Jan 08 Retreat: Caitlin, Sharon and Sue

Before packing up every last bit of our quilting supplies, we put Caitlin's 9 Patch back on the wall, near the ones that Sharon and I were still working on. The coolest thing about quilting is how you can just switch the fabric around and get a completely different look out of the same pattern. This is a great example of that.

Jan 08 Retreat: Sharon's and Sue's 9 Patch

As noted in an earlier post, Sharon, Caitlin and I all took the same class this summer for this curved-piecing Nine Patch With An Attitude. I gotta say, I am really glad there are "only" 36 blocks. The black-yellow-green batik on the left is Sharon's, and the pink-purple-blue-green on the right is mine.

By the way, this is only Sharon's second quilt top. Very, very amazing the skill that she has shown so early in the game. And pretty danged brave to take this on as Project Number Two!

Jan 08 Retreat: Sharon's Wild & Crazy Fish Pillowcase

During our road trip to Gathering Friends Quilt Shop on Friday, Sharon picked up this awesome fabric to make a pillowcase. 'Nuff said!

Jan 08 Retreat: Christi's Sweatshop!

From Friday night through Sunday morning, Christi ran a sweatshop of workers. She, Terry, Erika, and Alisa worked for hours to make this "Square Within A Square" quilt for a friend of theirs who is expected to elope any day now. Although you can see some smiles in the photos, in reality, Christi was cracking the whip every few minutes! By Sunday morning, they had accomplished an entire full-size quilt top.

Jan 08 Retreat: Rita's 3-D

Rita (retreat house owner) stopped by to visit us on Saturday evening, and brought this nifty three-dimensional quilt for "show and tell".

Jan 08 Retreat: Caitlin's 9 Patch With An Attitude

This past summer, Sharon, Caitlin and I all took a Cathy Wierzbicki class at the Calico Hatch, for a curved-piecing pattern called "Nine Patch With An Attitude". The pattern is written really well, and starting it during the class was a great way to really learn a ton from the person who wrote the pattern. For all of us, this was our first time with templates, and first time with curved piecing. Caitlin started on this project right away on Thursday, while I finished up my other half-done projects. By Saturday, she had finished it all up, including mitered borders (another first)! The one on the left is Caitlin's (gold, blue, purple), and the one on the right (purple, blue, pink) is mine. We all used batiks.

Jan 08 Retreat: Carole At Work

My good friend Carole, like me, brings 20 more projects than she can possibly work on too. She started on a batik project at this retreat, and had about half of the very bitty blocks done by the end of the weekend. Carole also added "frame" style borders to her niece Sydney's cat and dog wall hangings, quilted them, and put the bindings on both of them. (See September 2007 entries for Sydney!)

Jan 08 Retreat: Sandy's French Braid

Sandy and her daughter Carole arrived on Friday afternoon, while a carload of us were road-tripping to Gathering Friends Quilt Shop in Bird Island. Sandy got right to work on a French Braid Quilt, in these gorgeous blue batiks. There will be about 4 other vertical braids of this size, with smaller braids as spacers in between. To use one of Sandy's favorite phrases, this quilt is going to be "BEAUTIFUL" when she finishes it!!

Jan 08: Sue's early projects

Like every other retreat, I brought about 20 more projects than could ever be completed in a weekend -- some started, some new, but always enough variety to give me something else to do in case I got "fed up" with something. On Thursday and Friday morning, I worked on finishing up a flannel Wierzbicki's Cappuccino Crossroads and an Atkinson's All About Me (I had the blocks finished before I arrived). I also pieced the backs for both quilts, so both projects are ready to go to my long-arm quilter!

Jan 08 Retreat: Time to Relax

Once in a while, you have to just sit back and watch everybody else work! Sharon arrived on Friday afternoon. By then, Caitlin was feeling a little "done" with her curved piecing project, so she was relaxing.

Jan 08 Retreat: Jody's quilt

Jody worked all weekend and got this quilt top finished. Love the colors!!

Jan 08 Retreat: Ginny's First Quilt!

Early on Friday morning, while we were still eating breakfast, a Tahoe pulled up. Jody and Ginny were ready to get to work! Ginny was a little nervous because she had never quilted before, and I think she thought it would be too hard. I showed her some basics of rotary cutting, but she was still nervous. Because I think it's a lot more fun to get "hooked" on quilting when you just get to sew the first time, I decided to cut Ginny's pieces for her so she could just concentrate on sewing the first day.

I am very happy to report that by the end of the first day, Ginny was really enjoying herself. By the last day, she had even cut her borders to size herself and attached them! This photo is Ginny's first two rows EVER!!! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the quilt top, which she did finish before she left on Sunday. Good job, Ginny! :-)

Jan 08 Retreat: Terry's courthouse steps

Before the rest of the sweatshop crew arrived on the 2nd day of the retreat, Terry was working hard to finish up 2 more rows to this Courthouse Steps!

Jan 08 Retreat: Christi's stars

The first weekend of January 2008 brought 11 of us together for a sewing retreat at Gallagher's Retreat House in Gibbon, Minnesota. (www.gallagherscenter.com)

On Thursday, Caitlin and I arrived to find that Christi and Terry were already hard at work. Christi worked on these stars for several days, with just a few days off to run Christi's Sweatshop!