Salem Days Quilt Retreat 2013

On Saturday, August 3rd we had our annual Salem Days Quilt Retreat. We had 48 people come, and it was amazing!

We had some great gift bags with patterns and Sprinkles donated by Izzy n Ivy Designs, and a fat quarter donated by Gracie Lou's. Sweetbriar Cove gave everyone a little purse with a chapstick and a piece of chocolate. And everyone got their very own bag of Chex mix to snack on during the retreat.

We had a ton of great prizes donated from local shops and people, too. Home Depot, Velcro, and HouseParty sponsored some of our gift bags, and donated the materials to make a darling little make up organizer out of PVC couplings, Velcro one-strap, and duct tape.

We also had a slew of patterns and quilt kits donated as door prizes. Even darling ceramic button coasters, so you don't have to worry about your drink sweating onto your fabric while you sew. "Sew" cute!









Vicki Peterson, organizer of the Quilt Retreat and owner of Sweetbriar Cove, started us all off by showing us how to make a darling notions jar. You can get the jars at the Dollar Store. Then, you use a piece of fabric and gather the edges, stuff it, stick in a piece of cardboard, and glue it to the lid.

Voila! You have a cute little pincushion on the top of your notions jar!

Then, tie some ribbon in a bow around the top edge.

It was darling!

And super easy! Seriously, with some scrap fabric from your stash, a roll of ribbon, and a jar from the dollar store, this is a cheap enough gift you can make them for all of your sewing/crafting friends for Christmas gifts!

(Great idea, right? I totally might have to do that!!)




See how darling they are? I'm still dying over how cute mine is. I think I'm going to fill mine with candies though, because chocolate is a necessity while you're quilting, sewing, or crafting. Right? Right.

;)


Next up was Carrie Brown from Gracie Lou's Quilt Shoppe in Salem. She did a trunk show, showing off some of her favorite quilts they've made at the shop.

This is one of my favorites. The 18 inch square, sashed. Super easy, super quick, super awesome for using some of those large prints you don't want to cut up into little pieces. I made this one for my mom a few years ago, and it's so quick and easy to do.

After the trunk show, Carrie taught us how to make yo-yo's without using a yo-yo maker.

It's actually not that hard. Some people turned under the raw edge of the fabric, but I decided not to. I like the look of the unfinished edge. Then, we glued the yo-yo onto the front of the notions jar. Cute, right? SUPER CUTE!

After Carrie we had Rebecca Morganson show us some of the quilts she's designed and made over the years. She does some really fun things down at her shop in Payson (Morganson's), like a monthly mystery quilt and a block of the month/every-two-weeks club. So fun!

I just signed up for August's mystery quilt, and I can't wait to see what it is. Rebecca designs all her patterns, and showed us how to do some fun and different things with fabric to add a little texture to our quilts.

This is one of my favorites that she showed us. In the center it's a Lone Star. And then she just added different borders until it was big enough for her liking. How adorable is it?  I mean, seriously. LOVE this quilt.

After Rebecca spoke, we took a break for lunch. Oh my goodness it was so yummy! Thank you to Zupa's for catering such a spectacular lunch.



Each lunch box came with the Nuts About Berries salad, the turkey cranberry sandwich, and a chocolate dipped cookie. Oh my!

I did a little make & take demonstration on how to use washi tape to make a quick and easy card. I didn't take any pictures though, sorry. But let me just tell you, it was cute. I got the idea off of the Silhouette blog. You can find the project instructions here.

Angie Stewart did a great little redwork demo. We had a few samples of finished redwork quilts there, and then she gave us all this cute free pattern she found online. Go here to download your own copy of the pattern. So cute!

I didn't get much of mine done, but this is one I am definitely going to finish. Someday. I'm adding it to my pile. ;)

We had Lynda Hales come show us some of the fabulous quilts she's made. She loves to do embroidery, and it was really fun to see all of the different things she's made with embroidered blocks.

I love this one, because it's cute and bright, with simple patchwork. Someday I'll try to do an embroidered quilt top. I don't have the patience, really, but maybe that's why I'll do it. To train myself, yeah?

We also had Joyce Slye come show us some of her favorite quilts. She loves circles (and I love to quilt them for her!) This one that she showed was one of my favorites. If you want to see more detailed photos of the quilting, find them here.

Jana Nielson from Izzy n Ivy Designs did a fun make and take from a metal zipper. Who knew that if you cut up a zipper you could make a flower pin?

It was a little tricky at first to get the hang of working with the zipper pieces, but once everything was all glued/sewn together, it actually looked really cute. Mine is a little wonky, but you get the idea. I think I'm going to buy some zippers online and make a whole bunch. Jana showed us an example she had made of the zipper flowers all connected together into a necklace. Cute idea!

After Jana spoke, we had Keri Carter do a food demonstration. My favorite! She gave us the recipe and showed us how to make her orange dream cupcakes. She even had samples premade for us to taste. They were so flipping good!

After Keri did her demo, Shannon White came and showed us some of the quilts she's made. She is such a talented lady! She teaches classes over at the Corn Wagon in Springville. She has made some great quilts and is very talented!







After her trunk show, she handed out kits and taught us how to make a quick little pin cushion ring from felt. They were so cute and easy to make. One lesson I learned though, don't hot glue the ring while it's on your finger! OUCH!

Shannon also showed us some quilts from another lady who works at Corn Wagon. This woman dyes all of their wool, and does amazing, incredible things with wool. I'd love to try something like that, someday. Wool gives a great texture to quilts and looks really fun to work with.

We had a lot of fun at Quilt Retreat this year (but don't we every year, really?). This coming Saturday is the Salem Days Quilt Show in the trees. I can't wait to see all the fun quilts people bring to show off.

Nebraska Omaha Mission Quilt

*The following is the story of a quilt that has taken me FOREVER to complete.  Sorry it's a little long, but the quilt took me a lot of time to make, and I wanted to document it for posterity's sake :)  *


I am happy to finally report that this MASSIVE quilt project is finally completed.  Yes, it took me over a year (just barely) to finish it, but it was a lot of work and I am really, really pleased with the end result.

No, you don't get to see the full thing laid out because I don't have a clean floor space large enough to do that!  It ended up about 101 x 121.  Yeah, it was HUGE.

I can't even believe how overwhelming the project had seemed at first.  When she had brought it to me, with all of the plastic storage boxes filled with ziploc baggies containing the triangles of fabric and their coordinating ties, I was very overwhelmed.  It took me about 27 hrs just to unpick the ties. (There were a lot of ties!)

Piecing it was a challenge, as I had never worked with ties before (most of them silks) and I didn't want to interface the backs because I wasn't sure how the fabrics would work together, if at all.  I did end up interfacing most of the fabrics used in the Sisters' blocks, pieces from shirts and skirts and dresses, and they turned out nicely, I thought.

My biggest mistake was picking such a weird size for the blocks:  9.75 inches square.  What was I thinking??  Apparently I was not.  I had to square up each block, then add pieces to the edge to both stabilize and enlarge them to the proper size.  Yeah, like I said: I was a little stupid.

But, the end look is really nice, and I can't imagine trying to sash all of those blocks without having the cotton quilting fabric as a small border around them.  It definitely would have been much harder to keep everything square.

I was really pleased that I had purchased enough fabric, too, as the project took me so long to complete.  I was worried, toward the end, that I didn't have enough of the sashing of sashing post fabric to finish, but I had just enough.

As far as fabric selection went, my client left it all up to me.  I wanted to keep the fabrics I used for the sashing, posts, and border very neutral and not too distracting from the blocks.  Since the quilt itself was so colorful, I opted to use neutral creams/tans/beiges for the sashing/posts.  The border I knew needed to be darker, because she wanted words quilted in it, and darker fabric with a light thread would work so well, I thought. 

Now, I have to add that I am old-school when it comes to mixing brown and black.  I abhor it.  Seriously.  I do.  My husband is not allowed to wear a black belt and brown shoes.  I even have a hard time liking couches that are black leather with brown upholstered cushions (even though, I admit, they do look nice).  I just have a hard time with it.  It makes me cringe a little inside.  But, I am getting better, obviously, because the border fabric is black and brown!  I know, so bold of me, huh? haha

For the backing fabric I wanted something close to the sashing fabric I had used on the front.  I had also hoped to purchase some 108" wide fabric to use.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  Instead, though, I found this really great 58" wide fabric in a soft, crinkly neutral color.  I think it is in the Kona Crush line (is that even a line?  I don't remember the name of the fabric, sorry!) 

As I got everything onto the machine and ready to quilt, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I had recently quilted a quilt of my own, and had done words on all 4 borders, turning the quilt 2 times to get the text the direction I had wanted it.  To avoid having to unpick basting stitches, I quilted the border area with monofilament thread.  It worked like a charm.

So, why not use that technique here?  After all, I was going to quilt the center of the quilt in an all-over meander in monofilament thread anyway.   Why not just quilt the entire quilt that way?  So I did.  :)

The meander is fairly tight, and it was amazing how nicely all the extra fullness from some of the tie blocks (I had been seriously stressing about it for days, to be honest) worked its way out.  There weren't any puckers or tucks.  Everything was fabulous.  I was very pleased with it.

I added the binding using my longarm.  I knew that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to feed all 442 inches of binding through my tiny little domestic machine.  There was NO WAY.  It went on really nicely, and then my client took it for their mission reunion.

I've had it back in my possession for a few weeks.  I finally finished binding it.  It took forever.  My poor living room was dwarfed by the sheer size of the project as I sat on the couch and watched Amazing Race while I bound it.

But now, it is FINISHED.  And I am so proud of it.  It looks so great, and my client was really happy with it when she took it to the reunion.  It's the best possible outcome I never would have imagined when I first saw how much time and effort would be needed.  (Seriously, you don't know how daunting it is be staring at 2 rubbermaid tupperware storage boxes, 2 large bags, and a couple of grocery sacks full of ziploc bags with ties in them.  Ties that all needed to be unpicked and kept with their coordinating triangles.)  But now it is done, and I am happy, and a little bit relieved, to not have to worry about it anymore :)

Sweet Softie Baby Blanket

This sweet little flannel and minkee baby quilt is a sample for Gracie Lou's, the local quilt shop (LQS).

Using Permacore Dyed Natural thread I quilted a large, loose all-over spiral design.

I just love this fun jungle animal print!

Queen of Repurposing

I have a client who rescues a lot of quilt tops and blocks and pieces of quilts.  She is amazing.  She bought these cute little Sunbonnet Sue blocks at a yard sale, then sashed and bordered them into a quilt top.

I quilted a ribbon meander in the background of the Sunbonnet Sue blocks.  I stitched around the applique, and quilted flowers in the sashing.

In the outer border I quilted leaves.

I used SO FINE! Daffodil yellow thread on the bottom of the quilt, and Permacore Dyed Natural thread on the quilt top.

This next quilt of hers is one that her daughter rescued for her.  She found it in the remaining trash and garbage at a swap meet in another state.  I think it is the cutest thing ever!  She kept the edge trim of the blanket on and sewed it to some fabric she picked as a border.

I cross-hatched across the rescued blanket, using Permacore Dyed Natural thread.

In the border I quilted loops using Permacore Chambray thread.

Panel Donation Quilt

A client of mine put together this fun panel quilt as a donation to a local charity.  I quilted a tight meander across the whole quilt.

Poppin' Posies

I quilted this version of Poppin' Posies for Izzy n Ivy's quilt market booth in May.

I quilted large flowers in the small strippy section, and leaves in the sashing below it.

I outlined the floral appliques and quilted a ribbon meander in the background.

I quilted flowers in the pieced section above and below the appliques.

I quilted loops on each side of the ric-rac.  I used So Fine! Snow thread.

Tear Drops

This fun quilt was a shop sample for Gracie Lou's.

I quilted an all-over tear drop pattern.

Baby Blues Four Patch

On this sweet baby quilt I quilted an all-over swirl pattern in a baby blue colored thread.

Lattice Table Topper

On this cute table topper I quilted flowers and leaves in the outer border.

I outlined the appliqued flowers.

In the background I quilted a spiraly flower.

Feathers and Flowers

Isn't this quilt beautiful?!

I quilted a feathered wreath in the outer border.


In the background triangles I quilted feathers.

I quilted a flower in the center square with feathers in the background around the square.  In the rest of the pieced block I quilted a wavy cross hatch design.  I used So Fine! Snow thread.

Flower Applique Strippy Quilt

This fun strippy quilt features a monogram and a floral applique.

In the circle applique I quilted around each of the layers and did a circular loop to make it look like a flower.

In the background strips I quilted loops, squiggles, flowers and leaves, feathers, etc.

I outline quilted the applique flower and quilted some details on the leaves.

In the outer border I quilted a ribbon meander.  I used So Fine! Snow for the thread.