Retreat Sewing and Quilts

 Quilting retreats are so much fun for so many different reasons, but it is always a challenge deciding what to work on.  You want something fun.  And interesting!  But it can’t be difficult or tricky because so often it’s hard to pay close attention to a pattern with everything happening at the retreat.  So my go-to projects always involve jelly rolls and simple sewing.  

Starting with a charm pack and a wonderful neutral, I made half-square triangles and laid them out in this above pattern.  For the backing I used various big scraps.  Below is the wonderful fabric with every color in the world as the print.  So the backing is scrappy but it works.  So does the big off-center spiral stitching.  It measures 76” x 80.”

Two retreat quilts with the jazz cruise quilt

This quilt was part of my work at another retreat.  Adding one neutral, which makes the stars, to this colorful jelly roll creates a very pretty but very dense design.  And it seems the pink tones overwhelm.  So I went with it when coming up with a backing.  I had the perfect Art Gallery fabric but not enough of it, thus the vertical and horizontal inserts below.  This quilt I might machine quilt.  To be determined…

This last quilt is huge and still on the design wall.  I have the batting and backing but will finish it much later.  What is interesting though is that the same jelly roll of fabrics was used for this quilt as well as the one right above it.  I gotta get back to purses….

Jazz Cruise Quilt

I panicked as we were about to leave on the Jazz Cruise in late January.  Not only were we going to hot places (never my favorite), there would be over 100 jazz musicians on the ship.  To make myself happy, I grabbed the pile of hexies left over from the quilt I was working on when Doug was dying.  Despite the sadness of the hexie quilt, it would be the perfect thing for a week cruise.  There are no running straight lines, so hand piecing was really quite perfect.  Every night I would pull up the big venue on the ship and watch it on closed circuit tv as I pieced.  And every morning I would spread my progress  on the bed.   I used every hexie I packed and couldn’t wait to iron it once we got home..

Once we were home and the top was pressed, I needed to fill in the sides and top to square it off.  It measures 58” x 76. 

As you can see, it’s backed in a solid Art Gallery fabric.  And I have just started hand quilting this one.  I thought about trying to stitch a big trumpet and forever associate this quilt with jazz.  While I’m not ruling it out, I’m not sure that will happen.