Preparing for Quilt Retreat

Well, the crunch is now on to get ready for my upcoming Kaye Woods Quilting Retreat in Southern Missouri. My two sisters from the St. Louis area are going with me so this should be a lot of fun. They have both been before, but this will be my first time. They've printed out a packing list for me and given me all kinds of directions on how to prepare my sewing projects for the week. This is not a convention with a bunch of classes and vendors. It's a private retreat in a quiet, out of the way location for a Yahoo group that I belong to and we can do all the sewing we want on our own projects. It sounds wonderful to me. So I've been pre-cutting my pieces to several quilts and pinning them together so all I have to do is stitch when I get there. I've got high hopes for finishing several quilt tops there, so be prepared to see some more photos when I return.

One of the quilts I am currently working on is called the Baltimore Bliss and it is a quilt of all applique. I've not done much applique before but I'm really enjoying working on this. Here are pictures of the first 2 blocks that I've completed. The only thing I'm still struggling with is the tiny narrow points. I hope there's someone at the retreat that can show me a better way of doing those. But for now I'm happy with these. I figure by the time I've done 12 different blocks, I should be getting pretty good at applique. It's a block of the month pattern so that will force me to pace myself. I am trying different methods of applique for each block. So far I am liking the English paper piecing method the best. That is the method I used for these two blocks and I like the way these came out. You just basically copy the designs only copy paper, cut them out and then use a small dobb of water soluable glue (stick) to fasten it face down on the back of the desired fabric. Cut around that with a 1/4" seam allowance around edges. Fold over the seam allowance to the back and using a contrasting thread, do a running stitch around the piece to hold the folded over seam allowance snugly against the paper. (Start and end on the right side of the fabric). Starch and steam iron the pieces flat. Then when you are ready to applique that piece, take out the stitches and the paper, and repress the folds and applique it only your background. The is very easy and goes a lot faster than you might think. It also makes a great "carry with you" project or hand project while watching TV.

I'm also going to be doing a short demo on my travel sewing pin (see photo below) at this retreat, so I got all that ready to go tonight. I also put together 40 surprise gifts to give to each attendee. I'm starting to think that my car is really going to be packed with all the stuff I'm planning on taking.

Stained Glass Quilt

Today I want to show you my first stained glass quilt. It was much easier than I ever thought it would be because the entire black part of it is one piece just laid over the top of the printed piece of fabric and sewn down with machine applique stitch. There is a lot of detailed cutting to do but it went a lot faster than I thought it would. I have done some pieced stained glass quilts using bias tape to make the black lines and it can be tricky, so I really liked this method.

My Eagle Quilt

Here's one of my first quilts that I attempted to quilt myself. It is simply a panel of fabric that I did stitching on freehand. I found out really quick that this is a lot harder to do than it looks. If you look very close at it you will see some long stitches and a bunch of tiny tiny stitches. Oh, how I wish I had $5,000 for that Bernina 440 Aurora sewing machine with the stitch regulator on it. (I can dream can't I?) Even though my stitches were pretty irregular, I did enjoy trying my hand at this. I haven't done much of anything else since trying this, but I'm getting ready to try again, hopefully armed with a bit more knowledge about what I'm doing this time. Of course, there's no guarantee that the outcome will be any better. But I keep trying anyway... It's just so much fun!

African Quilt

Today I'm going to share with you the quilt I made this past year for my oldest daughter, Tina. In September of 2007, she and I traveled to South Africa to work in vision care clinics in the poor schools there. We had a wonderful time and fell in love with the children there. When we returned, she asked me to make her an "Africa" quilt because she wanted to do her bedroom in Africa style. That winter I fell and broke my ankle in the same place where I had previously broken it and already had a plate and several screws in it. Because of the location and the hardware that was already in my ankle, the healing process took a lot longer than what would be normal. I ended up being wheelchair bound for 3 months. Tina rushed to help me when I first got home and she helped my husband make our home wheelchair accessible - especially my sewing room. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time there.

Then she took me to a fabric store where we found all these beautiful African prints and we bought a bunch of fabric. When she left town and I was finally left alone, I spent much of everyday sitting in my wheelchair working on this quilt. It took a long time to finish and have quilted but it came out beautiful, especially on her bed. She specifically gave me the measurements of her bed because she wanted it to hang down all the way around the bed. This ended up being the biggest and heaviest quilt I have ever made.

The design on the top of the bed is a basic attic window pattern where we fussy cut the pictures of animals in the windows. The border around that is a paper pieced pattern I designed, and the sides are 1 1/2 inch strips sewn together. The footboard corners are quilted in the shape of Africa with all the countries quilted in as well.

St. Louis trip - Spring 2009

I went to St. Louis recently to tend to some family things and had a wonderful time there with my family members. My two sisters both love to quilt, as does my brother-in-law, and my mother loves to embroider blocks for one of us to put together into quilts. During the week and two weekends that I was there, we visited one quilt show and 7 quilt shops. One day my sisters and mom and I went to lunch together and just sewed together the rest of the afternoon around the dining room table. We had great fun. This little applique wall hanging is primarily what I worked on while there although I did get another quilt started too. I had a wonderfully relaxing visit while there and came back with new patterns, tools, kits, and fabric. What fun!