BRMQG Retreat!

Oh my goodness! I had such fun at the Baton Rouge MQG retreat! We stayed at the River Retreat House in Baton Rouge.

 It's a beautiful brick home with a studio area that wraps around the side and back of the home. It sleeps 11 but can accommodate more in the studio if there are some day-sewers who can't spend the night. 

I worked on four projects: my Sugaridoo BOM row, two postcards for my sister, an easy 8" square top, and an improv top using some of my text fabrics. 

But let's talk about my friends and their projects. They are all so talented. Can you imagine coming up with these beautiful tops? Of course, none of these are mine. That's another post.

We all got lots of work done. But...

We also played. Glen brought the quilt people. And they had a bit of a party. And...

These two flirted a while. They met on the top of my machine and decided to hang out there and chat. The fella must have liked that bobbin know because he sat there all day. Eventually he was forced to move along. (I was there to sew, after all, and needed a bobbin wound. Sorry fella.) I think we can find him in my toolbox with the rest of the group.

This happy crew visited on the bed of Glen's machine. They had a grand time chatting and getting to know one another. They returned to their places and got back to work. So let me introduce you to my retreat friends.

Joni and her top that reminded me of "Storm at Sea" quilts.

Yvonne who spent her weekend working on this improv piece that is almost completed.

I won this pretty bag in the first door prize that Brenda contributed.

 That would be the same Brenda who completed this top. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the whole top. It's really stunning.

Crissi finished up this beautiful top. It's paper pieced from a pattern, but I don't remember the author.

Belinda completed this lone star top and then quickly worked on her flag quilt, which is much larger than shown in this picture.

This is Glen's completed London Fog top. Many of the pictures are hers. I snagged them from various social media, with permission, I think. That would be Glenda happens to be Quiltswissy of Quilts and Dogs fame. 

During the first Corona quarantine she hung a different quilt on her front porch every day for over 40 days. Her goodwill was noted in the newspaper and on television, so I count a real celebrity among my friends. She happens to also be president of CCAWS the animal welfare people of Baton Rouge. 

Louisiana zine and more quilting

https://louisiana.kitchenandculture.com/

Want a little more Louisiana? You can find it right here! This online mag "celebrates the culure, heritage, and cuisine of Louisiana."

I just happened across it while searching for a certain quilt show. I didn't find the show, but it may have something to do with not getting any farther than this interesting piece of online real estate. Anh, someone else is doing the legwork for the quilt show. I took a few minutes and liked what I found. There are over 1,600 recipes, events calendar, and cooking videos. If you have a few minutes, you should go.

Otherwise, I've been working on the latest tee-shirt quilt. Today I spent the morning making a backing. I wanted to include some of the shirts in the quilt but that would make it much too large and time consuming to quilt. Rather I sewed them into the backing, which took longer than I anticipated. 

That was mostly because I didn't look closely at the fabric on the bolt. Apparently I emptied the bolt and reused it. The fabric on it now is only 44" wide, not the 108" that I expected. Talk about a surprise!

I actually measured the amount needed and cut it before realizing there was a problem. That may be because the fabric on the bolt is a regular weight quilting cotton, not the lightweight muslin I thought.

Anyhoo, I got it all resolved and the backing looks pretty good. I loaded the quilt after lunch and began quilting. It's going relatively easily, so I'm happy. 

And my day ended with getting to some guild duties: sending out emails, setting an appointment, texting a member or two to check on their progress, that kind of stuff. It's the stuff that I really don't enjoy but have to get done. It does feel good to know that those chores are out of the way.

How is your day going? Were you able to get some quilting done or did you manage to get through some of the not-so-fun chores?

Harley Davidson memories ~~ finished top

I've been working on this customer quilt top for several days now. The customer's husband must have been a Harley Davidson fan for quite some time now. His HD tee shirts come from all over the United States.

I haven't counted the number of shirts that I used in the quilt, but it's quite a few. Some of the shirts have interesting fronts and backs, so I tried to keep those together, but I didn't worry about which side I attached on top. It was enough to keep them together. 

Since my customer wanted me to arrange them in a puzzle configuration, I decided to put these two black shirts together so that they would look like one large block from a distance. I may even quilt them the same since the designs make quilting almost impossible in their centers. Stitching through the rubbery screen printing ink is a mess. The thread shreds as the needle punches through the heavy ink. 

When I have a shirt with a full design, I try to find a line or two where there is no ink. Sometimes, the printer chooses to skip the spaces where the shirt color will suffice.



An example of that would be the Grand Turk design on the left. Although the design is heavy, there are places without ink, the tan parts of the motorcycle, the character's face, and between the letters. 

The Renegade shirt is one that will be difficult because there are no open spaces in the design. To handle that one, I'll have to slowly stitch through the ink, going around the Indian character. To ensure that the shirts don't stretch, I'll quilt some small motifs, trying to find some that will work with the overall design of the individual shirts. 

 Hopefully I'll be able to get started on the quilting this weekend. I plan to go the Baton Rouge from Wednesday to Friday to help with the Beta Convention talent groups. I go behind stage and boss people around. Remember (click here) how I did that last year and had fun? Well, I get to do it again.

Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!) 

Boy's Tractor Quilt ~~ a finish!

 As you know, I haul my Bernina on vacation. Since we travel in a small camper with only Cotton, our Maltese, and the two of us, it's safe enough, and it gives me a diversion when Richard gets cranky on the road or there's a little downtime. 

Anyhoo, I participated in AmandaJean Nyberg's QAL last month and loved it. While I was cutting out fabric, I decided to cut out enough of the blue scraps to make a kit for another quilt to take on the road. Of course, having followed the pattern with the first one, I needed to "make it my own" for the second one. 

In a nutshell I cut some of the red fabric into rectangles the same size of the finished blue blocks. Sewing was simply alternating blocks with a total of five rows.

Simple and quick and almost finished by the time we got to my sister's house. Jeanne and Alan have a pretty place in the middle of nowhere. Uh, actually in the middle of a neighbor's fields. We met these fun neighbors when Alan barbequed the best ribs ever. What a great night!

Oops, so anyway, before we left, I finished the little top and took it out for a photo session in Jeanne's yard/Rod's field. Isn't this piece of old equipment and the wheat a perfect setting? I've never seen so many acres of field in one viewing. It's just lovely and lonesome and beautiful. 

Before closing, I'll leave you with some of my favorite photos from our very short stay in Minot, North Dakota.

Richard acting like he owns "this big boy."

Long horns--the menfolk talked about these a lot!
You'd think they had driven them rawhide from Texas on horseback.

Canola--as in canola oil in a month or so

Flax--as in linen fabric and flax seed oil (it's being harvested
 in Idaho now so perhaps in ND soon)

Hay fields

Epic discussion no doubt--Richard on left, Alan on right 

Both common sights in Louisiana, but I saw the hay stacks and grain bins very differently in North Dakota. Knowing how much they are needed in the winter and feeling the power of that big open space where there are so few people to help, I appreciated the work of storing up for the winter ever so much more. And I thanked God that there are still people who are willing to work hard and risk everything to feed the rest of us. 

AmandaJean's QAL ~~ Top Finished!

A Finish! Just last night I was whining about not getting anywhere this week and in desperation (almost) I made a little bag just to make myself feel better. 

This morning I checked on Crazy Mom Quilts to see whether AmandaJean's quilt along instructions for week four were up. I'd decided to participate a couple of weeks ago. While working on all those blue scraps, I sewed up enough for this QAL, too. (I've been eating up some blue scraps, let me tell you!) There you go--a project with a purpose!

Because I had everything already cut out, it took almost no time to get the pieces on the design wall. I have to admit that it took a couple of minutes to wrap my head around the on-point setting. Perhaps the fact that I'd somehow missed one set of triangles made a difference. (There's a block E?) Ha! I cut those out and suddenly everything fit together! 

Once I got past that niggly problem, it was off to the races. Well, race when some grandie wasn't hanging around "bored." Now you know I heard enough of that with my own kids. 

In no time all the pieces were connected to create one wow quilt top. I love it! I think it's that crazy orange, which had to be turned around at random because the print didn't match up along the edges where the quarter pieces are. No problem, I switched them around before sewing and then didn't look at it again. I really liked AmandaJean's use of two different aquas, so I did the same with the reds, but it's not terribly obvious unless you know it. 

I can't wait to load it on the long-arm. Hopefully that will be tomorrow and I'll have it quilted before leaving for vacation. I haven't measured it but it's big. Much bigger than I expected, but that's a good thing. 

Are you participating in AmandaJean's QAL?  If so, how is it going? Remember to include her hashtag: #JunequiltQAL

Linking up with

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

TGIFF (Thank Goodness it is Friday Finish)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or not Friday)

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish it up Friday)

Back to the Blues ~~ 2 finishes!

Catherine (Caki)

I've returned home from Rory and Meggan's house. She is feeling better and moving around more. I thought it would be a good idea to give them a break for a few days. Honestly, I was missing Richard and maybe getting a little homesick. Oddly, that doesn't happen when we travel. I guess the camper feels enough like home and Richard is with me.

I loved having time to spend with the girls. They are an hour away, so visiting

Sophie

isn't a quick 
drop-in for hugs and to  say hello. At six and seven, they are sweet, respectful girls who love to play. An hour of "Go Fish," an hour and a half of "Shopkins" which almost requires crawling on the floor. (Not for me! I directed from the sofa. :) They are learning to jump rope and fussed over whose turn it was to "do" Grandmay's hair. Before I knew it, the day was gone and it was time for baths and supper. My three days passed quickly.

Never the less, it's good to be home. I drove up to a pleasant surprise; the calla lilly that Richard gave me for Mother's Day last year bloomed! It's not terribly large but the color is a brilliant yellow. It's in a pot next to the yellow lantana that's somehow survived the last four winters. They are at the edge of the parking pad and are a colorful spot of cheer.

While Richard fried some fish for supper, I played in the studio. The blue blocks (here)that I'd worked on earlier in the week were still waiting on the design board. So I started out by sewing those together and in no time I had a completed quilt top. (Baby size, sure, but still a complete top.) Notice that I chose the layout recommended by a couple of readers. Thanks y'all.

While cutting out the blocks for that quilt, I had cut another quilt just like it--there's really lots of blue scraps! Then I used the second quilt as a leaders and ender project while sewing the first quilt. I have sewn using leaders and enders: I think it's too confusing for my brain to handle. But how could I go wrong here? I just pretended it was the same project in different stages. 

Since most of the blocks were at the half-way mark and some were complete, I decided to figure out what I'd do with them. I really didn't want two of the same quilt, but I had the same blocks. 
Ahh, an idea. I added two more strips to each block, cut them off-grain, and turned them into wonky blocks. I played around with the blocks on the design wall and finally settled on a layout. Sewing them into a quilt top took no time at all. Ha! I'm not even sure how much I like it, but it's another (baby) quilt top and has found it's place on the pile that needs quilting.