How wonderful it was to retreat!

My guild, the Illini Country Stitchers, held a retreat at the Threads of Time Danville IL retreat center over the 3 day weekend. About fifteen people came, some for all the time, some for just a day. I spent three nights and 2 full days there and got so much done. I thought I packed too ambitiously, with way too many tasks to do, but ended up getting all done to the point I wanted. Today I'm tired, but happy.

Here is the second Tom R. t-shirt quilt, made a bit smaller than twin bed sized. The first one is posted in January 2010. The piecework was done on retreat, but all the t's were precut, stabilized, and had a designated spot mapped out in advance.

 Now my next task is to applique a couple of items to fill dead space in two spots (navy gap on top right and in the blue space below in the bottom angled piece). Then I'm ready to layer and quilt these two puppies. Can they get done by next spring? Depends on how much homework help my high school daughter needs.

Then I owe myself the posting of this little wall hanging, Kitty Corner. I just love the golds it it. The top was finished at the May guild retreat. I'll have to look up the pattern designer later.

That's it for now. I'll get the other September retreat projects out for photos and post them soon.

Great start to July

I love having a small sewing group to keep me on task. While my guild is also great, there is nothing like a set of friends to remind me that I quilt for my peace of mind, and that when I'm not quilting, other parts of my life start wearing on me.

So one friend in my group issued a challenge to look for the reason(s) we felt we weren't making better progress on our quilting projects, and tackle one or more for the next 3 weeks. This in response to many of us saying we hadn't even unpacked our machines or projects between the times we gathered to sew together.

So my response was to challenge myself to three tasks before we leave on a July 25 vacation:

1. Finish machine quilting my Dad's t-shirt quilt (about 25% done) as I’d like to take it to Colorado to bind.

2. Finish scanning my father’s collection of slides and get the indexes for the carousels scanned and labeled. This set of his photos from about 1960-1979 will go on DVDs as gifts to my family, and it’s been hanging over my head now for about 4 years. I’d estimate I’ll have about 800-900 slides scanned when this little project is done. After last night, I have 1 more carousel to do; about 90 slides.

3. Make my basement feel like it’s a living space, and not a storage space. This is probably my biggest obstacle to sewing, as I hate facing the junk on my way to my sewing area. To this end, I spent most of the weekend working on this. DH and I bought big storage cabinets with doors and they’ve been filled with the excess household and keepsake items. I’ve tossed another 3 trash bags of stuff, and reorganized all the books, scrapbooks, gift wrap, and my family photo albums and books we love to read and reread onto dedicated book shelves. I’ve freed up two plastic shelves that are going into the furnace room, and they’ll help me when it’s time for that annual space cleaning. I need to move a 4 drawer file cabinet across the room, and then I can consolidate all the paperwork that I think I need to keep in one space. I mostly cleared off my cutting table. I’ll continue to putter in the basement in the evenings, with my goal of having the cleaning done by next Sunday.

I'll take some photos of the spaces and post them soon.

Great end to June

Nothing ends a month on a better note for me than to spend the last weekend getting some serious sewing done. So I got about 8 hours in on Saturday with my small quilt group at my house, and then another 3 hours in on Sunday with the same group at a fabric store meeting room. I chose to devote my time on 2 relatively new projects. Neither got done, but both moved along considerably. Photos still to come.

Then my DD gave me the push to clear out a bunch of clutter in the basement that is now in my van, ready for a charity drop off. This gives me a much better first impression when going down there to reach the sewing area. I decided I need to get back to the quilting on my t-shirt quilt. I need those quilting pins for other projects. Friend Dorothy is empowering me to get my quilting butt in gear and layer and quilt some of the backlog of tops I have. Can it really be as easy as she makes it sound?

Oh, June is almost gone too!

And still no photos posted. I looked at my April project list, and only a couple have been touched. My guild had their big retreat in May, and I got away for 3 nights/3 days. I got Mitchell's cat ironed down, and that was enough. I took some cheap batik jelly rolls and got those strip pieced for an impromptu quilt. It still needs black strips between the 8" panels. I also put the components together for the wall quilt that had the cute striped cats in the corners, but left it as a top.

I did get that Project Linus quilt bound. I have bought the materials I need for the outline stitched cat blocks, and transferred the patterns to the muslin.

So I invited my small group to come over this Saturday, as my incentive for some housecleaning, and to restart some of these projects. I'll also help Amanda take a small horse wall hanging to the next level, with her getting the fusible on the fabric, and the pieces to a foundation for fusing.

Plus we have a Sunday afternoon booked for sewing at a local fabric store. So for Saturday, my focus will be on
1. stripping the batik panels, and maybe fusing the applique details so that top is done;
2. layering the kitty in the corner wall hanging for quilting (on Sunday?);
3. quilting a few blocks on the t-shirt quilt (need those pins for #2;
4. work with Amanda here and there

If there is additional time, I'll make myself quilt a few more t-shirt blocks.

Can April 2010 really be coming to an end?

It's mid spring around here. Where did January through March go? I had 3 hours of time spent on Mitchel's Cat yesterday-I have 2 more colors to get cut out and put on the collage-like foundation. Then I need to do my trimming so I have the right edges on top. Soon I'll be pressing it all down. I need this to be stuck together before I go on retreat May 13 as I don't want to possibly get another person's iron all sticky, but can't use a personal iron there (we start blowing fuses). This I will definitely show here when the pressing is done.

Retreat projects I propose to do so far include (which may change):
1. quilting my Dad's t-shirt quilt
2. stitching down Mitchel's cat quilt edges-maybe layering and quilting this too
3. creating gaggy 30's paper pieced flowers for below the window
4. binding a Linus quilt
5. something with jelly roll strips from the Chicago show
6. preparing the blocks for that cat pattern with the design done in outline stiches

Chicago Show coming up

My quilt guild is making an annual bus trip to the big Chicago International Quilt show this weekend. Looks like it may be the last for a while as they announced they would be in Cincinnati in future years. So I'm doubly glad I talked my DD into coming along with us this year. It will be her first big show, and I need to take care to let her see the quilts as much as she wants and not expect her to enjoy the vendors as much as I do. I'll bring my shopping wish list, so a good excuse to take stock of my stash to see if there are colors I'm short on, or items needed to finish a project or two. No laughing-I really mean 'finish'. Ok, it may be safer to say 'make progress'. Then I'm hoping I'm not too tired come Sunday to do some house work, yard work and/or quilt work.

Behind on quilting, catching up on the little things

So it's been almost two weeks since the Kimberly Einmo class, and I still haven't posted photos of my project. I finished all 16 of the blocks, but they aren't set. They are stunning when laid out in her original set, but I got to playing and I like another minor variation of the layout. Now I'm trying to clear my design wall to see if there are other possibilities for the block set. I'll get photos of those variations soon.

My time drags were: painting a large bathroom and helping my DD paint her bedroom, weekend travel for Easter, and doing taxes. Somewhere in there 2 books distracted me too.

I'm working on the gaggy 30's project again. I am finishing the arcs that would go above the framed flower vases. I'll get that section done this weekend (really I will) and post a picture. Next on that project is cutting side panels for some vine appliques-thinking the buttonhole stitching would be good handwork to have ready when we make a trip this summer to CO. Then that project can come down for a bit and the Einmo variations can go up.

I'm still working in fits and starts on Mitchel's cat. The fusible is cut and ready to go on fabric backs. That I'd like to have pieces fused to the background before the May 14th retreat so I can layer and quilt that. Yes, it's time to dream of retreat projects. So far it may be a lot of quilting, which is not good for my shoulders and back. I'll have to find some piecing to bring along too.

Now on to readying photos of my back yard to send to my brother-in-law so he can advise me on what can be done to spruce it up. Hopefully I can get him and my brother to come up from St. Louis to do the work-he does fantastic stonework and landscaping.