Quilt retreats...

I've only been to 3 quilt retreats since I began quilting some 6 years ago.  And all of them have been in the past year or so.  But I can already see that I get so much done then.  And this last retreat in Williamsburg was no different.

I brought 4 projects with me - 2 of them had already been started and the other 2 were just the fabric and patterns.  I thought perhaps it was a little optimistic of me to bring so many but in 3 and a half days, I saw progress on each of them.

My main priority was to finally assemble the blocks for Twisted Rope.  I had already made all 181 blocks but still needed to put them all together.  This is a king size quilt, so it was a challenge.

One quarter of Twisted Rope

 I put the quilt together in quarters so I had fewer of the very long seams to sew together.  After working on it half of Monday and most of Tuesday, I was able to finish everything except the borders.  I decided to hold off on putting the borders on until I returned home and had more space to spread out.  I'm really pleased with how this quilt turned out.  In fact, I'd love to keep it, but it's already earmarked for a dear friend.

Twisted Rope without it's borders

Note: Just tonight I finished putting on all of the borders - so this top is done!

After working so hard on such a large quilt, I was really in the mood for some instant gratification.  I picked up a pattern during stash dash called 'Greta' by Me & My Sister Designs.  It only takes 1 charm pack and a little bit of yardage.  After a few hours between Tuesday night and Wednesday, I had it done and again, I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Greta made with Maison de Garance

This quilt finishes at 36" square.  I'd love to have it quilted and on my table for Thanksgiving but that might be a little too optimistic.

After that quick finish, I moved on to making a quilt called Nestled in the Branches.  It's a free pattern from JoAnn's and I made the same quilt as a prayer quilt for a friend at the end of last year.  I liked it so much (and had a lot of the fabric left over) that I knew I wanted to make it again.  However, when I started to cutting and calculating, I realized I was short on 2 of the fabrics.  I didn't have enough bird blocks or the border fabric.  Although this will end up being 4x5, I only had enough to make 3x3 at the time.  So I put as much of it together as I could and also sewed the sashing and cornerstones for the remaining blocks.  I worked on this one most of Wednesday.

Nestled in the Branches

Fortunately I was able to find the fabric I needed at JoAnn's returned.  It's been washed, pressed and cut up, so this quilt should go together rather quickly now.

Unable to finish the bird quilt, I moved on to the last project I brought.  I worked on it Thursday.  I'm tentatively calling this one Man Cave because of it's colors and because it's for Mr. Quilting Bug.  I already had the fabric cut and organized for the blocks, so it was another one that went together quickly.  The quilt finishes at 65"x73".  Here's hoping it's not another year before I get it quilted!

Man Cave

So that's it for my very productive quilting retreat.  If I went on a few more of these a year, just think of how many UFO's I could knock out!

Until later...

Therefore, accept each other in the same way that Christ accepted you. He did this to bring glory to God. 

Romans 15:7 (GW)