Monday, January 7, 2019

Happy New Year and the first Quilter's Retreat of 2019

My how time flies!

It seems that no sooner than the year had switched to 2019 than we were headed off to the first Quilter's Retreat of 2019!

And what a weekend it was!

Here are some pictures of projects that were started, completed or simply worked on over the weekend.

Friday saw....


A top completed by?...
I forgot who did this one! Beautiful isn't it?


Here is Linnea's on-going retreat quilt, which is now almost completely quilted.  I believe she might only have the outside borders to finish quilting. She free motion quilted around all of the butterflies over the weekend. Wonderful quilt!


Sharon made these blocks for the NBQA January Block of the Month. Well she made two and I made one at her insistence to check the pattern. The pattern tutorial claims that the unfinished blocks will measure 8 inches and neither of us could come close to that measurement!  We concur that the tutorial writer had some hidden secret to make the blocks come out that large! Or maybe she used one eighth inch seams!


Tina worked on this top for Quilts of Valor.


And completed it late Friday night or was it early Saturday morning?
She vowed not to sleep until it was a finished top!


Audrey began to assemble blocks for this quilt.  All of her nine patches were completed prior to the weekend.  The print squares are each one and a half inches and so the little nine patches finish at three inches in the block.


By Sunday morning Audrey had completed enough blocks to begin to sew the rows together.
I will have to show you a picture when she completes the top.


May said she has been carrying these block pieces with her each year to retreat as her back up project.
So after three years she decided this year to make this Christmas "Yellow Brick Road" her main project.

May completed all of the blocks I am told.  I guess we will have to wait until next year to see the finished top.


Another awesome project was completed during retreat.  Barbara's "Uncle Sam" Twister wall hanging was finally sewn together.  This uses the small "twister" template. I didn't count the squares but can you imagine how many squares went into this gorgeous piece!


Two for the price of one!
Chris used denim squares recycled from her family's jeans to make these two matching, yet different quilts.
The sashings are from the same piece of fabric but are fussy cut from different sections and applied in different directions to make each top similar but different.
What a wonderful way to accomplish two sister/brother quilts!


At this point Earleen had lost, or it turns out just misplaced, the final block in this lap quilt. Turns out the last block pieces were hiding waiting for Sunday morning to be found.
Sometimes even the fabric pieces want to play games!


Sue finished this top early on Saturday. She was delighted, as we all were, with how it turned out.
This top was a UFO for awhile in her UFO stash. Finally completed! Always a good feeling!


Sharon continued to be busy this weekend.  Gifted blocks from a guild exchange were made into a lovely top. 


Saturday afternoon saw our chocolate "party".
Where is the chocolate, you say?
Melting elsewhere! A picture of melting chocolate is not that appealing.
But some of it did make it on to this strawberry ...


And the rest was quickly spirited away by our retreaters.

A midnight madness project was completed by Carol.
It came out great!

Insert picture here....

But those pictures will have to wait until all retreats are completed so that the remaining groups will have a bit of a surprise on their weekend.

Check back in February for those photos!

And finally, yours truly plugged along on her "Good Fortune" Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter.
The final clue came out Friday morning just before I headed to the hotel.  Just enough time for me to print my clue and pack up all of the previous clue pieces so I could begin to assemble the final blocks while on retreat.


I still have many chevrons to be completed, but I have decided that this is my Winter of 2019 Quilter's Weekend Retreat project. Let's see how far I get!

Well a few days of recouping and then we do it all again next weekend.
There are still a few spaces left in our last weekend if you are interested.
These retreats are a great way to while away the winter.

Looking forward to it!
Can't wait!

Louise, on the island, relaxing a bit, and doing laundry, before our next Quilter's Weekend Retreat