Here are some of the things we worked on at our recent retreat. Some are future donation quilts; some are for friends, family, or even ourselves!

One woman’s husband is manager of the local private airfield, so she is making several airplane quilts for various family members as well as for wall hangings at the airport:

And another spent the entire retreat working on Elizabeth Hartman’s Halloween quilt, which she will donate. Here is just one of the blocks, which took a full day to make.

One friend is recovering from a broken wrist, so she has been able to make slabs for several weeks but unable to do much else. Her wrist is recovering now, so she and another group member made quilt tops from some of her slabs.

In addition, many scrap quilts were made. Here are just a few:

And of course, a fine time was had by all!

I just had a get-together with one of my friend groups, the one that makes so MANY donation quilts. Here are a few for you to enjoy. They will go to either Ronald McDonald House or Flying Horse Farms, both organizations for children with serious medical problems.

There are a number of missing quilts because the woman who coordinates the donations didn’t bring hers to the gathering. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of hers because the photos she sends out are taken by her iPhone, and that format doesn’t translate well to photo editors. So just know that there are even more quilts.

Next week: some pictures of what we actually worked on at retreat!

A while back I found this pattern by Triangle Frenzy (Bunnie Cleland) and it was just too good to pass up. I made the first quilt from an ombre floral. I don’t have a beauty shot of it yet, but here it is hanging at Studio Stitch to sell the pattern.

Then I found this abstract ombre print called “Playgrounds” and liked it even better. It’s a Moda fabric. So I made another Treble quilt, and here it is.

Studio Stitch has just gotten in some additional ombre prints (some of them wild!) that would work well with this pattern, so if you’re local, come on down. (You can also order both the pattern and the new fabrics from StudioStitchOnline.com)

Do be advised that this is not a beginner pattern because of all the bias edges! However, if you’re careful, it goes together pretty quickly. It’s also necessary to be able to read and follow directions; for most of us that required some experience.

I like this pattern and recommend it if you want a spectacular quilt. The instructions are well written and well illustrated. My only problem will be to avoid making a third one!

When the weather turns cold, I frequently want more cover at night than does my husband, and my usual solution is a “half width” quilt that fits on just my side of the bed. I’ve had this one for years

but I decided to make a new one after seeing Tara Faughnan’s Traverse quilt. Of course I didn’t do it her way–some of her designs are way too fiddly for my taste. Instead, I combined some of her ideas with some ideas from Brenda Gael Smith’s Dreamlines class and designed my own.

Both quilts are backed with polyester fleece and have no batting, so they are pliable and cuddly. They are preferred by the grandkids because of this. I find them more comfortable for naps than regular quilts as well.

Also, a friend visited recently and made this quilt top from Tim Holtz’s pattern “Curious By Nature”. The pattern is free on the Free Spirit website. The fabric she used is mostly a Zen Chic collection from Moda, though the medium blue is from Libs Elliot’s Glazed collection.

What interesting quilt patterns or examples have you found lately? I’m always looking for something different.

I see a lot of posts about making pouches, but how many can a person use? Or a person’s friends? However, one of my friends wanted to learn how to get a zipper in a pouch and cover the ends with fabric. SO…

I’ve made this pyramid pouch before in several sizes; it’s quick and easy but the zipper ends aren’t “covered” the way she wanted them per the pattern. You probably can see on the smaller one that I experimented with covering the ends.

Here’s the link for the free pyramid pattern: https://www.loganberryhandmade.com/pyramid-pouch-sewing-tutorial/

I recommend this pouch. It’s quick, easy, and impressive to those who don’t know how you did it–ha! The larger one above is 12″ tall and I use it as re-cyclable gift wrap for the family.

I found a tutorial on how to cover zipper ends and it’s the same as the instructions on a pattern I bought a while back. I’m having trouble with it, but that may be because the pyramid bag was designed to NOT have the zipper ends covered. Here’s the link. Let me know how it works for you.

A more traditional pouch, also with a free pattern, is Noodlehead’s Open Wide Pouch, shown above. This one was a lot more work than the pyramid bag, and still wasn’t designed for covered zipper ends. I’ve made a bunch of Noodlehead’s patterns and they are well written. These bags came out just fine, and the free pattern offers multiple size options.

Finally…

I made some little pods for friends. Pattern is Sweetpea Pods, available here

These little pouches are my all-time favorite because they’re so clever and cute. The pattern isn’t free, but you can buy it here.

What’s your favorite pouch pattern?

Hooray! I’m going on a quilting retreat with friends! Here are a few of the things I have to take:

1. Projects organized in boxes. I take one more than I think I’ll need, just in case I “get ahead of myself”.
2. Chocolate. Because!
3. A little lamp, because you never know what the lighting will be like. I have multiples of these, but probably will take the “daylight” one I got at a guild sale last year.
4. Things I’m through with that other people might want, especially books and patterns. The best part is that I never bring any back with me; one of the ladies takes any leftovers on to another group!
5. A flannel-backed plastic tablecloth to use as a “design wall”, even if I have to lay it out on a bed. If I have a partially-finished project when it’s time to leave, I just roll it up in the tablecloth and it’s ready to go again when I get home!
6. And a little cash “just in case” we go to a quilt shop or two!

Of course, these are just my projects and extras. Karen (Just Get It Done Quilts) has a more comprehensive “Quilting Travel Kit Packing List” of things she keeps ready to go on a moment’s notice! I don’t have enough duplicate tools to do that, but I get the point–no chance of leaving anything behind.

What do you like to take to a retreat that Karen and I might not have included?

I got out the rest of the “studies” from Tara Faughnan’s Block Studies class and put them up on the design wall to consider.

The coral and grey composition didn’t fit in with the others, so I layered and basted it, then practiced some quilting. As you can see, I ran out of steam before it was all quilted. It was just for practice, so there was no rule saying I had to finish!

Then I removed some more blocks that didn’t play well with others, and I’m thinking about what (if anything) to do with the ones left on the board. They may need to go to my friend who wanted orphan blocks…we’ll see.

In other news, I finally did my part of the quilting and put the binding on this quilt.

Succulents in Pots, 52″ x 61″

“My part” of the quilting didn’t amount to much! A friend outlined the cacti and pots and did some very nice leaves on the rest of it. I just put a little design on each pot–ha!

And by the way, this was made from a very OLD paper piecing pattern from a magazine, so if you want to make something similar you’ll have to draft your own pattern. Even if I could find the magazine again (oops–lost it), you probably couldn’t locate a copy!

I’m trying to get all the small quilts finished up since October is the next delivery for Ronald McDonald House. That means it’s time to quit procrastinating and start binding! So I guess the fooling around with the leftover Tara blocks was avoiding binding…

And what are you procrastinating about?

A link to this tutorial landed in my inbox, and it looked interesting. I love disappearing blocks, where you make a big block and then cut it up to make something different. So I made this one just for fun.

Meanwhile, a friend asked if I could spare any orphan blocks. I hope she has plenty of room for them!

I didn’t count them, but I did note that they varied in size from about 2″ x 2.5″ to 30″ square. She agreed to take the triangles, too. I put a few up on the design wall just for fun. I hope she likes variety!

This is the oldest block in the stack. I made a series of these quilts in the very early 1980s. Yikes!

And I added the block I made today to the stack, so the collection spans 40 years.

I recently took a class, along with some friends, at Calla Lily Quilts in Greensboro. Here’s the result:

Strip Quilt, 60″ x 80″ (yes, I forgot to remove the row tags before the photo)

I limited the palette to blues and greens with sparks of orange and yellow, and I like the result.

The blocks are built on fusible interfacing, which makes them stable but a bit thick. That plus having 12 fabrics come to a point at some of the intersections…

caused me to get out the leather mallet and board I use to pound those seams flat where they meet!

This top is going to the friend who quilts our group’s donations for Flying Horse Farms, so you won’t be seeing the finished product here. I hope it will be a cheerful surprise for some kid at the camp.

So, have you made any strip quilts? Did you use a base, and if so what was the material? Any suggestions?

And by the way, I used scraps for this but look at what was left!

Of course we all know that old story.

Yes, I’m familiar with the “don’t ask me to hem your pants” mantra, but my church asked those who could to host activities as a fundraiser, so I offered a mending clinic. My blogging friend Mariss, in South Africa, teaches mending, so I thought I could, too. If you click on this link, you’ll see that her mending class is much more structured than mine!

I just told people to bring what they wanted to mend and we’d figure it out. Most of us had fun! Here are a few of the successes:

This older commercial quilt had been attacked by a dog; the patch was cut from a piece of fabric I quilted years ago.

There was a little hole in this favorite T shirt, so the owner covered it with a pretty coordinating fabric that ended up looking like a badge or pin.

This fleece blanket had somehow been split down the middle; the owner fixed it by sewing wide binding to both sides.

Another woman patched her jeans in multiple places, but I failed to get a picture of her her work.

And despite all the mending fun, I got the binding on this little art quilt.

Circle from Ankara fabric, 45″ x 45″

Have you done any mending lately? And BTW, we didn’t hem any pants!