5 Quilts on Display - Quilts Unlimited at View Arts Center

So this is the weekend!

I will have 5 quilts on view in Old Forge, NY at View Arts Center starting this weekend! 3 quilts...
The Lady to Watch, Fire Dancer, Let's Here it for The Girls will all be in the main exhibit, Quilts Unlimited.

The other 2, On Pointe and Pathways will be at part of the Fiber Art Northeast exhibit at View Arts as well.

 

 

Opening Reception is Friday, Oct 9th from 5-7pm. Then on Saturday, Oct 10th, join in for a day of quilts with a lecture by Jane Davila, luncheon and multiple exhibits at View Art Center.

Information can be found here under upcoming exhibitions.

I will be there for the opening weekend festivities. Hope you get a chance to join us!

Renee

El Coqui!

In Puerto Rico there is a small frog with a huge sound.  Found only in PR, the coqui, mates by finding another coqui with the perfect pitch.  The male goes 'co' and the female responds 'qui', but it sounds like one frog making one contiguous sound

My husband has a cousin, who along with his wife live in Trujillo Alto, PR.  Their backyard, or outdoor living space is a wonderful, live in garden, that is a natural continuation of their indoor entertaining space.  At night you can hear what seems like millions of coqui's chatting away in the garden.  They sound almost musical.

Well this cousin and his wife are wonderful hosts.  Whenever we are in PR, they take such good care of us, that I wanted to bring them something special when we went down last month.  Last year as I worked on my Jungle Paradise quilt featuring the parrott I would frequently post progress on Facebook and she fell in love with the quilt.  While they were in NY for the Thanksgiving holiday, she saw it in person and she made my heart sing with her praise of my work.  So, I decided to make them a nature scene featuring the coqui.  I thread painted a coqui and created a natural garden scene incorporating some of the plants from her garden that I had taken pictures of on our last visit, along with some other nature inspired greens.  I printed the plants on fabric and along with the coqui, I appliqued them into the garden scene.

I added butterflies in both an applique and 3D effect, as well as ladybugs.

As always, all of my quilting is done free motion and I used a wide variety of threads...  Aurifil 50 wt Cotton; Superior SewFine! and Nature Colors; Metler Twists (to be honest I have used this thread in yrs, but I only needed a little) and some Sulky.  As I have mentioned before, I have 2 favorite brands of thread.....Aurifil for the perfect lint free cotton and Superior for their non-cotton specialty threads,...... but sometimes, you need to pull out something that is hidden in your stash, for either the right color or the right texture.  It is called finding the right tool for the job :-).

This was the first time I tried doing circles in an inner border, where they all had to be the same size.  Remember, I don't mark my quilt tops.  I love the end result, but I must say, it took a while to get the swing of it :-).  There was a lot of 'frogging' going on in that border...  LOL!

This is the end result.

As you can see it looks like she loved it!  And, she immediately recognized the plants from her garden on the bottom right and left hand corners of the wallhanging.  She has told me it will hang over her TV in the family room, so she will look at it everyday!

Here's to family and El Coqui!

Cheers!

You really have to be ready, even when you know it in your heart.

As per my last post, I really enjoyed spending some time at Quilt Odyssey Hershey 2013 last weekend.  The quilts were inspiring individually, but collectively, they reinforced something I had already known....  I have to step up my game.  Create more complex quilts, improve my accuracy, step up the type of quilting designs I undertake and focus on every single detail, from design to finishing techniques.

Funny thing the week before the show I pulled out a UFO, that had sat for a couple of years.  You can see an image of it here from my initial stages.  While on vacation in July I had a vision of the next step, something that had left me blank for quite some time.  So I had pulled it out and completed the top, and began planning the quilting.  I had even decided to mark the entire quilt top first, something as per my earlier posts I have never even thought of before.  I have never marked a thing!  But I had already made the decision that this piece needed to go to the next step.  I held out, but believe me, by the time I was 1/4 of the way through I was itching to start stitching :-)

I brought a backing while in Hershey, and so with the inspiration of all the gorgeous quilts in Quilt Odyssey, I completed the first phase of the quilting.  I have since added even more plans for this piece.  Funny, this is a paisley design and one of the inspirational quilts was also paisley by Lorilynn King.  (You can see it in my post from the show.)  It is amazing, but Lorilynn's piece is in another dimension.  I am not quite there yet. :-)

So I am now focused on using exactly the right thread to punch back the fabric around the paisley quilted designs, so that they will come forward in a semi/faux trapunto feeling.  I have quite a pit of purples in my stash, but only one is the right color, but it doesn't have the sheen needed for my vision.  You see the purple fabric is Radiance, a silk/cotton, blend and it has a fairly significant sheen.  Using just any thread, would dampen the allure of the Radiance fabric.  Even the white background area needs to shine, so I have ordered some Superior Magnifico, that should come in shortly.

In the meantime, I added some detail to my paisley applique components...  it gave me another opportunity to raise the level of the piece a little.

 So, I will keep you posted on my progress.  For now, I am liking where this is going, but it has at least two more steps to it before I can think of finishing :-).

Have you challenged yourself lately?  It really feels good, give it a try!

P.S....  forgive the quality of the pictures, they were taken on my blackberry vs on my camera :-(

Cheers!

NSQG 2013 Challenge

So 2013 is here and that means that Northern Star Quilt Guild has a new challenge.  Although I have been a member for about 5 years, this is the first time I have entered a quilt in the challenge.

I teased you with a corner of it, last month before I submitted it, but I didn't want to post a pic until the challenge quilts were submitted and the votes were cast.  Well they were and they were...

So here it is..

It is a tribute to my mother.  A 3 times breast cancer survivor, I named it "Three Times Stronger".  You have read other posts with quilts made honoring the love I have for my mother.  This was inspired after a follow-up visit to the Oncologist.  My Mom has Alzheimer's as well and she has adapted so smoothly to having lost a breast in her last fight.  A fight she had no idea that she had to incur.  I think it was probably as hard, if not harder for me to make that decision on her behalf and then stay with her in the strange place called the hospital.

So wave that flag Mom, you're one strong woman!  

Note that the pink ribbon dress is trapunto'd, as well as ribbon's in the pink half of the quilt.  It was appliqued, constructed and quilted using Superior's Masterpiece Thread, by Alex Anderson.  I wanted a pretty fine 50wt cotton thread and I didn't want the stitching it self or a sheen from the thread to be what jumped off the fabric.  I wanted the quilting to be an integral part of the quilt story.  I also used Superior Vanish, water soluble thread, to trapunto the ribbons.  I use it in top and the bobbin.  This way you don't have to worry about any write spokes popping thru the fabric...  Just a dab of cold water and poof, it is gone.

The challenge was to make a quilt, not more than 80" square, using black, white and one other color.  As you can see, my color was pink.  I didn't win the challenge, but I had a wonderful time making another quilt in honor of my Mom :-).

There were 53 challenge quilts submitted.  19 traditional and 34 contemporary.  All 53 will be on display at the NSQG's 2013 World of Quilts XXXIV Show on May 3rd and 4th, at Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, NY.

Hope to see you there.  (I will have other quilts in the show as well :-)).

   

New Experiences

I have a few quilting friends who are members of FANE, a Fiber Arts group that meets monthly in Somers, NY.  This month, another friend and I decided to attend one of the meetings, to see if it was something we would like.  I don't know why we questioned it.  We know the groups leader and several members, so we knew they were great people and the type of work they did.

Well we went and knew it was for us.  I have been looking for something to coax me out of my normal quilting realm.  Looking for something to take me to the next level.  The good thing is they are preparing for two upcoming exhibits.  Both with a theme...  I don't normally do themes.  I quilt and name the piece afterwards, I don't know what I am doing or why before I start.  Yes, I have an idea of what the piece will look like, but I am not making it for a reason.

So here was my first challenge.  To choose a line of a poem or song and make a piece no bigger than a 14" square that interpreted the line of the poem / song.  The piece had to consist of more than one element, meaning it could not be one quilted square.  The elements could be joined, but it had to be clear by the viewer that the elements were made independently.  While there are a couple of other design guidelines, that is the jest of it....  interpret a poetic line into a 14" piece of art.  At the next meeting we will mount the pieces on an 18" canvas for a uniform gallery exhibit.

So here is my piece.... I still have to secure the fishing line to the outer frame, but you get the idea :-)...

As I look at it here (it is laying on my applique sheet), I realize I still have a bit of work to do on the hair.

Oh my song line....  "And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance!"  Lee Ann Womack's song "I HOPE YOU DANCE".  This fits my life so perfectly.  I am not one to sit on the side lines, I truly believe in engaging life to it's fullest!

So, I hope you dance!!

It is amazing how much they control you...

I started my parrot piece at the Spring 2010 Country Quilter Retreat. I spent most of the weekend creating the bird and thread painting him, creating his background of leaves in the forest setting.  I was in love with the progress I made. The colors were gorgeous, the thread work a joy. I was really proud of myself.  He is thread painted with Superior Masterpiece thread.  Masterpiece is fine enough that it allowed me to layer on the color without adding bulk.  Plus the colors were a perfect match for the underlying fabrics.

Well the joy faded shortly after I got home.  I put my lovely parrot up on the design wall and I couldn't figure out what to do next.  I didn't think he was ready for a border, but what?  It hung there for months, eventually getting taken down to make way for other projects.  I must admit, I took him out of hiding every once in a while and starred, but I had nothing.  Not one real clue of what to do next.  Then it dawned on me.  I really didn't like the piece, him yes --- the piece no.  Yes he was colorful, yes I loved the thread play.  But something about the piece just didn't work.

So back on the design wall he went, just to be starred at for months all over again. I figured it was the background, but ughhh....  I had spent a lot of time making those leaves and doing all the thread play on them as well.  Did I really want to cut the parrot out and start again?  No, I just couldn't bring myself to do that.  So away he went....  again.

Then last July I took him with me to Quilting On the Lake.  I figured with all the creative juices flowing in that place, something would shake loose and it did.  Philipa Naylor saw me staring at it and asked me what was wrong.  Quickly we realized that I didn't need to rip it out.  I just needed a place for the eye to rest.  It was so busy that although the parrot was gorgeous, you really couldn't see him with all the leaves going on.   So I decided to take the plunge.  No one believed I was going to do it.  I cut out a section of the leaves and off I went shopping in the vendor mall :-) for a hand dyed green that had movement but at the same time, allowed the parrot to be truly seen.  What a difference it made.  I didn't do any sewing or fusing there, I was too busy in class, but I fixed him up quite nicely when I got home.

Well I made a vow to work on UFO's this year, so last week out he came.  I found the best hand dyed brown in my stash for a boarder and over the last few days added trapunto and got him all basted.  I even made a 3D bird of paradise that will be added to the side once it is quilted.  Friday evening I sat down and didn't think I would ever get up!  I am so enjoying quilting him.  He is finally coming together.


I spent some time over the weekend quilting.  The parrot is done, as are all the leaves.  I should get the piece totally quilted this week.  Can't wait! 

So far 98% of the quilting has been with Aurifil 50wt cotton.  I like the way it adds to the piece with not being too flashy,,,,  dimension and texture for interest, but not in your face :-).

He will also be accompanied by butterflies and a Bird of Paradise flower that I will add after the quilting is done.  Both will be 3D, to add some additional interest to the piece.



Oh and I have submitted him to New England Quilt Festival (MQX East).  I hope he gets accepted!

Catchng up....

So earlier this month I promised I'd share some of the things I have been working on.

Well the first project I can only share a corner as it is a challenge piece for one of my guilds.  It is another piece done with my mother as my inspiration.  This time it is a salute to her strength and fortitude.  I can't share what just yet, as it will give away my piece, but here is a quick peek at some of the quilting.  I love the piping, as the black polka dots on the fabric are random, so the sliver that shows in the piping is truly sporadic.

This piece is quilted with Aurifil 50 weight cotton.

Once that piece was done and ready to be turned in to the challenge team, I picked up another UFO from last fall (yeah, shamelessly I have more UFO's than I care to admit.  I remember when I made sure I never had more than one other piece in process.  Oh well!)....  It is a piece that was started during my semi-annual Friday Night Fun at the CQ Getaway.  Yes, this piece took more than just the Friday evening.  I didn't actually finish the top until mid-day on Saturday.  But I finally took it out of the bag and finished it.   At the retreat everyone kept coming up to the piece to see the chickens running loose in the yard (by the base of the tree).

I did a bit of thread play on the top before quilting this piece.  More than half of the sun rays, as well as the little patches of grass on the hills and all the stitching on the leaves were done on the top only.  (disregard the little bit of lint...  it is amazing where these lint balls try to call home)

I enjoyed adding dimension to the piece as well.  The beige tablecloth in the laundry basket is sticking out and just hanging over the edge, as well as the purple one behind it.  The quilt the ladies are hanging on the line is a full quilt (all 3 layers). I still have to add the handwork to represent the 'clothes pins'.

I should have took a close up of the boulders I quilted in the boarders.  I love the texture it gives the piece.


"Laundry Day" as I have named it, is a true testament as to why as a quilter you probably need more thread than fabric :-)..  This small 24" x 26" has 10 different threads in it.  Sulky solids and variegated, Aurifil 50 wt cotton, Superior Masterpiece/Sew Fine/Rainbows, Mettler Twists, Gutterman and Isacord.

 I used Quilters Dream batting in both pieces.

Cross one off the list, but I have about 8 other UFO's sitting there waiting to be finished!

Lola Jenkins comes to Pelham Quilters!

As a TQS (The Quilt Show by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims) Star Member, I get to watch all the available shows.  To be honest I watch some and not others, all depending on how interesting the subject 'sounds', or if I know the featured quilter.  Well, when I saw the intro for the show featuring Lola Jenkins, I almost didn't watch it.  In fact, I think the show had been available for a couple of months before I did.  Boy,  was I glad I did!

First, Lola was a very entertaining guest on the show.  She is energetic and bubbly, with this interesting voice. Yes, interesting is the only way I know how to describe it :-).  But what really got me was her personal story, how she came to quilting and how she tackled each step along her journey.  It is a very moving story!!  Please watch if you can.

But what got me to reach out to her, was when she said she had a goal of visiting every guild in the country.  So I emailed her and asked if she wanted to visit our small, casual guild in Pelham, NY.  She responded immediately, saying she would LOVE to come and that she was presently scheduled to be in NY in September, 2012.  So we booked her, and boy was that a smart move.

Yesterday, Lola taught her Fantasy Landscape workshop to the Pelham Quilters, or at least 9 of us and 3 guests.  We had a ball.  Lola shared her secrets of looking at fabrics with an eye for the scene we have in our minds, vs what fabric as a whole.  She shared the 1/3's principle of design and guided us to our own, COMPLETED, top of the day.

That is right, everyone in the class completed a landscape top and earlier than we had expected!

Let me share with you some pictures from the day....

First, pictures of the quilts she brought with her as inspiration...

This first piece is from Lola's online Art Deco class.  She uses it as a sample for the class.  It is a whole cloth style quilt, with black thread as the basis of the design and then the fabric is "colored" in with colored pencils and other coloring aids.


Each of the following pieces are done using Lola's collage approach.  I tell you, I will never look at fabric the same again!

It is amazing to see what can be done by clipping pieces of fabric from many different pieces of material and pasting it down!













Here are some of the pieces that were completed in this one day workshop...

Barbara and her Apollo Jazz scene.  To you recognize her sky from one of Lola's quilts.  Funny they had a lot of the same fabrics!

Cheryl's piece with her fire sky...




















Donna's, City meets Africa cityscape...  As always Donna listened to the instructions and thought out of the box.  This was supposed to be a 'fantasy' landscape.  I think she captured the essence of "fantasy".

Doris, one of the doll ladies joined us and did a serene, calming landscape...

 Doris Green and her gorgeous water scene. I love the boys running by the river bank.  Sorry Doris, it is prettier than you think....


















Dorothy's inspiration fabric had these gorgeous fall tree's...



















Jacqueline another of our guest for the day, did a wonderful desert scene...



















I love Lorraine's New England scene with a lighthouse and sail boats...



















Here I am with my second Sister Chat piece or as I will call it, Sister Chat II !


















And a former member of Pelham Quilters, Gwyn, a doll maker and Doris's sister as she adds the last rock surrounding the river.

 Now, the queen of landscape collage, Ms. Sandra herself. Her birds are lovely as usual.  Sandra and Donna would ruin the class curve if this was a real art class :-). 

I love June's farm scene.  It looks like a little bit of Tuscany. 

It was a wonderful day, with a wonderfully group of talented women.

A special THANKS to Lola for traveling all the way from Oklahoma City in her PT Cruiser, with her sister Darlene as her co-pilot!

As promised... pics are here.

So I have received pics from my friend of the final quilt.  Unfortunately, the ceiling fan was blowing so it is not a full face on photo.

I really enjoyed working with the Quilter's Dream Wool batting.  It gave my feather's such a wonderful look.  I quilted with Aurifil 50wt cotton for the entire quilt, which is unusual for me.  But I wanted to be authentic to her mother's style.  Plus, it worked so smoothly in my machine, which is rare for the 830 these days.  I am pleased to say, I marked nothing on this quilt :-), including the stems!  So I guess my feathers are finally getting there.

Of course, the quilt brought tears to her eyes, especially as she read the dedication on the label.  Here is a picture of the two of us, once she composed herself :-)...

She truly is my longest and bestest!! 

Much Love....

Deadlines are good...

So I guess I just needed a deadline to kick me in the pants and get me going!  I have made good progress on this piece.  I am loving the feathers.  One more setting triangle to go. 

Still need to figure out what to do in the checkerboard border.  But if I can get the last triangle and the outer border done tomorrow night after work, then Friday I can do the checkerboard border and block it.  Leaving Saturday to square it up and do the binding and Sunday morning to wrap it!!!

This is the first time I have quilted a whole top using the Quilter's Dream Wool. In the past I only played on practice pieces.  I love the texture it is giving the quilting.  The compass really looks trapunto'd once I outline it and stitched in the ditch of the top and middle layers of the folded compass.  The circle geese have the same effect, as I outlined them as well.

But my question for the night is....  has anyone blocked a piece that has wool batting?  Does it shrink a lot?  Anything I should be aware of?

Appreciate the input.

Night all!!!

It's been a long time coming...

Sandra from India posted a comment on my blog last week, asking me why I stopped blogging.  To be honest, I hadn't planned to stop posting.  It is just that I really only blog about my quilting.  Not the other myriad of things that go on in my life.  Unless that is, they relate somehow to quilting :-).

Well for the last 2 months, I have done very little quilting of my own.  My son graduated college... WooHoo...  we went on a family vacation early this year as I now have two 'working, supporting society' children.  My son started work on July 2nd :-).  Then 3 days after we returned from vaca, I spent two weeks in Mexico, Argentina and Chile for work.  It was all fantastic, but that meant in the month between Mary 25th and June 24th, I was home for a total of 7 days.  No quilting then.

Once I returned, I had to get back to the quilt I am quilting for a friend of a friend, who brought it on Etsy to give as a wedding present.  It is huge and it is a traditional double wedding ring that he wants quilted traditionally, so you know it is taking me a long time...  :-(.  So of course, I can't post progress pictures of someone else's quilt until it is in their hands.

So that brings me to this weekend, when I realized I will be having dinner at my best friends house (we have known each other for 39 yrs ...  yikes) on her birthday.  Neither of us picked the date.  It was picked by another women, she wants me to meet.  But in this revelation, I realized that the quilt I started for her almost two years ago, could really be finished for her birthday if I focused.  So today, a good friend (Thanks Teri Lucas !!) dropped me off a piece of wool batting and tonight I basted it and got all the in the ditch work done, as well as the free motion quilting in the center Mariner's Compass square.

You may remember this quilt, as I made the center compass in a class taught by Mary Anne Ciccotelli, using her 3D, folded fabric technique.  I then used the folded flying geese around the center medallion and then again for the outer boarder.  You can find more info about the top here, here and here.  Told you it's been a long time coming :-)...

But for now, here is the quiling progress for tonight.

I like my corners.  I can't believe I did them without a single marking.  I started to mark at least the straight line from the corner to the tip of the flying geese and decided against it. :-).  The photo's are a little blurry (or I am soo tired, they look blurry to me).  But either way I will try to take better pictures tomorrow and share it with you.

Night!

One of my newer projects ...

Here is a piece I started at CG Fall Retreat 2011 a few weeks ago.  I am loving this piece...  I know, I love them all :-) 

This will be a tribute to my Mom who has taught me to be a strong, confident woman.  As you can see the profile is generic in nature...  it could be me, Mom, or even you.  The message here is that Women every where can all possess these traits.  






I have already added the quilting to the hair, using just a touch of grey.  I think such knowledge is viewed as wisdom.    And NO, I do not think you need to age or be grey to have wisdom, it just seems I was greying before I appreciated my Mom for what she was and what she taught me, so I thought it only fitting :-). 

I also added trapunto to the piece in the corners not occupied by applique.   I echoed the paisley applique shapes for the trapunto and created sort of a trapunto boarder in those corners. 

I am now in the process of quilting the piece.  Unfortunately, last night after an hours worth of quilting, I realized the tension was off, so I spent the next 1 1/2 hours ripping it all out.  I still have about another 1 1/2 hours of ripping tonight before I can get back to quilting.

Once the quilting is done, I plan to add wording down the center along the striped lines.  Right now I am thinking:  "Proud Confident  Passionate", each on their own line.  They will be in a heavier, darker thread than the background quilting to give them prominence. Since I added a layer of wool blend felt in the sandwich between the batting and backing, the quilting is pretty pronounced, so I want the wording to stand out as well. 


I will post more pictures as I progress.  Hope you enjoyed!

Hugs, Renee

CQ Retreat Fall 2011

Well, it has been a busy month and I had a lot going on, so I guess I am going to have to start posting more regularly again :-)....  I finished the clown quilt that I started during Hurricane Irene, I have finished a top I started over a year ago at Mary Anne Ciccotelli's 3D workshop and I am almost finished quilting a piece I started at this falls retreat....  but I will share all of those in separate posts, hopefully within the next week :-).

Today's post is about the CQ Fall 2011 Retreat two weeks ago at Interlaken Inn, in Lakeville, Ct.  As always we had a ball, just laughing, eating and quilting away!  A little smaller group this year than normal, only 48 of us, but still a wonderful time was had by all.  Somehow I forgot to take pictures of quilts in progress until Sunday, so sorry if I missed sharing some of the masterpieces of the weekend.

This is Claire Oehler on the left, the former owner of the Country Quilter, our hostess and her daughter, Jane Davila on the right...  both all smiles for the camera.

Here is Nancy Mirman, another of our hostesses for the weekend.  She is very talented and has her own pattern line for quilted clothing, bags and accessories.  Nancy is working on a paper pieced star from the new book she and Claire have just released!  Those of us at retreat were fortunate to be able to order a copy and they will be signed by both Claire and Nancy...  WooHoo!!!






Somehow I missed getting a picture of Noreen Lipolis, another one of our hostesses busy quilting, but I did get a shot of her from our Saturday night, Red Carpet themed dinner...

Noreen, is in black on the left.  Sorry Noreen for not getting a better shot.  But thanks to all 3 of you for a wonderful weekend!!  P.S...  no I don't dress up for theme nights..  so I played the roll of Paparazzi and took photos :-)....





And here is Donna Chambers working on her one of her mosaic pieces....

Donna, a goldsmith by trade, is so talented and has her own jewelry line.  Check out her jewelry website for a little quilting inspiration :-) 
This is Donna's mosaic technique.  She will be teaching it to some lucky quilters at The Storytellers Retreat coming up this weekend and at Hartsdale Fabrics this winter in December and January.  Her workshop filled up so fast at Storytellers that I am going to be her assistant.  This shall be fun, can't wait until Friday :-).

Gay sat next to Donna in the Patio room (we love the sunlight and view of the garden during the day).  Gay is part of the gang from The Pelham Quilters guild I belong to.  A bunch of us (Donna, Lorraine, Margaret, Jeanne, Evelyn and I) have been coming to retreat for years.  We even sit in the same seats.

   
Gay worked completely by hand this weekend.  She does stunning hand applique and hand quilting.  We were all so jealous when it was time to pack up.  No machine, etc... to load up!









Here is Lorraine busy at work...

Lorraine was working on Christmas presents for her grandchildren this year. Sitting next to her is Margaret.  Margaret always finds such lovely panels to incorporate into her work.  This year she was working on a Dahlia piece for her sister.

Remember, in my last post I mentioned I had won 2nd place in the Art Quilts category at the ViewArts Show in Old Forge, NY.  Well Marie won 1st place in the Wallhanging category and her lovely piece was used as the cover image for the Exhibit's Program.  Way to go Marie!!  Marie always works on very complicated paper piecing patterns.  Here she is taking the easy way out, doing a 'simple' cat paper piecing pattern....  lol.

On the design wall behind Marie is Ashley's circle quilt, seen here..

Ashley is my long time buddy and retreat roomie.  Can't believe I didn't get a picture of Ashley, but her gorgeous colors will have to represent her :-).

I also didn't get pictures this time of Jeanne or her Mom, Evelyn.  Guess I was so focused on quilting this weekend that my picture taking duties seem to have taken a back seat.  Sorry Jeanne and Evelyn.  I will remember to include you in April for our Spring 2012 retreat!

Well, now let's go next door into the room where we always here the most laughter coming from.  On the design wall right outside our door was Dory Higgin's house piece, made from all striped fabrics.

Actually, Dory sits in our room, but the design walls were all busy when she went to lay out the piece so she slipped next door.

Also in the room next door is Jane Davila.  If you are a quilter you know Jane's name.  She is the a well known quilter, teacher, speaker and author.  She teaches across the globe, has a great quilt pattern line and has written a number of "Sew Simple" quilt pattern books.  Not sure how she will use this pattern, but I believe it is being created using a Jelly Roll....








Barbara comes every year and works on very interesting patterns.  This year, she is turning a photo into a stunning floral piece...

 You can see her pattern on the table in front of her in the first picture.  It is an enlarged version of the photo in the bottom left hand corner of the picture below.  I can't wait to see what it looks like in the spring, at our next retreat!

Here is Jenny intent on laying out a nice blue and white top...  

I believe those are called tumbling blocks.  There was another quilter working on a tumbling block pattern, but I didn't catch a photo of it.



Just like I don't remember whose top this is, I just loved the daisy fabric.  I think it is one of those BQ block patterns...

Love the polka dots fabric as well!

 

Here is my piece.  I stated it in a 3D Workshop with Mary Anne Ciccotelli over a year and a half ago.  The mariners compass as well as the circular flying geese are all 3D, using Mary Anne's folded fabric method.  I completed the circle after the workshop and then it just hung on my design wall, waiting for me to figure out what to do next.  It finally spoke to me a few months ago, so I drafted out the rest and packed it up for retreat.  The side boarder geese are folded as well, using the one seam flying geese method.  They aren't sewn on at this point, but I have finished the top since coming home.  More on that in another post.

Well I hope you enjoyed visiting with me today.  As you can probably tell, we have a great bunch of quilters who retreat with the CQ ladies every 6 months.  It is such an inspiration after a busy summer when I get so little quilting done.  

I hope to bring you up to date on my other projects soon, but until then, Happy Quilting!

Hugs!!