Retreating

The unpacked bags are piled all around me and I am totally wiped out. But going on retreat with Seattle MQG was great fun, as I fully expected it would be!! We stayed at Camp Huston in Gold Bar and though the accommodations were simple, the lodge (aka the sewing room) was spacious and the meals absolutely delicious (think homemade baked goods at every meal, prime rib dip, salmon, etc. etc.). And with 36 guild members attending, the company was excellent!



I made one special item before I went - a pillowcase from the tutorial by The Twiddletails Blog. I had no idea how satisfying this would be to make! With stash fabrics, it took all of 45 minutes, and went terrific with the quilt I chose to take for my bed - my Crossex quilt. It's nice to sleep handmade anytime, but especially at a quilting retreat, right?





The first project I started once I got set up was a new tumbler quilt made with a range of cool RJR Cotton Supreme Solids. I made my own template, based on a Venti Starbucks cup (truth), and cutting out the tumbler shapes was quick work.



Truth be told, piecing this quilt top (about 56" square) was quick to sew too - amazingly so. Within just a few hours I had a flimsy ready for the traditional Camp Huston water tower photo.





Next up was a little secret sewing and believe it or not, a bit of fabric shopping with Island Quilter, who traveled to us! Oh yeah.



Come morning while I was still fresh, I tackled a Devon Pouch, a pattern by Svetlana/Sotak Handmade that I'd been wanting to try. I made the large version which measures 7 ¼” wide x 5” tall x 1 ½” deep. It's marked 'intermediate' and I'd agree with that rating. It took my attention while not being overly challenging. In a perfect world, I'd have two sewing machines set up - one with a 1/4" foot and one with a zipper foot, as there were several times I needed to switch back and forth. But that was just a minor inconvenience, and definitely worth the effort.



My pair of metal zippers came from Zipit, who had the matching zips in the two sizes needed. I used one of my custom leather labels, which I love! Unfortunately when I went to look for a link to share, it looks like the seller, cocosheaven, may have left etsy. (sad face)

Meanwhile, some of my fellow guild members took the retreat as a chance to make their improv Dresden block for the 2018 QuiltCon charity quilt challenge. [Thanks for Louise/@imfeelincrafty and Monica/@monicathequilter for the fun photo!]



So, the other project I worked on was a new one involving improv spikes! I'm pulling from my scrap basket, which explains the eclectic palette. The shortest slabs are 3 1/2" tall, the tallest 8". Where this is headed I'm not sure, but though tedious, I'm really liking the evolving piece.

So, now back to reality! Nuff said.

Retreating

It's been nearly two years since I've gone on retreat with the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild so I'm pretty excited to be heading out this morning to meet them! Though I've been known to pack as many as ten projects for a weekend's getaway, this time I'm paring it down...

1. I just finished pattern-testing Krista/Poppyprint's Quarter Round pattern, and have two blocks made. I'm taking everything I need for the remaining two blocks through to finishing this mini.

2. This one is most timely and will be the biggest challenge, but cutting triangles is as far as I've gotten on my Sew Ready to Play! project! I'm seriously hoping to at least piece this one if not more.

3. Though I don't usually take largish quilts to machine quilt on retreat, I am this time. Quilting my Bee Sewcial Swap project the way I am definitely calls for breaks now and then, so I'm hoping to squeeze some work on this in between the other projects. You can see some of my progress here - I'd guess I'm about 1/3 done.

4. I originally planned to make a backing for my improv log cabin quilt, but it's gonna be big and I'm still mulling what to do with it. This may be silly, but I think I'll at least make one of Felice/Sew Scatterbrained's new Retro Television Blocks, since so many folks have said that's what these blocks remind them of. I'll keep you guessing what I'm thinking of putting 'on' TV. Here's one of Felice's blocks on Instagram, where she's known as iamlunasol.

5. And lastly, after some internal debate on whether or not to take my long-lost Polaroid blocks, I squeezed them in. As much as I want to use up these long-stashed little blocks, I haven't gotten the momentum at all. I've debated more than once about just finding them a new home. But we'll see....taking them just in case.

So I'm hoping to have at least two of these finished to show you next week, and progress made on the rest. And no worries. If I just need to work on something else, our friends from Island Quilter will be there tomorrow with their traveling pop-up shop! Sounds like fun, right?

Good Times

Whew! What a great weekend at the SMQG retreat! Being as bold as I was to post a totally unreasonable number of projects to take with me, I'll confess right up front that I didn't touch half of them. I'll report on the ones I did work on throughout the week, but the biggest and most satisfying progress was on my project for The Great Pillow Fight swap. I started with the block below, an HST block from Blossom Heart Quilts. 

It's a great block, and I like it well enough, but it didn't really ring true for my swap partner, so I took another tack. I knew this one would be really challenging for me, but I did it anyway.

The pattern is the 24" Ice/Fire block from Sew What Sherlock? It allowed me to use a larger variety of fabrics, and really show off the "Dear Santa" text print I found for the background. No lie, I used my seam ripper plenty, but lived to tell about it, and am really pleased with the results. So now to decide on a quilting plan and get started on that this week. 

Anyway, the retreat itself was great fun, and besides sewing incessantly, it was terrific to get to know some of my guild-mates better, plus meet some new ones. Inspiration was everywhere, of course. And I thoroughly enjoyed my sewing table group - my roommate, Louise/I'm Feelin' Crafty (@imfeelincrafty on Ig), Sue (@suesewcrafty) and Noel (@bellaandjake). Good times indeed.

Linking up with W.i.P. Wednesday.

Time to Retreat

I am ill-prepared for what today has to hold. The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild is going on retreat and let's just say I've done little to prepare. Knowing me, pulling together clothes and personal items won't take me long, but the projects!! Historically, I always take more than enough on any retreat I go on, but I never know what I'm going to feel like working on. So here's the list! Come next week, hopefully I have at least a few finishes to share!

1. Striped Strip quilt - just a little hand-quilting and I'll be done.

2. The Great Pillow Fight swap project - I seriously need to choose a pattern and go for it! I have added to this fun stack of fabric just a bit, so I have plenty to work with. I think I'll get started on a couple of different blocks and see what my partner thinks.

3. Cross-stitch blocks - I have close to 100 little blocks already done, with scraps pulled for more. Though I had a quilt plan drafted, I think I'm going to rethink it. Plus I may need more Kona Ash to finish, but hopefully I'll at least make progress.

4. Bee blocks - 3 this month, including 1 pretty time-consuming paper-pieced one. Also some stars and butterflies...

5. Mug rug for my coworker - She loves the wonky cross quilt hanging on my office way, so I'll take inspiration from there.

6. Boxy bag - I've come up with my own pattern and made a prototype, so now I need to make it up for real. Fingers crossed!

7. Pouch pattern testing - I've already tested a pattern for a bloggy friend, and she'll be posting about it soon. I'd just like to try a variation before I tell you all about it next week.

8. HSR blocks - from the Always Bee Learning Bee - not sure about this one, but I'm packing it just in case.

9. Oakshott scraps - just for fun. No plan yet.

10. Christmas gift bags - we'll see. It would be nice, but.

There. Ten should be enough, don't you think? Here's to sewing retreats and actually getting some sewing done! {wink}

Improv Round Robin

So finally, here's my report back on the improv round robin at our guild's recent retreat. Eight of us chose to participate and we were divided into 2 groups of 4. We all started out in a circle with our fearless leader Chandra, sharing our starter fabrics (we were asked to bring 4 fat-quarters), going over the guidelines, and doing a little pre-improv calming. Pictured are the fabrics I started with, and I gave my group permission to add whatever they saw fit along the way. Not everyone was comfortable with that, which was totally ok! We all also had a baggy of scraps to work with as we sewed through the challenge - there was a bit of confusion whether the scraps were for our own pieces or those we worked on. My scraps were very randomly chosen, so I hung on to them and added several into the various projects as I saw fit.

First off, we were asked to use our own fabrics and make a 'starter piece.' We had 15 minutes, and here's what I made:

Then it was time to start trading! I managed to run over to snap a quick shot at the end of each rotation!

 Notice at this rotation, mine was in 2 pieces!!

Here are each of the pieces I worked on, as I received them. I guess things were too hectic to get 'before' and 'after' shots!!

AND, here's what my piece looked like when I got it back!

Below are all 4 of my group's pieces with arrows indicating what I had added in. (Actually, the purple arrow shows where my original piece was.) The green arrow shows my row of wonky crosses; the blue arrow shows where I split the piece I received and added in a pieced component; the orange arrows show a small linen strip I made plus the wonky hst strip on the left, which actually wasn't even totally finished when I passed it on!

And all 8 of the "finished" improv pieces . . .

It was definitely an experience! I've dabbled with improv on my own, but never on the works of others, and never against the clock (we traded after 15, 20, 25, and 30 minutes in each round). I learned a couple of things through this experience:

• Participating was a huge stress-inducer, and I had a major headache when I was done! (Random: daughter dear and I both joined in, and though we were in different groups, our sewing machines were across from each other. So we could encourage each other on, which was good, but we could also see what stress the other was under! Yikes.)
• Though out of my comfort zone, and even considering the above, it was quite fun!      I felt energized!
• I obviously defaulted to what was most familiar to me: crazy-pieceing, bits of linen, fussy-cutting, wonky crosses. These were spots of comfort to me in the moment.

Ok, so that's my little report on the improv round robin experience. All this in about 2 hours! If you've participated in a round robin, tell us about it in the comments or link to a post!