Gwen's Quilt

As many of you already know, BIQR 2013 was the 30th and final retreat organized by Gwen Marston. She has decided to cut back on her teaching schedule and spend less time travelling. On the way home from last year's retreat, Carol, Christine and I decided that we should make Gwen a quilt to thank her for all she has taught us. We went shopping at the Marsh Store where we picked out the fabrics we would use for our project. After three sessions of sewing and some homework in between, we had completed our quilt top.

This picture was taken after our first day of sewing.

During our 3rd day of sewing, we completed the top. (Borders were added after this picture was taken.)

I did the hand sewing on the binding in the car on the way to the retreat.

We gave the quilt to Gwen at show and tell on Wednesday night. We started by showing our collaborative project and talking about the Canadian Maple Leaves and Canada Geese on the quilt, as well as the other features of the quilt.  As if on cue, one of the other quilters asked "Who gets to keep the quilt???"   It was then that we revealed that the quilt was a gift for Gwen!

Christine, me, Gwen and Carol

 

We high-jacked the quilt and took some pictures of it before finally leaving it with Gwen.

 

 

 

 

The back is flannel to keep Gwen warm on those cold winter nights!

 

 

The quilting was done by Cathy at Eagle's Wings Quilts. She did a wonderful job! 

 

Lots of daisies!

 

 

Love the chicken fabric!

 

Half daisies in the geese.

 

 

 

The basket.

 

All tucked in!

 

 

The four of us with the quilt.

 

The Pincushions of the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat

I am back from BIQR and I had a fabulous time!  My week away went by way too quickly, as all holidays do...  Gwen Marston was full of wit and wisdom which she lavishly shared with all of us throughout the week.

The weather was perfect--sunny and warm. We had a great view of Elk Lake from the room where we were sewing.

This is the first of several posts about my time at BIQR 2013. Today, I would like to show you some of the interesting pincushions of BIQR. I did several tours around the sewing room admiring other people's projects and came across some unique pincushions, which I had to photograph, of course!

 

This one was purchased at Crate and Barrel--it is not really a pincushion, but some sort of decoration that the owner is using as a pincushion.

 

I thought it looked like a hedgehog!

 

J's husband brought this one back from a trip he took.

 

The base part is made from a small wooden bowl.

 

This little wool house was used by a quilter who actually sewed something with those little pieces in the bag beside the pincushion!

 

Everyone needs a cup of tea and a grasshopper pincushion!

 

 

I liked the leaf pins in this pincushion.  It was attached to a scrap catcher.

 

This one matched the fabrics that this quilter was using.

 

 

 Deb and Kathy brought some cute mug rugs that a friend made for them. Here are their pincushions:

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more posts including pictures of Gwen and her quilts and some of the quilts that were made at the retreat.

 

 

 

 

My Bags are Packed...I'm ready to go... (almost!)

Tomorrow morning, dark and early, Christine, Carol and I will be leaving for Elk Rapids, MI where we will join several other quilters at Gwen Marston's annual (and final!) Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. I have been flitting about all day, gathering up everything I will need for a week of sewing and relaxing at the retreat.

I cleaned my sewing machine, oiled all the moving parts and changed the needle. I am going to do some hand sewing in the car...I put the binding on my 9 patch mystery quilt this afternoon to test out the machine after its tune-up--all is running smoothly and there are fewer squeaks now! I love hand sewing binding in the car--it keeps me awake and is a good use of my time on the long ride.

I did a bit more applique on my Becky Goldsmith workshop project this week

. I just have the tree to go and this block is done.

Here are some pictures of the lovely quilting on my 9 patch mystery quilt. Cathy at Eagles Wings quilts did a great job!  Thanks, Cathy!

 

 

I will do another stash report when I get home.

Now, I need to get some sleep before my vacation starts!

Multitasking...

 

Cathy and I had a sewing day on Saturday and we both worked on our Lazy Sunday mystery quilts. We both did some sewing and unsewing in the process, but both of us are on the right track now! I have my first row completely sewn and the sashings and cornerstones added to most of the rest of the blocks. I love the bright colours and all the little surprises in the fabrics of this quilt when you look at it closely. Christine is coming over tonight and we will both be working on our mystery quilts. 

 

 

Carol, Christine and I got together last week to work on our collaborative project. The top is completed and Christine is piecing the back so it can be brought to the long arm quilter's house this week.

 



We are all in love with this quilt!

I made my next charity quilt block for the Elgin Piecemakers on Saturday. This block will be handed in at our October meeting. I decided to make a slab with my brown, green and tan scraps.

Now, it is time for the stash report...

I purchased a half yard of blue and white ticking to do the binding on the antique quilt that I showed in this post.

Fabric used in the last week: 2.05 yards
Total fabric used this year: 132.16  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: .5 yards

Total fabric added this year: 120.91 yards
Net fabric used this year: 11.25 yards

Have a wonderful day!

Workshop with Becky Goldsmith

The first meeting of the new year for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild was this past Thursday and our speaker was Becky Goldsmith of Piece O' Cake designs. What a fun evening!  Her whimsical quilts were bright and colourful. She spoke to us about picking colours for our quilts and showed several pictures of people and places that illustrated different colour schemes. I knew we were in for an interesting evening when I saw Becky's socks...

 

 

Here are a couple of the quilts that Becky showed us...

 



 

I love the way the colours in the applique pop off the backgrounds she chose for her quilts.

 

 

On Friday, I took a vacation day from work and participated in an applique workshop with Becky and 19 others.

 



This is the pattern for our project.  We learned how to make templates and trace them onto the fabrics we have chosen on the bias in order to make it easier to turn the edges under when doing our stitching.

 

By lunch time, I had this much done...

 



 



After lunch, we started sewing. Becky provided us with the tiny pins shown above and a couple of different needles to use for our hand sewing.

This is a needle threader which all of us used to get the thread through the tiny hole at the end of the needle!  Becky supplied the thread that we used. There are lots of colours in those two bobbin holders!

 Two edges sewn down...

I also learned to reverse applique and finished one of these windows at the workshop and then did the second one yesterday.

I also reverse appliqued the orange door onto the door frame at the workshop and then appliqued the door frame to the house yesterday.   I have the roof pieces cut out and ready to applique and hope to work on them later this week.

This 8" block is one of 9 in a wall hanging designed by Piece O' Cake Designs. I had fun at the workshop and will show more pictures of my block as it is completed in a future post.

Happy Stitching!

Swooning over my finished quilt!

I finally had two quilt holders here on the weekend to take some pictures of my completed Swoon quilt!  I will be taking this quilt to the London Friendship Quilter's Guild meeting later this week for show and tell.  Then, it will be put on our guest room bed for a while so we can admire it as we walk by the room!

Cathy at Eagle's Wings Quilts did a feather meander on this quilt. Great job, Cathy!  I love it!

You may remember that I made a table runner from some of the leftovers from this quilt. Ironically, the leftovers project was finished before the quilt.

Have a great day!