Retreat Fun

Temecula, Ca was our destination for 4 days of sewing fun. We stay at the Vina de Lestonnec and the good Sisters take great care of us. We have nothing to do but enjoy the beautiful wine country , watch for hot air balloons passing overhead and sew!

Here's what I got done:

Worked on my Dresdens for the Scrappy Plate BOM at Bunny Hill. Got 7 put together !

Added to Design Wall Monday on Judy L"s site.www.patchworktimes.com Check out the rest of the busy quilters.

Put together my Fire Escape Quilt. Done , ready to quilt.

Got all the blocks done for the Urban Cabin, Now to finalize the arrangement and add borders.

What did everyone else do:

Bea's in progress

Merci's DWR

Irish Chain with difficult border, solved!

Rick Rack Quilt

This is just a few I caught  with my camera. There were 21 of us and we all did several projects .

One of the fun things we did was the 1600 Strip Quilt Race. After seeing the YouTube on how easy it was, we decided to give it a try. Ten of us competed and Bonnie finished first and won a strawberry pincushion. the only hard part is not getting the strips twisted when you are joining them diagonally. (first you make one long strip). With batiks this is easy to get mixed up as both sides look the same! We had some beautiful quilts from all different fabrics, jelly rolls, Walmart rolls, strips from stash.

Lynette used Kiwi Bali pop and her's was really striking.

Madeline's pretty blues

Pat's strippy all done!

We all had fun with this technique.

What a good time, great weather and good friends! Ready to go again next year!

Retreat !!!

I am going on a quilting retreat to beautiful Temecula,Ca. I will see wineries, hot air balloons and lots of sewing being done. This is a real treat for me because I spend most of my time working my magic on clients quilt tops with my longarm. Piecing my own projects has slowed to a crawl.
Here is what I hope to get done:

• 1600 Fast Strip quilt
• Fire Escape top
• Urban Cabin top
• Dresden Plate blocks

Sound ambitious??? That is all,unless I find more enticing projects at the quilt shops we plan to stop & shop at!

I am doing the Scrappy Plate Quilt -a -Long over on www.bunnyhillblog.com
Here is a look at one of the blocks.

I think the borders and sashings are going to be prints too, so will be looking for inspiration. Maybe more polka dots.
I have always loved the Dresden Plate block and have two made by my Great Grandmother. They are just on display as they are fragile and well worn. I want one to use. I was also inspired by my friend, Deborah Poole of Shelley Idaho, who took a first place at the Road to California show in Traditional Large Applique with her fabulous Dresden's Dilemma.

Look at that quilting!!

Mine won't look this good, but I will give it a try!

Off to pack..back soon with pictures.

Robots

Robot quilt from robot fabrics for a robot lover!

My youngest loves anything robot. He has a room full of robots and even a robot clock. I felt it was time to get this done for him. This is a easy pattern by Threaded Pear called Flower Power. I just added a few inches to the borders to make it a bit bigger. Making this pattern allowed me to not cut up the main fabric so you really see all those robots!

Main fabric


.

The green fabric border is gears and pulleys, the dark blue is circuit board wiring and the final border is bigger robots and wires.

On the back is a dark blue print that showed off the quilting pattern which was....you guessed it, more robots!

The thread was a lime green, so the design shows on the back really well.

Ok, I have some fabric left for another robot pillowcase. Then I am robot-ed out!

Fast Strippy is Fast !

Fast Strippy

I don't know if you are familiar with this quilt but a lot of people are making them and having races to see who finishes first!

You use one jelly roll and sew all the lengths together into one long strip. Then you fold it in half and sew it together, cut the bottom, fold it in half , sew together, ..etc, etc.  When done you have a cute small quilt. You can add borders or not. Go to YouTube and google,"Fast Strip Quilt", and you can see it being assembled.

This quilt by Diana was made with a BaliPop and I believe she said it was called Watermelon. The colors look so luscious and when picking out a thread , one of my favorite King Tut colors was perfect. Autumn Days has all the colors from the lime green to the purple, orange and gold!  Glide Military Gold in the bobbin.

Looks good on the back too.

Here is a closeup of the pattern:

I think you can see the color change in the thread on the lighter fabrics.

Here is the quilting pattern. A pretty swirly fern. Fern by AnneBright

I think I am going to have to make this quilt. I have a bin full of 2 1/2 inch strips, plus a couple jelly rolls that I haven't done anything with yet.