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….