Retreat 2018

Wow, it has been a long break I've taken here from blogging!  I was kept pretty busy during January rehearsing for a mystery play, written by MisterStitches himself!  It was done locally, at Gualala Arts Center, as a dinner theater.  One scene was performed, then people were given appetizer, then another scene, followed by a salad, yadda, yadda, yadda.

That was a very busy time, with rehearsals every day and sometimes on weekends.  We had lots of visitors for the play, too.  DaughterStitches and family (3), SonStitches and family (3), MomStitches (1), and some friendStitches (2).  (Did that last thing work?!?)

Immediately after the play--the very next day--MomStitches and I left for my guild's annual retreat, held in beautiful downtown Healdsburg, at a very nice hotel.  It was fun having MomStitches with me this year.  So along with the play, I had a lot of work to do getting the retreat ready, too.  I would set my timer for 30 minutes and practice my lines.  Then I'd set it for 30 minutes and work on retreat stuff.  Repeat, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I took some preparatory pictures, mostly of the car as MisterStitches had packed it for us, so we would be able to get everything back into the car for the trip home.  

As you can see, just about every square inch of space was used.  And I'm very glad I took these photos, as they definitely helped us pack the car for the trip home!

Here is a photo of the 24 of us together, just before dinner on the last night.  (I'm actually missing one person, in case you counted, as she had to leave early.  Next year, note to self to take group photo on a night when everyone is there!)

This is one of the projects I worked on at retreat.  Quilting this comfort quilt.  I had found these blocks already sewn, in our guild's fanny basket.  So I put them together, added a couple borders and did the quilting at retreat.

Of course, I forgot to take photos of most of the little personal touches I provided at the retreat, like the pretty ribbon bookmark/paper clips, and the signs labelling each table as "Jan's Creative Space."  They liked those.  And I also had some print-outs placed in various places around the room, and I do have photos some of them.

I usually have some optional projects for people to work on at retreat, if they feel like it.  The first one was this apron made out of a man's shirt.  Some of the people made these.

And this is a quick quilt-as-you-go table runner. 

More Later!!!

Lots and Lots of Coasters to Sell

I recently sewed a lot of coasters for my guild to sell.  We had a booth at Art in the Redwoods a few weekends ago, held at the Gualala Arts Center.  I'm not really sure how many I made, but there were quite a few!

I had some San Francisco Giants fabric, so I made some coasters using that.  Notice the nice baseball diamonds that I quilted on them!

When I ran out of the baseball fabric, I simply used orange and black fabric.  These would work for either the Giants or for Halloween!

Even though I am not a fan of the Oakland A's, I thought maybe other people might be, so I made some coasters out of yellow and green fabric, the A's colors.

These coasters would also be nice for fans of John Deere equipment!

Now here are some everyday coasters out of some pretty fabric.  I tried some rather random, straight-stitching quilting designs on these.  They were too small for free-motion quilting.

And here are some Christmas coasters!  Most of these have a Christmas tree quilted onto them.

And some more Christmas coasters.

This last photo shows Halloween and autumn coasters.

I really had a lot of fun sewing these.  They went fast, and it was gratifying to see the stacks grow taller and taller.

Abstract Buttons

In a previous post I wrote about a class taught at our guild by Rosalie Dace.  I had started work on a three-piece quilt based loosely on a painting by Wassily Kandinsky.  This is how my pieces looked when finished.  They were three different widths, between about 10.5" and 14" wide.  They were all about 32 inches long.

I worked deep purple curved strips into the black background.  Then I attached the various circles onto the background.  I used quite a few decorative stitches for this.  I free-motion quilted loose, intertwined circles onto the fabric circles.

More crazy circle quilting!

I quilted a few wavy lines up and down the quilts.  Then I wanted to add some more interest, so I did some long hand quilting stitches in wavy lines up and down the pieces.

This is the "rogue" block with the square pieces instead of round!

And again, the finished product.  I learned a better technique for adding a faced binding than I had used before.  I'd never sought out a way to do this, and just added two facing strips on each side, sewed them down, then added two facing strips on the top and bottom.  But this method is much better.  It gives a mitered corner finish on the backside.  You can find the tutorial on the Occasional Piece blog.  Elizabeth, the writer of this blog, is a talented quilter and a really good blogger, too. 

I entered Abstract Buttons in Art in the Redwoods, an annual art show at Gualala Arts Center in Gualala, California.  I won the "Red Dot Award," which means I had a red dot on the entry ticket, indicating someone bought my quilt!  So that was very rewarding.

Intermediate Quilting Class 2014 (Session Two)

The second week's class was about curved piecing.  A lot of quilters are scared of sewing curves.  And it does take a little thought, but is certainly do-able.  My co-teacher, Kalynn, and I are both garment sewers, as well as quilters, so we are used to handling curves.  

And our students caught on very well.

We talked about using templates in this class, when previously all of our blocks were rotary cut using straight rulers.  This particular block is a drunkard's path, and there are also several other names for this block.  I had some acrylic templates for students to use, and we also showed them how to make their own templates out of template plastic. Everyone used pins to secure the two pieces of fabric together, although sometimes fabric glue is used.  Some of us used a lot more pins that others, but it's all good!

 The results were quite good, as you can see by these photos.

Look at how even all these edges are!

The photo below shows how two blocks look when put together.  We talked about all the many different ways these blocks can be arranged.

This next photo shows what happens when you cut with two layers of fabric under your templates and then switch around the pieces.  The top one is a great combination, isn't it.

Intermediate Quilting Class 2014 (Session One)

A friend and I again taught an Intermediate Quilting class.  We taught it a few years ago for the first time.  Last year we taught Beginning Quilting, and this year we are teaching the intermediate class.  I should state for the record that these classes have been taught for quite a few years, through our quilting guild, PPQG, by some very, very capable teachers.  I've taken both of these classes.  I can only hope that my friend and I can fill their tennis shoes.

We have an excellent group of students this year, 7 in total, which is a really nice number for the class.  Not too big and not too small.

The first week we taught "Y-seams."  Specifically, the Attic Windows block and Tumbling Blocks.

This is the basic attic window pattern.  

When sewn together a nice window pattern emerges.

Tumbling blocks, as you know, are made up of just three diamond shapes, light, medium, and dark.  With the shading, they make a three-dimensional effect, as does attic windows.

I have a little (!) experience with tumbling blocks.  You can see some posts here and here.

 Our students are really great, and catch on quickly.  In fact, we had some extra time after they mastered these Y-seams, so we also taught them a free-form method of making blocks out of just strips of neutral fabric and scraps.  I learned this method from a blog I follow, called Oh Fransson.  I  made a quilt using this method back in this blog post.

One of my "free-form" blocks.

A happy student with her "free-form" block.

I always have fun re-making the blocks for the beginning and intermediate classes before we teach them.  This way they are fresh in my mind, and I'm aware of any steps or procedures that might be confusing to the students.  

Beauty

There is beauty all around us, isn't there.  Here are just a few photos I've taken from some of my recent walks around my neighborhood.

These bright red leaves really caught my attention in the undergrowth.

While we aren't always fond of the effects of thistles, they really are a pretty flower.

The following photos are of a single small tree I saw at Gualala Arts Center.  I was struck by how the colors gradually shaded from one hue to another.  Bright red at the top through orange, with golden and bright yellow at the bottom of the tree.

I'm thinking this tree photo might be inspiration for a quilt.  Colorwash, maybe?  Or perhaps lots of little hexagons?  The possibilities are there.

Maybe My Fastest Quilt Ever?!

I think this might just be the fastest quilt I've ever made!

                                     

On a Friday I was given a bag full of pre-cut squares.  They were about 4 1/2" square.  And I was told to make a quilt to sell at our annual Festival of the Trees at Gualala Arts Center.  Every year our quilt guild has a booth there and raises a lot of money for the Art Center and for us.

So I separated lights and darks into two stacks.  Then I proceeded to make them into 9-patches.  I always put the dark patches on the outside, as that pile was higher than the pile of light patches.

All of the nine-patches got sewn together, then basted with batting and backing.

I used a large-ish overall stippling to quilt this, and now I think I can really, honestly say that stippling is one of my least favorite designs to quilt.  I used to think that was just my opinion because I couldn't do it very well.  But this one came out pretty good.  I just--plain and simple--don't like sewing this type of design!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The nine-patches don't show up a lot, but they are there, and give it just a slight bit of order.

For the backing I chose a light pink/green/blue stripe.  This quilt turned out to be just a tiny bit wider than 44", and this particular piece of fabric was a little wider, too.  So no piecing!

I even had one 9-patch left over so I used it as the label on the back.

And I couldn't possibly do anything but a scrappy binding on this scrap quilt!  We quilters are often hoarders, aren't we.  I have a collection of leftover bits of binding.  Whenever I had a piece left over after binding a quilt, I would throw it in a bag.  So I sewed several of them together to bind this quilt.  I knew I was saving them for a reason!

So after receiving the blocks on Friday, this nice lap-size quilt was finished the following Wednesday.  I'm sure that's a record for me!