Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Back From The Retreat-More Done & Another UFO

The quilting retreat was a big success! It was held at a southern Indiana state park called Spring Mill in Mitchell, Indiana. What a gorgeous setting for a retreat. We had a huge room with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the room. The windows overlooked a small lake in a woods (thus the name of the room--the Lake View Room). Over twenty women worked on a variety of quilted items including machine quilting and piecing table runners and wall hangings, piecing full-sized quilts (one retreat participant completed three good-sized quilt tops), piecing a quilted shawl, hand-quilting quilts, making yo-yos, piecing miniatures, paper piecing blocks, working on rag quilts, and sewing on binding. Another retreat participant finished quilting an entire full-size T-shirt quilt--her first attempt at machine quilting! The weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was so nice that on Saturday afternoon I sat outside and hand sewed the binding on one of my table runners. What a treat!
...now, an update on what I did at the retreat. I pieced the top for my Wave Runner wall hanging (above). It was fun to do, and I think it looks way more difficult than it was. I pieced several sawtooth stars, half-square triangles, and pinwheels for my "Stars for a New Day" quilt top, I quilted all three Christmas tree table runners (I posted a close-up photo of one of the trees; click on it to see a real close up.), I machine stitched the binding on all the table runners, and I got the hand sewing part of the binding done on one of the table runners.

(I also spent time visiting with quilting friends I don't get to see nearly often enough, going to a quilt shop in Salem (Craft Town), and eating--(Spring Mill has a nice buffet with a very tasty walnut pie.)) I have to finish the handwork on the other two table runners for the UFO Challenge this month. I'm anxious to get some sewing done here at home, but I haven't even finished unpacking from the retreat yet.

Check back--I'll be posting the instructions and pictures for transferring a quilting design to a quilt block using tulle later this week.

1 comment:

quiltlion said...

Awesome runners! Glad that you had fun at the retreat!! Sounds like a beautiful setting for some relaxing stitching! Lyn G