Getting Ready for another Retreat-YIPPEE!

     First point: Now that all of my major weaving deadlines are behind me, I hope to be able to make this blog a bit more interesting. How? Well for one thing, I am pretty sure it will be easier to write about making quilts while I am actually making some quilts!

     

      Would you believe it? I am getting ready for another retreat! I love this  time of year. It is a bit decedent that I go to one retreat in February, then another in April, then, yet another in June! I feel a bit guilty about all of this retreating, but only a bit. I justify it by saying that the concentrated sewing time is good for me; and so is the exhilaration you get from being among other quilters, and all of their creativity!  Also, and this is not a minor point; I will see friends that I don't get to see very often.

     So my plan for this retreat is to work on 1) The Bird Cage Quilt.

 

2) The Ellipse quilt.

And 3) The Solid quilt.

     Of course you never know what you will be inspired to work on until you get there, but a girl has got to have a plan; am I right? Why not the kaleidoscope quilt? Because I only have 2 big seams left on the kaleidoscope quilt, and it is finished! So I won't bother carrying it to retreat with me, I will just finish it next week.

     I have been trying to get the above solid quilt blocks as close to finished as I could get them. First I was using them as a leader/ender(Hats off to Bonnie Hunter) while I was working on sewing together my kaleidoscope quilt; and got quite a pile started.

Then I really concentrated on getting the rest sewed.

     Then, they all had to be pressed, so this is where I stand now.

     Just 2 seams to go, and those blocks will be finished; so I will be able to take them to retreat and experiment with different ways of laying them out on the design wall. I have an idea, but I won't be able to show you until I get some of them made.

      Also, this:

 

was not enough triangles, so I am cutting more. I wanted to get the whole units made in time to go to retreat but....

let's face it. That's just not going to happen, so I am just trying to get all of the pieces cut and paired; and I will sew them at retreat.

Accepted!

     Another busy week! Tuesday I had a lovely time with the Phoenix Guild in Atlanta. I did a trunk show for them; and they really know how to make a person feel welcome.    

    

     Last night we had our Wednesday night Porterdale Stitching club. I worked on pinning my kaleidoscope rows together.

     Just a reminder that this coming Friday and Saturday (March 16 & 17) is the Heart of Georgia Quilt Guild Show. I have so many good fiends in that guild that I decided to join it, and I will have 4 quilts hanging in the show. The hours are from 9am-5pm both days, and the show is held at the Vineville United Methodist Church. Well worth seeing if you are in the Macon area.

     Last but not least; today, I received my acceptance to the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta, GA, April 28 and 29, 11am-6pm. I will have a booth showing my quilts. Come see me if you happen to be in the area.

Slow Progress

      I have all of the squares and triangles cut out for my square in a square blocks for my Bird Cages quilt.

      This is handy since tomorrow night is stitching club. They are all packed up and ready to go. Choosing which colors to sew together will be an easy project to accomplish while sitting and chatting with friends.

     All of my kaleidoscope blocks are sewn into rows. Soon as I get them pressed, I can sew to rows to each other, and that top will be done! I have run out of time tonight; so that will have to wait.

Time With a Friend

     Today I spent the afternoon with a quilting friend. I couldn't work on my kaleidoscope quilt or my solid quilt because both of them are being pieced and I would have had to bring my sewing machine to work on them. It was a lovely excuse to work a bit on a quilt I have been itching to work on. My Bird Cages quilt was one I started on that retreat I went on last month. For the next step on it I needed to rotary cut some triangles. I am going to make some square in a square blocks to go around my large bird cage blocks.

I had cut a group of strips when I was at retreat; so all I had to do was cut them into 2 sizes of triangles.

BTW, I have a ll of my kaleidoscope blocks sewn, so now I can begin sewing them together. Hopefully, I will have something to show you on that soon.

Pattern Giveaway !

     One of the things I am really not good at is naming quilts. Every once in a while, I come up with the perfect name, sometimes before the quilt is even finished. But, alas, that is rare indeed! This is really bad since I publish patterns of my quilts; and it would be nice if they had a catchy name. So, I am going to enlist your help. Below is a photograph of a quilt I finished last year. I finally got it photographed today. If anyone out there has a suggestion for a good name for this quilt, leave me a comment. If I use your suggestion, I will happily send you 1 free pattern. You can choose from any pattern that I have posted in my etsy shop, and I will ship it to you free of charge. In etsy.com, look under the shop name: quiltdesignsbycandac. It wouldn't take the last e. Too many characters, I guess.

     Remember, a couple of blog posts ago, I was talking about my Indian Summer quilt. I had such a good time making that quilt that I got on my EQ and designed several more. This is one. It was also influenced by a rug I wove back in college. Below is a photo of that rug; just in case that is any help.

Other than that, I am still working on those kaleidoscope blocks. I should have something to show you with those before too much longer.

Corners

I have so many quilts started, that I don't even know how many. I find it useful to have quilts in various stages of completion. Reasons for this may range from, I needed something for a demonstration, to I needed something at a stage where I could bring it to a friend's to work on, to I had to start it to see how a certain idea would work. Even so, there is usually one quilt I am concentrating on; one I am putting the most effort into finishing. Right now that is my kaleidoscope quilt. It is the quilt I wrote my first blog post about. Just to remind you what it will look like, this is the EQ drawing I am working from.

At a recent retreat I got about a third of the blocks sewn together.

This is six rows of blocks. I have ten more rows to sew together. Unfortunately, I have not had much time for sewing lately, but when I can sneak a bit in, I am sewing the corners onto the remaining blocks.

Today, I managed to get 4 rows of blocks pressed while I was on the phone.

I am using my solid quilt blocks for leaders and enders.

 

Right now, progress seems mighty slow, but I am crawling in the right direction. Things seem to take forever at this stage; then all at once you have a finished quilt!

Sewing Groups

     I have been a member of a friendship group that I got started from my quilt guild, for so many years now, I'm not sure how many years we have been together-15 maybe. We call ourselves "The Sew Sisters". We meet roughly every 2 weeks. We take turns hosting it, and whoever hosts, cooks dinner. We have a great time together.
     I think I mentioned before that I don't much like to haul my machine around; so I always try to have some kind of hand work to bring. So I machine stitched the binding onto the quilt I got back from my long arm quilter; so I would be able to do the hand stitching at our meeting. 

     More about this particular quilt later.

     Let me first tell you about the wonderful person that long arm quilts all of my quilts, Regina Carter. It gives me such peace of mind to have someone who quilts my quilts so expertly. And, she is such a help with choosing patterns, and thread colors, and the like. She always knows how to make your quilt the best it can be. Regina is also a really good friend and a member of The Sew Sisters; and she has recently taught me how to better join the beginning and end of my binding; and a better way to attach my sleeve so my quilts will hang better.   She just started her own blog this month; so we are learning this blogging thing together. See my blog list for a link to Regina's blog.

     This evening I also got to meet with another stitching group that just started in Porterdale, where I live. This group is brand new; and we had our second meeting tonight. The nice thing about this group is that it encompasses many kinds of needlework, which will give us the opportunity to learn from each other. Tonight we had quilting, crocheting, and needlepoint happening, along with some fun camaraderie and conversation. We meet at a lovely, local coffee shop called Porterdale Perk and Cafe; so no one has to cook, and it looks like we are deciding to meet once a week. I am grateful for this since it will force me to get some sewing done even when other parts of my life are hectic, and of course, I so enjoy the company. Thanks to Joy for letting us use her space for our gatherings. It is so pleasant to just go there and let someone else make delicious food for you, and just sit, and eat, and sew, and chat! 

     So the last couple of evenings, I have been enjoying and appreciating my sewing and stitching buddies.