Sweet Retreat: Part II

Here's another incomplete I was able to finish at the retreat: a nine-patch made from a Moda charm pack.

I totally understand why people buy charm packs -- or jelly rolls, or layer cakes: you get a handful of pretty, coordinating fabrics that are very visually appealing! The reality, however, is that once you get your precuts home, you realize how limited you are in what you can make with them. Unless you're happy churning out a table runner or wall hanging, a charm pack simply isn't enough fabric to be useful.

I managed to eek a quilt out of my single charm pack first by cutting each charm square in four, then mixing them with white and off-white prints to make nine-patches. But that still wasn't usefully quilt-sized. So I went back to the quilt store where I bought the charm pack to begin with, and they still had some of the fabrics that appeared in the charm pack on the bolt -- so I picked the blue fabric with large pink and yellow roses, because it contains all of the colours that appear in the other fabrics. I was going to attach the fabric directly as a wide border, but my fellow quilter Karen -- who is quite accomplished and artistic -- suggested that I frame the nine-patch centre with a thin green strip first. I did, and I think it does a nice job of setting the squares off.

Not sure yet what the destiny of this quilt is, but it looks to me like a quilt to snuggle with on the porch, on a cool summer evening.

Sweet Retreat: Part I

I know, I haven't posted in a while! We are currently living through a renovation, and the chaos has pushed off all but the most essential tasks. Which means that I barely spent any time sewing in late January and through February.
But happily, March brought me to my quilt guild's annual retreat, on the shores of Lake Huron. Luxurious days of sewing in my pajamas, stopping only to eat, sleep, or soak in the hot tub. Truly, it's the life!
Vowing that I would use the opportunity to catch up on my incomplete projects, I packed a suitcase full of UFO's. First on the list were a couple of I-Spy quilts, destined for charity. This first one was pieced by my daughter Margaret back in January, at my friend Renske's house. She did a pretty good job for a 9 year old; all it needed was a border, and so I added the wide band of green.
As an update, after I gave the completed top to Renske, she had it handquilted by another acquaintance of hers, and the quilt will be auction this May at the Mennonite Relief Sale & Quilt Auction in New Hamburg. I'm quite excited about this, and hope that Margaret will be proud of her accomplishment (at the moment, she's a bit shy, and only reluctantly agreed to have her name on the quilt label).

That same day at Renske's, I had partially pieced an I-Spy using a sneaky method Renske showed me. I had to finish the horizontal sashing, off-setting alternate rows of blocks, and then apply a border. I thought it turned out surprisingly well. I really like the staggered effect of the offset squares.
My completed top is going to Joseph Schneider Haus, a local museum, where it will be the back-up quilt for the annual Quilting Bee (i.e., if they finish the first top before the end of the designated Quilting Bee days, they will move on to quilting my quilt). I imagine my quilt going on to the Relief Sale in 2014, although it could also be donated to the local hospital (our guild supplies "Smile Quilts" for children in hospital with serious or chronic medical conditions).
It felt great to have uninterrupted time to get these quilts finished! And then, it was on to the next!

Scrappy baby quilt

I promised myself that I wouldn't buy new fabrics this year, other than what I needed to complete existing projects... and technically the fabric for this quilt doesn't count, because I didn't buy it. I was visiting my friend M, and she happened to mention that she had bags of fabric scraps that she was getting rid of... who can say no to someone else's scraps?

It was like Christmas, going through her bag of scraps. Silly, I know. I get so excited when I get to admire bits of fabric: even small pieces of pretty prints or batiks can make my heart go pitter-patter. I was quite excited when I saw that she had cast off a bunch of coordinating strips and squares in cheerful, colourful baby prints. Adding in some fabrics from my own scrap bag, I was able to eek out a baby quilt, in a modern scrappy log-cabin based pattern. My son Connor is holding it up for me to photograph.

It's smallish, so it needs a border -- I hope to find something suitable in the next week or two. Then M agreed to machine quilt it, and we will donate it to the Relief Sale & Quilt Auction for next year.

I know, I cheated: this really qualifies as a new project, and I'm not supposed to start anything new. But it didn't take very long, and it was fun to make... so shh! Let's just pretend we didn't notice me making this quilt.