Retreat Weekend

I had a productive "extended" weekend. I was hired to present two classes to a local quilt guild during their quilt-away. I hadn't gotten around to visiting the facility so that was another advantage as I'd wanted to see the facility for consideration of use by two quilting guilds I'm a member of. I did get my banner made that I mentioned in my last post.

I taught the Exploding Star class. Most of the participants made about 1/4 of the quilt. The themes ranged from 2-color quilts to feed sacks to controlled scrappy. They all had their own personality. One of the students in class wanted me to upload a photo of a half-square triangle quilt I started. When she last saw it, I had only the center pinwheels pieced. This baby is now HUGE.

One of the benefits of being at retreat is that I got to attend three lectures by Marti Michell. She gave great handouts and if you love her templates you would have enjoyed her presentations. I have 2-3 sets of her templates but don't use them too much - just depends upon what the project and process involved. And before you ask, yes, Stacey Michell was there as well. Stacey does a magnificent job with hand dies. I purchased two of her "hula hoops" to use on some Hawaiian applique patterns already in my stash.

During retreat I was very productive. In addition to teaching 2 classes, I put mitered borders on my scrappy 3-d stars quilt. I worked on the knotty purse, getting to the point where I was to add a magnetic snap. I did not have a snap so that project was put on hold. Marti Michell had so many log cabin quilts that I started another one, never mind that I have two that need quilting in my UFO pile. The off center log cabin squares were cut from scraps I'd taken to the retreat so these four blocks will not be actually pieced to each other. I have lots of strips cut at home that I plan to use to make this a really scrappy quilt. I plan to make eight large blocks (64 small log blocks). I got a tad further on my class sample for the Charm Tote class as well. I enjoyed the retreat and the guild members. I had so much fun (other than an attack of "the ants") and look forward to working with this guild in the future.

I plan to finish the purse and tote this week to get them off my UFO list. We'll see...I also have to get ready for a class I'm teaching Saturday on the X-Block ruler. Oh, and before that I have a quilt guild meeting on Thursday that I'm the president of and it's challenge quilt night. And then, Friday I have a craft guild meeting. Hopefully I can cut logs for my log cabin quilt. In addition I have to put back the things I took to retreat and do a little housekeeping to get me through the week. Gee, I'm tired just typing of all the things on my to-do list this week. Come back and see me some time.

Don't be a stranger.

-------------------------- Type-u-later, Tea in MO http://www.teaquilts.com