Retreat Weekend

I am just home from a three day retreat with the London Modern Quilt Guild.  We stayed at an inn about 45 minutes from home and did our sewing in the ballroom.  They supplied lights and extension cords at each table as well as irons and ironing boards and bed risers for the cutting tables.  They have hosted a lot of quilting retreats for various groups over the years so they know how to get things set up just right!  The room was buzzing with activity each day from before breakfast to late into the night.

I brought three projects with me and had time to work on all of them over the course of the weekend.

Project #1 Tula Pink 100 Blocks Sampler

Before arriving at the retreat, I had 24/100 blocks made for this quilt.  I had made six more this past week when Christine came over to sew one night.

On Friday, I added 19 more blocks to my collection.

It is lots of fun picking out the fabrics for each block...

including a little pop of colour in most of the blocks.  My Friday blocks are shown below.

Saturday, I added 16 more blocks to the pile.

Some blocks had a bigger pop of colour than others...

I am up to 59/100 blocks completed now and will continue to work on them as time permits.

Project #2  Flannel Vortex Baby Quilt

I have a large bin of flannel scraps that need to be tamed.  I have made a few "scrap vortex" quilts in the past in an attempt to use up my scraps but the bin continues to overflow.   I am using brightly coloured scraps in this quilt and even had a few blocks leftover from my last quilt as a starter for the next one.  I chain pieced lots more flannel chunks to each other for about two hours on Saturday evening. I am on my way to piecing more blocks for my next vortex quilt!

Project #3  Scrappy Trips Lap Quilt

When I was hunting through my fabric storage area for an extra project to bring for the weekend, I came across a bag containing a jelly roll and some co-ordinating fabrics purchased at least 10 years ago for a specific quilt, but of course, there was no pattern in the bag.  I found some solid yellow fabric that went with the jelly roll and brought everything along in a new and bigger bag hoping for inspiration to make something over the weekend.  Well, inspiration came on Saturday and this became my sewing project for Sunday.  I decided to make a Scrappy Trips quilt from Bonnie Hunter's free patterns at her Quiltville website.

I cut my strips to the right length and laid them out by colour.

I had a chain piecing production line going all day long!

I ran out of thread but had brought an extra spool in case this happened.

My first block soon became 4 blocks.

And then 9...

A while later, I had 12 blocks done and ready to be assembled into a quilt top.

I used one of the fabrics in the bag to add a border around the quilt and it was done, just before it was time to pack up and go home.

I have a plan for quilting this one in mind already.  There was enough fabric in the bag for the backing and I will likely use the solid yellow for the binding.  The colours remind me of Spring.  This quilt will be given to someone who does not read my blog.

I am back to reality now...my suitcase is unpacked and my sewing supplies have been put away.  I look forward to the next retreat in the Spring of 2020.