"The Retreat" ~~ Finished!!

Way back in July of 2019, I attended a quilt retreat in Baton Rouge with other members of the BRMQG. After I got home, I finished up the top and added it to the bin. A couple of weeks ago I dug through the bin and chose this top to quilt. 

A little blue thread, feathers in the border, and some improv quilting.

I don't know what I did unless I really look at the individual motifs. In other words, I just had fun.

The back of the quilt is this solid blue linen and, because it was too small for the top, a plaid flannel. They look good together but I'm not real sure what's going to happen when it gets washed. 

I took lots of photos of the back so that I can go back and look at those motifs because some are new-to-me ideas. 

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	The Retreat
	Size:	48" X 60"
	Fabrics:	fabric from stash
	Pattern:	my design
	Backing:	from stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Binding:	fabric from stash
	Quilting:	improv with various motifs
	Completed:	2020

Quilt Challenge Day 8

 This quilt is the result of needing to use up scraps, in this case neutrals. To give it some contrast, I toss in lots of browns and just a few grays. I present to you, "Muddy Waters." It kept reminding me of the bayous and ponds in our area. Places where we went crawfishing, back when we were young. These days, we buy a sack of crawfish to boil or go to a restaurant where other people do all the heavy lifting and the cleanup. "Muddy Waters" is all improv--my favorite way to piece a quilt. It's fun, stress-free, and I get to make things up as I go along. When I'm finished with an improv top, I always quilt it using improv--whatever comes to mind is what I quilt, and I make it up as I go. I love making a "mistake" that turns into another motif!

Oh no, I'm not!

I've been having a rough go in the studio. Nothing is really happening. That top on the design wall is driving me insane. I've tried almost everything: adding to it, changing that, adding some more, an aha! moment that has gone nowhere, adding some more. I've about had it. 

Now, let me tell you that I wasn't so disappointed with it last week. I felt that something was happening. Not anything terribly bad, I mean. Then Richard walked in.

Richard: That's a busy quilt. (He was not being nice with that too matter-of-fact tone.)

Me: Well, I'm starting to like it a little. I think if I keep going it's going to become something. 

Richard: Yeah, it's real busy.

Me: Get out. Something's happening. (I think he crossed his eyes. Maybe not.)

The very next day, he walked through again. By this time his words had inched their way into my thought process. I was struggling.

Me: I think I'll turn this into a puppy bed. It's a good size for...

Richard: Oh, you wouldn't do that to the puppies, would you? 

Me: What do you mean? It's not that bad.

Richard: Well, they would go crazy. That's too busy.

Me: Tell me you're joking and you're sorry. 

Richard: Of course, maybe Cotton would be able to find his bed. (Cotton, at 17, is blind.)

Now that, friends, did get in my head. What the heck? Why? How come? (That's a Southern question.) So, just like that, I'm doubting the piece and, worse, am thinking of ditching it. Well, I'm thinking of cutting it into a different improv piece. Maybe not. I've decided to leave it alone until I get back from quilt retreat in Baton Rouge with the MQG there. 

Yeah, that's what I said. Quilt retreat! 

Design Wall Dilemma

Why would I call this a dilemma? Because I haven't known what I wanted from the very beginning. It all started with a Sherry Lynn Wood workshop back in November. I created two pieces, one I've turned into a finished quilt, which I like very much, now that it's in the quilt chest.

But then I had this second piece. It nagged at me because I just couldn't see what it wanted. I put it on the design wall; pronounced it ugly and wrote that it is hideous. It took up space. Lots of space. On the design wall. In my head. In the galaxy. Probably in your head. Look in there, would ya? Do you see it? What's it telling you? 

We went to Galveston. We returned. It stayed behind and found a way to make itself more monstrous than ever. I held a sewing camp. Five days, three kids, four projects, safety, safety, safety. One injury. We survived. The hideous quilt did, too.

All those things just got in the way of the percolating process. Talk about improv! Put, play, move, make more, chop! Everything was happening. Yet nothing was happening. At the same time. I had an aha! moment that lasted a 1/100th of a moment and then...nothing. Again. Maybe it's going somewhere now. I'm still not sure, but I'm dutifully sewing pieces together anyway. Besides, it may be growing on me. 

That's because for a day or so it had me thinking of a Nautilus shell. I think I'll keep going with that idea and see where it takes me. What do you think? Is there a Nautilus shell in there? 

Other articles about my experiences with Sherry Lynn Wood:

• SLW in New Orleans November 2019
• Workshop photos December 2019
• A finished quilt top March 2020

Voila! I figured it out....happily!

Remember that I went to a Sherri Lynn Wood workshop some time ago?


As you can see from this photo, I was a bit discombobulated by my work. I kept at it, but while there was something I liked, there was more I didn't like. People kept telling me it was good. That was nice, honestly, but I have to be happy from the inside. So I decided to put the whole thing on the design wall when I got home.

On the design board waiting for a plan

There it stayed and stayed. Life kept getting between me and it, including other pieces. Then last month I came up with a challenge for my traditional guild: bring a UFO/unfinished project to the February meeting with the intention of bringing it to an advanced stage for March. 

For example, I'll bring the SLW quilt pieces (that's my name for it for now) and tell the group I plan to bring it to a completed quilt top for the March meeting. Then in March I should commit to finishing the quilt for April. 

Reworking part 1

The problem was that I needed to get to a stage where I could make a commitment. What I had simply wasn't working for me, but I liked most of what I had. To add to the twist, I wanted to incorporate AHIQ's first challenge for 2020, hourglass blocks. 

I played and ripped and moved and added and subtracted and all sorts of crazy things for about three days. Then I read a couple of posts on the AHIQ blog and found the answer. Back to the design board, but with a plan I liked. Funny how a plan makes such a difference.

Reworking part 2

Reworking part 3

At this point (ready to go to the guild meeting) I have long strips of improv pieces that will be arranged in Chinese coins fashion. I've chosen a neutral brownish gray beige oddity for the background. 

  Final plan without the background

Once I arranged the strips in the order I wanted them, I pinned them with numbers, folded them neatly into a project box. Then added three stacks of magazines for the monthly mini (we buy tickets, the winners get to choose from the "minis" on the table until we run out) and even folded and stacked the two quilts I plan to bring for Show and Share. So I'm ready. Now to remember my phone, dues, and my stack of items. 

Meet Sherri Lynn Wood

Wednesday I told you about going to the Joan Mitchell Center for their Open Studios. There was a special reason for our visit: Sherri Lynn Wood is an artist-in-residence there. And when she leaves in December, she will be giving a workshop in Lafayette, which I am attending. (More in a few weeks.) But for now, I'd like to introduce you to the Sherri Lynn Wood that we met.

Sherri is working on several pieces while in New Orleans. The first two are pieces that symbolize menopause and its attendant miseries: bloating, weight gain, dryness, pain, psychological loss.

She created the first piece from pieces of a discarded suit and salvaged fabrics. Do you see menopausal symbols and motifs?

The second one piece deals more with the ways the female body changes during menopause. 

How about this way of storing and organizing your patches? Isn't happy? The pieces are blocks that she discovered in a bag of fabrics that someone gave her for recycling. As she works on them, Sherri sorts them on these lines. Expect to see a temporary banner in my studio. I love the cheer and color this provides in the blank slate that is her current studio. I'll leave you with just a few more photos from Sherri Lynn Wood's studio.

Discussing how Joan
Mitchell's work and New
Orleans informs her own work

On the floor of her studio space

Working/cleaning area

Red is a Neutral becomes... finish

Another Red Feather. So named because, though there were other titles in the running, this quilt wanted red feather quilting. And more red feathers. And more red feathers. In fact, every inch of red is quilted in feathers, with a few scrolls to break up the monotony. 

Detail of the back...just enough
pattern to make the worst of
the quilting less noticeable.

This one serves in all manner of challenges: the Cotton Quilters' Guild block-of-the-month, in which different quilters presented a block or two from January through July, and as the AHIQ "Red Is a Neutral" challenge. 


With encouragement from Kaja and Ann at Ad Hoc Improv Quilts, I decided to combine the two. So here we are with, finally, a red quilt made from guild blocks.

Detail of some of the feathers in the red sections.

Like everyone else I started in January and worked to keep up, especially since I set the parameters for the BOM. This setting just seemed to want to be this. I tried other ideas: putting the center medallion on point and surrounding it in red, kicking it off center and adding red there, considering making other blocks to work it all out. It was not having one bit of my ideas. Then flying geese flew in and saved the day. 

Detail of some scrolls

When I say finished, I mean quilted, bound, labeled. Ready to go straight to the quilt show if it were due tomorrow! Which is good because I have tons of things to remember and to do between now and the show.

The quilt has an off-center medallion surrounded by 12 inch blocks. I decided to keep the quilting in the blocks simple since there's so much fancy stuff outside of them. I used an improv style and decided things as I drove the long-arm. 

That is the best way for me to be really happy at the machine. Just play, figure it out as I trip along, change my mind. I often just stop somewhere along the way and search my phone, or cards, or books for new motifs. I've even walked to the bedroom to look at the quilt on my bed. That's my kind of improv!

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	Another Red Feather
	Size:	54" X 54"
	Fabrics:	Fabric yardage from stash
	Pattern:	Guild BOM block patterns
	Backing:	Linens from mom's stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Binding:	Red yardage to match background
	Quilting:	Feathers and straight lines
	Notes:	Made to meet AHIQ “red is a neutral” and Cotton Quilters’ BOM challenges

Getting back to LINK UPS!

I've been missing out on link ups for a while but 

decided to remedy that. At the same time 

Alycia of the Alycia Quilts - Quiltygirl blog 

is taking over Finished Or Not Fridays 

from Myra at Busy Hands Quilts. 

Best of luck, Alycia!

Retreat finish (the final one)

Some time ago (it may be years now) I decided it was time to use some of the 2½” strips that I had cut perhaps years before that. You see, this is a story of epic proportions. Because years before either of those I began worrying that I would leave behind tons of fabric when I go. What foolishness! Still, I worked on a series of small quilts. 

The nursery rhyme series: Nimble and Quick was a blue bargello, both versions of He Loves Me was Dresden plate applique, Around a Girl's World, The Coolest Bug Collection, That Was Against the Rules, Fast Asleep, and so on. Some have titles from lines of the nursery rhymes, all are inspired by nursery rhymes. 

This quilt is both, inspired by "Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater" and titled using the phrase "couldn't keep her." The inspiration came in the form of using pumpkin orange with those blue 2½” inch strips with the strips representing bars. Did you notice that the bars are not all going in one direction? I could have fixed that but I had just finished this improv top and was still in improv mode. 

Take that orange square however you want: a pumpkin, an escape route, a key hole. It's your take on the quilt. Notice in this picture that I had to add a horizontal strip in the orange to make the half square triangles match up. Somewhat. Up close like this you can see how much the medallion is off. Really? Geez. 

But I just wanted a finish and so I refused to rip anything out. An agreement I made with myself--no ripping. So things went in sideways and corners don't meet and goodness knows how many other problems, but stay they did. After all, have you read nursery rhymes lately? There are lots of issues in those little poems, but I love them anyway, and I'll love this little quilt just the same. It's in the TO BE QUILTED bin under about 15 other tops. 

Do you just leave in the mistakes? 

Do the mistakes make you like the quilt less?

Or do they have to be corrected? 

Do the mistakes drive you nuts if you don't?

Retreat Finish (the second one)

Before I show you my new finish, I thought I'd show you what is going on in the studio. It is not a happy sight, is it? Ahh, that's how it goes. Chances are that it's never going to embroider again. 

Not that it has embroidered any for me anyway. Firstly, it made horrible stitches. Secondly, as we discovered today, the gizmo that holds the PC card is broken. So I have hundreds of designs that I can't use. 

The news gets worse: I've invested more money in the machine than it's worth. Have you made a bad judgement like this one? What did you do about it? I'll give Richard a bit more time to work on it but if it's done, well, we just made a bad investment.


But there's good news, too. 
I have a finished top to show you! I had a few ideas for quilts before leaving for retreat last week. For this particular quilt top I wanted to just sew at random, very improvisationally, and with no plan or system. Just sew some bits together, stack them until there were plenty in the stack, then start sewing the big bits together. 


It really started at home by pulling some scraps together. I settled on a blue/teal/green colorway with lots of whites to keep it all from becoming too busy and worrisome.

I pulled mostly solids and a very few small prints. Large and small pieces of white went into the Ziploc but I knew I'd be cutting those as needed. After I had some large chunks, I put them on the design wall to let the colors mingle in my mind. (I like that phrase.)

A some point I decided to make a few curves. That "boomerang" block (circled in red) on the very top was the first one. At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but it grew on me. I decided to make one in green next. It's much smaller but I'd already decided that everything would go into the quilt. The only concession would be that I could cut blocks apart if necessary.

This zipper block is the last one. It's my favorite part of the entire quilt. From here I only needed to sew all the big chunks and smaller pieces into a top. I added a six inch border on all four sides to give it a frame and called it done.

What do you think? Does it work in an improv sort of way?