They never seem to come often enough — weekends spent quilting with friends. A lot of projects were waiting to go along with me, but I mainly worked on just a couple. I never empty very many bobbins, but that’s not the point of the weekends. It’s the getting together, relaxing, and sharing that’s important (sharing food, advice, stories, and friendship).

I’ll show my projects next time. For now, here are the much more impressive projects shared by the other “retreaters.”

(1) Georgia has been working on her scrappy 12″ pineapple blocks and put them all together on Saturday. Pattern is from
Positively Pineapple. She will be adding a border.

(2) I think the spiderweb Q made by Becky is from a Fons and Porter pattern, but I didn’t find it in their “Best of Scrap Quilts,” as I thought I would. Triangles are 6″ tall.

(3) Following her pattern, Chris’s placement of the cut pieces made the yellow and purple appear to intertwine–with a pretty butterfly background. She trimmed the sides just after I shot this photo.
(4) Pat made the Blogger Girl quilt (from
Open Gate Quilts) using red and green fabrics with gold highlights. She worked hard on the sashing — the on-point squares are labor intensive, but they’re stunning when they’re added to the quilt to frame the blocks.
(5) Sue saw this quilt in someone’s Fons and Porter magazine, and we found
a download-able copy of the pattern online. It’s “Aunt Gracie’s Garden,” AKA “Emily’s Wedding Quilt.” Her background is Kona Snow, and we helped her cut an 8-1/2″ wide border from that. Flowers, leaves, and vines will be appliqued on the wide border
beforeit’s attached to the quilt. Four appliqued flowers will go on last, covering the mitered border seams.
NOTE: There are no curved seams here–only the
appearanceof some. Look carefully. It’s a combo of HST next to squares made with
Tri-Recs toolby EZ Quilting. Google “Tri-Recs” and you’ll find photos, tutorials, and ideas galore.
(6) We’ve been given all steps for our guild’s current mystery quilt. This is Kris’s version. Some gals used one fabric for the alternating snowball blocks; others used varied fabrics, as Kris did here.
(7) The biggest stash buster I’ve ever seen in person was this one that Georgia brought to show. She cut 30″ squares of fusible grid interfacing and ironed on 2″ squares. After folding on the lines and stitching 1/4″ seams, she ended up with
22-inch blocks (225 squares on each). The main body of the quilt is made from nine of those blocks plus three half-blocks.

Georgia added a 3″ black border, then a border of squares, four squares wide. My quick estimate is that there are more than 3000 2-inch squares in this quilt. I’m also estimating it’s around 84″ x 93″.
I have a lot of 2″ squares and some iron-on grid interfacing, so I could start one any time. I also have a daughter who enjoys the artistic arrangement of quilt blocks. I think she’ll enjoy arranging those squares for me–at least for a while. (I’ll take the help as long as I can get it.)
I hope you had a quilty weekend. Mine was filled with inspiration and relaxation.