest. The remaining picture is one we took on a fun day trip to Marietta, OH, the setting of the David McCullough book, The Pioneers. Marietta is a beautiful city, full of fascinating history about the original English settlers to the Ohio territory.

We are having a good time at our modified quilt retreat. Day 2 is in the books, and I think I speak for all that we are enjoying it immensely.

Happy September, dear readers, and

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Beginning A Modified Quilt Retreat

 The pandemic forced us to cancel the annual Canter's Cave Retreat which was supposed to happen in early April. We tried rescheduling for this week, but so many of us were needing to cancel or cut short their stay. What to do? Trusty friend to the rescue: Terry offered to host us for the week at her house; we canceled Canter's Cave entirely and are now set up in every inch of her family room. We are not staying overnight since we all live so close, but we are gathering there each day for sewing, quilting, and camaraderie. I will miss two afternoons for my classes; others will miss for various and sundry reasons, but for the biggest part of the week we are making it work.

My first objective for the week is to stitch as much of this quilt - True Blue - as I can. I made a valiant start this morning before having to leave for my classes, and first thing tomorrow I will be removing papers from my Thangles HSTs. I anticipate that this quilt will go together quickly; the instructions couldn't be more straightforward. And since I have already been working on that earlier churn dash quilt, I sorta' have a system established. 

I did pack the other churn dash project for a backup project. I knew I would end up working on these two projects simultaneously. And I do not regret this in the least! In fact, we Frankfort girls are going to do another sew-along from now until Christmas - make 42 6.5" churn dash blocks for a group exchange. So I need to get started on that! Whoo - hoo! I went from just dying to have a churn dash quilt to working on 3 all at the same time. 

I do not have a problem with this!

In other news, I have been visiting the one UFO that was on my goals list for 2020 - Meadow Lily. I cannot explain why I have drug my feet on this; from all my investigations, I see no mistakes; only potential. I can offer a couple of pictures of the situation as it now stands.

All I can figure is that my plan was to make more blocks than the pattern called for; then I realized I would not have enough fabric to make the setting blocks - so I stopped. Hmmm. Puzzling.  I've decided that I will make the pattern as it was written, and deal with all these extra flower blocks somehow, sometime, later. FYI: it is a Thimbleberries pattern.

Now, here we are at the end of August. My goodness, it went fast. September needs to have some goals, and I am working on those now. I will share soon.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Churn Dashes Galore!

 In case anyone has wondered about my lengthy absence from blog posting, school has started. Whew, what can this old dog learn? I'm working harder than I ever imagined I would to learn virtual teaching methods and programs to make my two sections of freshman comp as successful as possible. Monday was an absolute disaster; Wednesday was mildly successful. I commended my students for coming back to day 2, after the rough opening day. I wasn't sure I'd get anyone back.

But, let's talk about quilting. Even with all the extra school work I'm doing, I am still quilting. Only the blogging has taken a backseat. 

The last time I wrote, I had 32 5" churn dashes on the design wall along with setting blocks of neutral shirting fabrics. In the foreground of this picture is a stack of 30 more churn dashes. I have not cut any more setting blocks, but I've run out of room on the design wall, so I will just continue making parts; I don't need to see it in its entirety.

Plenty of fabrics remain. My churn dash pairings are fanned out in the photo above. I am sure I could get at least 2 more churns from each set. In front are two shirtings, but I have more I can cut into, so it looks like I'm set to finish the block construction phase of this quilt.

Now, my title says churn dashes galore, and while I am completing the construction of this quilt, I have just cut out the parts for another.

One of my goals for quite awhile has been to make this quilt called True Blue. The original features feedsack fabrics (which I do not have), however, I do have a good supply of blue in my stash. So I pulled out a big stack and began cutting.

My choices came from the huge stack above. The quilt has 42  churns; I used 20 blues from the stash. I am using Thangles for the HSTs, and the rest is just straight sewing. I was so eager to see the block made up, I went ahead and made a couple. Ooooh, I am excited about this!

This pattern has 9-inch blocks, considerably larger than those itty-bitty 5-inchers I've been making. It will be so fast to get this made.

True Blue will be my main activity for next week. Because of the pandemic, the Frankfort Girls had to cancel the annual Canter's Cave Quilt Retreat. Rescheduling has been iffy, so Terry is having it at her house next week. I will have to miss most of  M/W because of my classes, but I will be able to get quite a lot done in the remaining time. Going in with this cut out and ready to sew will speed things up quite a bit.

I have been working on a few other things, too, and Sharon has been here to sew; always pretty, fun stuff coming from her sewing machine. Hopefully, you'll be hearing about all that soon. Now that I am getting into a groove for my classes, my blogging groove should return.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Desire for Churn Dashes

 Ever since I began admiring and making quilts, I have preferred the traditional styles. My grandma always made LeMoyne Star quilts. She made a lot of other styles, too, but that was a frequent go-to. While I make a lot of more modern quilts with some very modern fabrics, I still seem to prefer the quiet orderliness of the old standards, those made for generations by quilters who stitched out of necessity rather than out of fulfilling a whim.

My whim lately is to make a churn dash quilt. I have been planning for some time to make a quilt called True Blue, a pattern by Linzee Kull McCray. And my plan yesterday was to cut out the quilt to prepare for our upcoming quilt camp (more on camp in a future post).

Well, I didn't have the fabrics pulled from the stash, and I sorta' got side-tracked by some fabric I recently bought which was still splayed out on my desk.

I added a charm pack of Jo Morton shirtings alongside this grouping. The appeal was so great, I could almost feel a quilt being born.

One thing I really dislike is cutting into a precut, only to waste portions of it. I knew I wanted to use all the fabric - no waste. I decided that I would use those 5" squares for setting blocks. Out of the fabric grouping above, I would add other shirtings from my stash for backgrounds.

I spent a good little bit trying to figure out the math necessary to result in a 5" churn dash, but I did accomplish the task, and have made a good amount of progress. I am chain-piecing them, and so far have 15 blocks completed.

I am loving this! The blocks work so great with the shirtings, and they are super-easy to do. If I have calculated correctly (?), I will end up with around 60 churn dashes, and I have some remaining fabric with which to make more which is entirely likely. 

I do still plan to make True Blue. I will get that fabric pulled, and then cut before camp. At some point, I am sure I be working on both churn dash quilts at the same time. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Finishing A Baby Quilt

 A couple of months ago, I loaded a baby quilt into the long arm machine and attempted to quilt it. I became very frustrated because the top thread broke time and time again. 

 Then we went on vacation, then I bought a new spool of thread, then I proceeded to avoid returning to the long arm to see about making things right.

Today, in less than 30 minutes, I re-threaded the machine and quilted the baby quilt. Agghh! I am such an avoider! I could have had this done weeks ago!

Oh well. It is done now, and I will share pictures. It still needs the binding, but at least the quilting is done. I don't "avoid" so much on binding, so I expect to do that soon.

The HSTs used in this quilt were the cut-away corners of a quilt I made for DS Emma back in 2015. I never throw these out, especially if they are big ones like these. At some point, a need will present itself. Click here to read about the day I spent making this quilt top, and to access a link to the 2105 quilt for Emma.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sixteen Blockheads

 In odd moments here and there, I have stitched blocks in the Moda Blockheads 3 sew along. It now seems I am farther along with the blocks with round 3 than I ever got with rounds 1 or 2. 

I was motivated to get a nice even number of blocks made so that I decent picture could be taken. Here are my 16 blocks laid out in no particular order. 

It is looking rather busy, in my opinion. I typically do not go for such a look. Those two blocks with the plain background are such restful blocks in the midst of the chaos. I need to use more of that plain background in future blocks so that there will be less going on. A bit more controlled, if you will.

Here are my most recently made blocks. I did these last week when I sewed over at Terry's. I cut them out in the morning, and sewed them after lunch. It's hard to believe a whole day's work results in just two blocks. That's the nature of the sew along sampler quilt, I suppose.

The basket block is #31 and is the most recent block in the series. I am still filling in a lot of gaps where I have skipped blocks. Block 29 was fun to make, however this 6-inch block has squares that finish at 3/4-inch. Yikes!

I find I am gradually turning back into a teacher lately. University classes begin a week from today and all (nearly) will be taught virtually. I am learning so much and have a long ways to go, but I am getting there. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!