My followers have been
clamoring for another post, so here I am again!
My excuse is that I haven't been home long enough to post anything, which is pretty much true this month. We were in Florida for a week, then came home for a few days and I was off to quilt retreat. After that we flew to Buffalo for a week, and now I'm packing for a week of golf at Myrtle Beach! I feel like I have been shuffling clothes from one suitcase to another and not accomplishing much else.
So, I thought I'd tell you a little about the quilt retreat. I went to Lake Logan, which is about a half hour west of Asheville, near Canton, NC. It's an Episcopal Retreat Center, but some of the local quilters have found that it's a very hospitable place for us to gather and be creative. We stay there from Tuesday to Thursday, have a spacious room to set up our sewing machines, and three times a day they feed us!
Lake Logan is a little "out of the way" from shopping, so you need to be sure you have everything you need with you. I generally pack a variety of things to work on, though there are some people who work on the same project all three days. So, anyway, here are the things I worked on while I was on quilt retreat at Lake Logan a couple weeks ago.
First, I brought a couple of little projects from the "Superior University" I am enrolled in. This is a program available from Superior Threads, and the basic idea is that for a monthly fee they send you a little project and a spool of one of their specialty threads to experiment with. For each thread you are supposed to systematically document how the thread behaves as you change the tension of your machine and vary the stitches. Once you have familiarized yourself with the thread, then you are supposed to use it in the project they suggest.
The January project was this set of coasters using their Razzle Dazzle thread in the bobbin. Razzle Dazzle is a heavier thread that is designed as an embellishing product. The batting in the coasters is also a product that they sell called "Soft and Stable" that looks like a thin layer of sponge sandwiched between black fabric. They claim that "Soft and Stable" is a good product to use for fabric purses and similar projects that require some softness as well as some stability... so the product is aptly named.
Here are the coasters and a close up so that you can see what the thread looks like. I was pleased with how easy it was to use and after completing this project I might be more likely to try this technique again.
Oh, I guess I uploaded another close up. You can see that the thread is very pretty... it has several shades and it's a little sparkly!
The February project wasn't quite as successful... or maybe it just didn't interest me as much. This project uses a thread called Rainbows which is a shiny variegated polyester thread and the project was to make a note card by "thread painting" a floral fabric. I didn't particularly think that the colors in the spool of Rainbow that I was given enhance the colors in the floral print... in any event, I kind of lost patience with this project. They claimed that making these note cards would be addicting. I didn't agree. But here's my effort anyway:
The biggest project I brought were my "$5 Quilt" blocks from last year from the now defunct "Material Things" Quilt Shop. The blocks were a total of 12 blocks of various sizes (6, 9 and 12 inch). I did not choose the color scheme or the patterns of the blocks, that was determined by the quilt shop. However as soon as I started accumulating the blocks, I decided that I could put them together into a picnic cloth... I guess the red, white and blue just made me think of the 4
th of July! So I brought some compatible fabrics to the retreat and made some half-square triangles to fill in the spaces and I also made an additional 12 inch square to balance things out and I ended up with a 44 inch square quilt top.
Just today I finished sewing on the last of the binding, so now my picnic cloth is ready to use!
I had a kit for a small wall banner, again with a patriotic theme. Hopefully this will get finished in time to decorate my door between Memorial Day and the 4
th of July! I think it's about 14 x 18 inches. I couldn't do the quilting because I didn't bring the right colors of thread with me, but I did get the top put together and the project sandwiched.
The final thing that I worked on a bit is this "cheater cloth" panel that I bought last year in Albuquerque. The whole piece is about 20 x 40 inches and I thought it would make a nice table runner. I liked the colors and the design and the idea is that once it is quilted, it will look like it was pieced. Maybe some day you will see this on the table in my sun room.
And I snapped this as we were leaving at dusk. Imagine how pretty the blossoming trees would look on a sunny day like today!
Spring is certainly happening in Western North Carolina right now! Enjoy!
