Quilt Retreat

Sue recently enjoyed a quilt retreat with her local guild in Winchester, Virginia.  Approximately 50 quilters spent 4 + days sewing on their individual projects in the conference room of the Hampton Inn.  This is the first retreat Sue has attended in over a year, so it was quite a job to gather projects, supplies, travel sewing machine, and other miscellaneous paraphernalia!  But once arrived and unpacked, it was nice to be able to sew, leave the sewing space, and go upstairs to the room whenever desired. 

The photo above is courtesy Jim Watson, the "official" photographer for the group.  Though she only worked on 2 projects, a good bit was accomplished.

First on the agenda was adding a decorative blanket stitch to the edges of the orange peel shapes on this quilt top.  Now that that task is complete, it is ready to be layered and quilted.

The other project she worked on is making more blocks for the Harrisonburg quilt.  Ten mew blocks were completed to add to the 12 done previously.  That leaves 8 more to go, for a total of 30.  The plan is to make a queen size quilt.

In addition to the 12-inch blocks, she also made 9 cornerstone blocks - the small nine-patch blocks you see in the photo above.  They will be placed where the sashing strips between blocks meet.  The center square-in-a-square portion of the block doesn't take long to stitch, but the outside section with half-square triangles is what takes the most time.

At each retreat we also make charity blocks - each participant made 2 - to be used in making quilts to donate to charity.  Another activity is making lottery blocks.  Everyone who participates receives a ticket for each block contributed.  The blocks are divided into groups and winners are drawn from the tickets.  Sue was lucky this time and won a set of 19 pumpkin blocks!

The top photo shows some of the blocks she won.  The second photo is a sample quilt made from the pattern.  Sue's plan is to make a table runner and maybe a small quilt with the blocks. 

Above is Sue's friend/roommate Kathy and one of the projects she worked on.  Again, thanks to Jim Watson for the photo.  It was good to be at retreat and see all the wonderful projects everyone worked on.