My Weekend Quilt Retreat Update

I was able to go on a quilting retreat last weekend. My quilting friend Micki had planned to go (I had not) and she wasn't able to at the last minute. So she called me the day before retreat to see if I could go in her place. Since my hubby is now employed, I salivated as I ran through the things in my head that I might have committed to over the weekend. I couldn't think of anything that couldn't be worked around. Neither could my hubby, so I went! Thank you, Micki! I wish you could have been there with us.

During the retreat, I finished the Stormy Weather miniature pineapple quilt (above) and donated it to the Dallas Quilt Celebration Live Auction. It will be auctioned off on Saturday March 13th at 1:30 PM at Market Hall in Dallas, TX, to benefit the Senior Source. The auctioneer is always fun, so if you're in the area and you've never come, you really should try to attend. Quilt Celebration is the guild quilt show the Quilter's Guild of Dallas puts on and it's absolutely wonderful, if I do say so myself. It's the largest all volunteer quilt show in the country and runs March 12 - 14.

I finished up blocks for another miniature pineapple quilt that I hope to complete in the next few weeks. I have the borders sewn onto the little top now and it's ready to quilt. I just have to get the time to work on it.

This one will be auctioned off on this blog to benefit Haiti. If you want me to contact you when it's time for the auction, you can leave a comment (with your email address or a link back to you) on this posting and I'll email you. Or you could just sign up to follow the blog. I haven't decided how much time the auction will actually last. Probably anywhere from 3 or 4 days up to one week.

During the weekend, I also working a little on one of my little quote quilts. I had similar problems with batting bearding through batiks on this little quilt just like I did on the first one I did. Sandy gave me a piece of fusible batting to try and it worked pretty well. I may switch to white flannel for the next on though. Traditionally, kantha stitching would not be worked through batting, so that is why I keep having problems with my quote quilts. I also thread basted the hand quilting sample for the class I had today. (The class today went great too. I've never had a group of students who were more happy and excited to take a class!)

Then I was ready to try something new -- again. A few years ago, my friend Marianne tried to teach me to knit. I didn't practice and soon forgot everything she taught me. We started planning to start up our lessons again, but before we could, she suddenly, unexpectedly passed away. It's taken me more than a year to get into the groove again and pull out the yarn. I tried to teach myself. That was laughable. The retreat had several knitters attending, all very generous with their time and talents. I had advice and lessons from Dianne, Suzanne, Donna, Sandy and Paula. Encouragement from Jan, Cheryl and Krissy. There were times I was almost in tears because I couldn't relax, but now I'm doing much better. I can see where I relaxed on the scarf. I think I had about 6" by Sunday night. Tonight, I took a photo and it was almost 21" long. It's a very loose, mistake riddled scarf in a poopy yellow wool and I am very proud of it.

Art Every Day Month -- Day 12

Today's art has been, what I consider, grunt work. I finished basting the two new art quilts. Then I picked out the embroidery floss that I'll quilt the "Thou shalt NOT steal pecans!" quilt with. I was lucky to have colors very similar to the fabrics, so that the kantha stitching will blend in and highlight the fabrics instead of taking away from the words written on it. Just what I planned on this one. Next I finished ripping out the hand quilting on Stormy Weather. After taking out the basting, it was a breeze. Wish I had started the ripping in that manner.

I've decided to try to machine quilt Stormy Weather. Since I'm too tired and head-achy to attempt machine quilting tonight, which I'm not very good at in the first place, I won't do that right now.

I want to hand quilt Happy (the orange and blue quilt) but I don't have the color thread on hand that I want to use. So, that one is out until I can get to a quilt shop or order some thread by mail.

That leaves the pecan quilt. I think I'll pull out some of the floss and get to work on it. I love kantha stitching. It's relaxing and fun. I'll show you the progress tomorrow.

Day 6 -- Art Every Day Challenge

I had an urge to hand quilt today. So, I picked up my Stormy Weather Pineapple to work on. I had already quilted the center square and between each of the blocks. I started today by quilting the corner triangles that met close to the center block so that I could start the next block. After I started to quilt on the second block, I decided that I really did not like how the quilting looked! So, I started to rip it all out!

Talk about a headache! I had picked a very mottled grey fabric for the back. The light grey quilting thread blends in exceptionally well. It's a booger to see the stitches to rip them out. I had planned to only rip out inside the blocks and leave the quilting that was between the blocks, but I can't do it because I can't see all the stitches! I'm going to have to take it totally apart -- even the basting. That's the only way to make sure I rip out all the stitches. Then I'm going to bite the bullet and machine quilt this puppy. Boy, I hope I don't screw this up. I'll update again later today, if there's anything to update with. Until next time, happy creating.

Miniature Quilt Update

I really haven't been sewing or quilting much lately. Seems like years since I've done either on a daily basis and today, I realized that I kind of miss it. I went into Dallas for a miniature quilt "class". It's really more of a "sit and sew" session with ladies who have grown to be good friends. When I joined the group, we were about to embark on the Dear Jane quilt, making blocks each month when we got together. I've started it and only made one or two blocks so far. I keep changing my mind on the color scheme for the quilt. Should it be Christmas colors? I've always wanted a Christmas quilt. Or maybe 30's reproductions or Civil war reproductions (the original was made during the Civil war) or maybe I should do it with batiks. Ugh! I started it in Christmas fabrics and now may change to batiks or I may ditch the project all together. I could always turn the blocks I've made into a mini for the Quilter's Guild of Dallas Quilt Celebration miniature auction in March. Whatever I do, I'll post photos of it. Anyway, I finally drifted on to work on other projects during that time.

This month, I worked on my Stormy Weather pineapple mini. I'm hand quilting it. Since I've only quilted during those classes for the last two months, I have no idea how long it will end up taking me to complete. When I do, I'll post a photo. Come to think of it, if I actually sew this weekend, I'll post a photo of that too.