Retreating

I had my bi-annual girlfriends quilting retreat the first weekend of November up at Evergreen Retreat in Janesville, Wisconsin. We all had such a good time, we probably each gained about 5 lbs in 3 days!  Evergreen is really a fantastic retreat location. It's reasonable priced, not that far from where we live, they provide all the 'stuff' for quilting (irons/big boards, tall cutting tables, rulers, ott lights, design walls, comfy chairs.....) and they have 3 nearby quilt shops to explore! I felt that I got quite a bit done, so that was a bonus.
I made pillowcases out of Riley Blake's "Colorful Christmas" line  for DiscoJen's kids for Christmas.

I finished sewing on the binding on the 'Plaid About You' quilt out of Lakehouse's 'Fun Flowers' black colorway. And since Binding Guru Karen was at the retreat, I even got it hand tacked down in record time. I tell you, the woman is a binding genius!

I used my water-soluble interfacing technique to mark my quilting.

I quilted the big flowers free-hand. Just to be clear, this is a panel. I did not applique these fabulous flowers.

And since this is for a baby, I used bright, lime green minky on the back. This photo doesn't portray the color accurately, it's really a lime green, like the gingham in the flower above. I love how the quilting shows up on minky.

I designed and tried to figure out how to make a commissioned tree skirt from my extremely crudely drawn design. I specifically save this to do at the retreat since I would have others to help me figure out how the heck to put this thing together. My friend Carol is especially helpful with these types of things because she's an engineer.
I started with this pile of batiks and fairy frost:

I made a circle out of the beyond fantastic red diamond Hoffman Batik. I found a ton of tutorials online on how to do this. I then used my beloved 1/4" fusible web tape and ironed under the edge.

Then I pieced together the greens into large strip sets and interspersed some thin. white fairy frost strips here and there and used one of those 9degree rulers to make wedges. I had the idea that if I could get the angles right on a quarter of the circle, then I could just do 4 of those and connect them, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I had to make some wider angled strips, some smaller wedged strips and so on. I'm not done with it yet, but I have a good start at least. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out too.

And last, but certainly not least, I FINALLY finished the last of my Hydrangea commissioned "You Go Girl" bags!!!! It feels soooooo good to get this thing done. It wouldn't be that bad, but I quilted the crap out of the material. It took me 10-12 hours just to quilt the material, and this is the 3rd bag I've made like this! I'm really over quilting the hydrangea material!



Seriously, what was I thinking when I started to quilt it this way?!?!?!

I have photos of what everyone else made, but I can't locate the SD card with them on it, so that will have to be another post!

Busy-ness

Why no updates in such a long time?

This is why:

See those calendar entries? That's my April. Crazy, huh? Add to that my full time day job and my Sat quilt shop job, and I'm buzzzzyyy.

I finished the Lady Bug Hug quilt top a couple of weeks ago and can't wait to see it quilted. It's a shop sample for Tammy Tadd Designs. I'll see it all done for the first time tonight at the Rosemont quilt show. The most talented Nan at TTD quilted it. Can't wait!

The pattern and fabric are designed by Quilt Soup. Both are ridiculously cute and happy.

Look at those ladybugs!!! Could they be any cuter?

And that darling ladybug face. Too freaking cute! The only problem is that it's black thread on black fabric, so you can't see if very well. I think I'd do grey or something that shows up better the next time around.

Last weekend I had my quilt retreat at the Evergreen Retreat in Janesville. Remember my post about my first visit back in January in order to see if it would be a good fit for us? Well, it certainly was!!!

I think I would not be remiss in saying that we all had a fantastic time!

We ate, we drank, we sewed and we ate some more until the wee hours of the morning (Jennie and I went to bed at 5am Sat night/ Sun morning). The beds were comfy as all get out, and Kathy, the owner, literally thought of everything to make a quilter's stay fantastic!

Here's a few photos from our weekend, check out Jennie's blog for more about the fun.

What do you get when you cross the gorgeous Lantern Bloom fabric line by Laura Gunn for Michael Miller fabrics:

with some fabulous solidy types of batiks and what nots:

Then add the Slide Show Pattern by extremely talented Terry Atkinson:

Aren't they amazing? I'm in love. The photos don't even do it justice! Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it.

Pattie made these fabulous baskets:

Carol finished up the last 4 or 5 borders on this beauty. I totally give her credit. I would have lost interest a loooonnnngg time ago on this quilt. But that Carol, she's a perseverer.

DiscoJen finished 2 quilt tops, 500 bags and God only knows what else. I can't keep track. I feel like I get nothing done campared to her and Jennie. Jennie actually said "I'm so glad I brought this extra quilt with to make, I wasn't going to, but I finished everything else, so it's good I did!" Me, I  brought 4 projects and only finished one, and that was by the hair of my teeth!

Here's what you can do with your scraps from your fabric and bag handles that you shorten, as modeled by DiscoJen:

Well, it's off to Rosemont for the last quilt show in Chicago. I'm so bummed. It's a yearly tradition for DiscoJen and I to go every year and have lunch at the Sofitel. We are so upset that it's moving to Cincinnati next year thanks to the ridiculous fees for the venue and the obscene sales tax in Rosemont. 

Swapping

I participated in the Swap til You Drop mini quilt swap Flickr group in February. The theme was "Love is in the Air". My partner was Lollydo . She made me this absolutely adorable snail mini.

  
She checked out the items that I marked as favorites and based the mini on those, as well as my information that come February I really like red and pink combos to brighten a dreary month.
I think it's just the cutest thing. I totally love everything about it. It has the embroidered snail w/the chenille shell, the red, pink, turquoise combo. And the plaid circles! Have I mentioned how much I love plaid!

The back is really cute also. Look at how wonderful the MoMo 'Wonderland' patchwork looks with the embroidery on it. I hung it on the flipper of my overhead cabinet at work. It makes me smile when I look up from my computer screen.

This is the mini I made for Lollydo. She has 3 dogs that she just adores and told me that she likes orange. I used a photo that she had on her blog of her dogs looking up at the camera after emptying the toy basket.

I used a sharpie marker and outlined the dogs on the back of the paper. I then traced it onto fusible web and used solid black for the dog's silouettes. I quilted in their features w/grey thread.

I used the amzing floral for the top because I thought it looked fabulous with the orange. The bones are the "Love is in the Air" part. I wanted to have the side of a person holding a bone silouette on the side, but couldn't work it out to my satisfaction. 

I used the orange plaid on the back. I think it looks pretty great on the back as well. Don't look too closely at the quilting though.

I thought I was having tension issues, but it ends up that I hadn't pushed the 'feed dogs down' button all the way over, so I was really fighting the feed dogs the whole time I was free motion quilting.

I'm rather pleased with it, and I think Lollydo is as well.

Six years in Provence

I started this quilt, '6 years in Provence' as a gift for DiscoJen back in 2004. It's a Yellow Brick Road' by Terry Atkinson quilt that I've made a gazillion of over the years.  The fabric is 'Marseille' by Deb Strain for Moda.

I had the top done forever, but wanted to miter the borders, but didn't know how back then. My friend Alice showed me how one year at a retreat, and I did the two inner borders, but not the outer border. I have no clue why. You are supposed to sew all of the boarders to be mitered together first, then attach them to quilt and miter away.

I'm glad I didn't put the last border on back then though, because now I'm much better at it and boy am I proud of how I matched those border lines!

I was motivated to get it done because Paige is teaching me how to quilt pantograph patterns on her long arm machine and I needed something to practice on. Not to mention that I didn't relish the thought of pinning the quilt. A pantograph is an all over pattern that you quilt on the entire quilt, borders and all. You have to use a laser pointer to follow the pattern. It's much harder then it looks. Paige happened to have the perfect pattern for the quilt too, it's called "Fleur de Lis Flourish".

DiscoJen actually bought her couch based on this quilt something like 3 or 4 years ago. The back fabric is hard to see in this photo, but it's really beautiful. Of course I didn't have enough of it, so I had to make do with other fabric that I had on hand.

Why did I call it '6 Years in Provence'? I made a play on the title of the Peter Mayle book 'A Year in Provence' that both DiscoJen and I really enjoyed. She immediately realized the reference when she read the label and thought it was hysterical. I gave it to her at L'Eiffel Bistrot and Creperie in South Barrington where we went to celebrate her birthday lunch. It was an all French kind of day! We were really at the L'Eiffel for the Deja Vu dessert crepe that has nothing but butter and sugar on it. Pure heaven on a plate! We split an absolutely fabulous cream of mushroom soup and tenderloin on arugula salad before the crepes. It was our way of justifying our own crepe each for dessert. We ended up order a third one when DiscoJen's son realized he really liked them too.  It was a lovely day.

More running

I wish I could say that I am training for a marathon with all of this running, but the reality is that the only time I would feel motivated to run is if I were being chased by a scary guy with a knife!

I've been a table runner making fiend, kind of like DiscoJen. It's funny, we'll both look at a gorgeous piece of fabric and I'll think "how can I use this in a king sized quilt?" and DiscoJen thinks "table runner!" It's kind of a running joke in our little quilting friends circle.

I made all three of these from the Deb Strain 'Sent with Love' line for Moda. The patterns are all in the Anka's Treasures 'On the Run' table runner and centerpiece book. The nice thing is that Heather Mulder Peterson has a really nice tutorial on binding inside corners that really helped out when binding the table square.

I used the candy heart template from the McCall's quilting  magazine last spring and made them out of wool and embroidered the sayings on them instead of the flower pattern shown in the book. It made more sense with the fabric to do hearts instead of flowers.

I fussy cut out the hearts from the panel that comes with the fabric line and machine appliqued them down on the table square then quilted hearts in the pink and white squares.

Look at how fabulous they look on my black island. I especially love how my cake dome with German glass white chocolate covered strawberry and petit fours looks in the middle of the square.
I just love red, pink and white together at this time of the year. I think that it has something to do with how bright and cheery the combo is when the days are so ucky and gray.

Speaking of ucky gray days, we woke up to a beautifully frosted world last week. The weathermen called it 'freezing fog' which I thought they had totally made up. I've never heard that term before. I mean, if fog froze, you couldn't walk through it right? Apparently what it does is crystalize onto things, outlining them in fuzzy white frost. I was smitten.

The berries, pine and chickenwire photos were taken at Karen's house. It was so pretty, I made a trip over there to take pictures. Did you know chickenwire could look so gorgeous?