This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday I went to my very first quilt retreat. About time! I've been quilting for 24 years and been a member of two quilt guilds for 13 years.
This retreat was held in the rural school--an old building just a few miles out into the country, that has been kept up and updated, added to, and is used as a community hall. There are lots of windows and lots of lights in the ceiling, so it's an excellent place to be quilting. Attendance varied from 13 to 17 women, all with their sewing machines and packs of projects. Here's an album of some of the quilts shown at the retreat:
and back:
This retreat was held in the rural school--an old building just a few miles out into the country, that has been kept up and updated, added to, and is used as a community hall. There are lots of windows and lots of lights in the ceiling, so it's an excellent place to be quilting. Attendance varied from 13 to 17 women, all with their sewing machines and packs of projects. Here's an album of some of the quilts shown at the retreat:
The first three are Monica's and they are finished tops, not complete quilts. All very beautiful! The fourth picture, the brilliant orange and purple quilt is Shirley's. It was a Jinny Beyer kit that she thought about for some time and then finally bought. She kept track of her time and it added up to 25 hours of preparation and 75 hours of sewing. It was completely finished, layered, quilted and bound. A perfectly stunning quilt!
We played a game that was new to me: Strip Poker (quilter style!). Each person brings four, width of material, 2 1/2" strips of floral (specified) fabric. There is a set of three dice, each with four possible instructions: C, R, L or a big black dot. The dice are passed around the table clockwise and each person throws to find out what action she needs to take: Place a strip in the Center, give one to the person on your Right, or on your Left, or the dot: keep your strip. Gradually the pile in the center grows. When you have given away all your strips, you are out of the game--unless the person to your right or left has to give you a strip, or two. At the end the last person having any strips wins the pile in the middle.
At our gathering that meant one of the women won 60, 2 1/2" strips. The kicker: next year that winner must bring to the retreat a quilt made from those strips. It was lots of fun, with exaggerated groans and cheers as the fabric changed hands.
I did lots of work on two sample quilts for my friends who have a wholesale fabric business. One is finished and the other one will be complete by the end of this week. Displaying a quilt made from the sample fabrics is a big help in stimulating sales. Here's the one finished: front:
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