Virtual Retreat Aug thru Dec 2015 Info on first post

[Carol G.]

Love the greenwork frogs! Are they all on 1 big piece of fabric? I'm partial to hand embroidery.

[Carol G.]

Thank you! Yes its one large piece till I cut out all the individual frog square. I had to measure and mark each square before hand tracing each frog in the squares. I left it one piece till I finish the hand work of the frogs, much easier to handle and moving the hoop to keep it taunt enough

[Carol G.]

My last post, maybe,, until I get back from vacation

Last night I finished cutting and piecing block 1 for the Craftsy Summer 2015 BOM quilt. It's a free class, so you might want to check it out. Each month they gave out four blocks, one main method and three change ups. It's interesting, and it's out of batiks, so I waited until I saw enough blocks to take the plunge! I'm now behind by 15!! But the first one turned out very nice



And mid morning I got my arm turned to crank this one out before I started packing.




Last load of laundry is in the dryer, the car is ready, most things are in the car, and I'm going to go cut more pieces for that batik stars quilt. That way when I get back, I'll get busy right away and not wander about for two or three days wondering what to work on.

May God give all of you interesting activities to pursue and the energy to pursue them,
Luann

[Carol G.]

Marianne, I love your placemats! The quilting on them is wonderful -- I love how you did the crossover on one side and then opening up on the other -- very fun!

Geneva, those wall hangings are great! Love that you just went with what the girls picked and had fun; kids have such funny ideas sometimes!

Purple Quilter, those are all wonderful! I've done one piece of hand embroidery, likely never will again! That is some hard/time consuming work!! Your frogs turned out great, and that pig drawing is adorable! Thanks for showing us everything

Luann, great job! I've got a quilt similar to your Frozen quilt that is in my line-up -- my boys have requested one out of Marvel superhero fabrics, similar to what you've done there, for our movie room. Sometime.....I've got quite a list I'm working on, so we'll see when I get to it. Luckily they want something simple that shows off the fabric, so that will be good.

Go and have your trip now! We'll still be here

[Carol G.]

Thank You!, the hand embroidery is my first time ever doing it in my life, I thought it would be very hard to do also but it really isn't. I'm using the basic straight line stitch along the outline of the frogs I traced onto the fabric and just turn my hoop when I need to.

[karen f.]

Whew I haven't had time for much commenting lately so I just caught up with many pages here. I like everyone's work that you shared.
Cathy, your portrait quilt is wonderful! I can't imagine doing the multiples that the children of 11 siblings would involve!!
Geneva at the risk of being too personal with Sybil and her delicate situation, may I suggest that on her next encounter with Mr. Fixit she requires the use of some protection. I feel certain that during her fling with him he gave her bugs. Eww!

[Dawn S.]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Dawn S.]

here is the top that I'm working on, This one is for my father in law. It's a "rush order" so to speak. Hes a Vietnam vet, and his health is slowly yet rapidly decreasing, I want him to have, see, and use it before the bad comes knocking. I cut 2 full large scenes, then I I did some fussy cutting for smaller individual scenes.

[Dawn S.]

This will be "rush order" #2 if possible, my BF suggested I use on the back of the first making a reversible quilt, is that even doable?

[Jennifer D.]

Purple quilter the Asian prints are lovely. Can't wait to see what you do with them

~ Jen

[Nancy R.]

You certainly can make a reversible quilt. Part of it depends on how reversible you want to make it. I like to piece an interesting quilt back that could be a top on it's own, but don't worry about whether the quilting on the top matches what I've done on the back. You can also design a back that lines up with features of the top so that the top quilting works with the back, too, but that's more difficult. Rosemary did an incredible quilt like that a while back. The other way that I make reversible quilts is to use a plain fabric for the back and make the quilting shine so you get a gorgeous wholecloth quilt on the back. For reversible quilts, I just define the top as the side of the quilt that I have facing up while I'm quilting.

[Nancy R.]

Reversible quilts are a good thing in my book - you get two tops to one piece of batting. My first full sized quilt was designed with the idea that I would make two tops exactly the same size and then put a blanket inbetween. (As opposed to my first two quilts which were quilt as you go). I started this before I found TQS and discovered that you are supposed to make the back larger than the front :whistle: . One side is very bright and has quite small piecing and the quilting doesn't really show up on it, and the other side was much larger piecing, softer colours and the quilting was designed to compliment this. This was pretty successful, although I probably spent longer crawling around the floor lining things up and pinning them into place. (I also think that I ended up adding a narrow scrappy border to the bright & busy side after the main 'bones' of the quilting design was put in, as it drew in a bit smaller.
Too Loud Man


Dog Rose


close up of the quilting - not finished, this is the main 'bones' as I call them.

[Jennifer D.]

I'm feeling quite proud of myself today. I just finished a bag! I've never attempted anything 3D before - as I had never been taught to sew garments or other wearable objects. I found this Jinny Beyer pattern and just had to try it. There are so many imperfections it's not even funny but I don't care :cheer: I'll probably use it to carry paperwork to the office since my current bag is falling apart....I'd love to use it at my next quilt show but I'm not sure if my poor construction can handle the weight of all my goodies on the way back home :silly:

Here's the bag and lining before final assembly. I had no idea there were going to be so many pockets! I've never worked with zippers before and there is a hidden pocket and 2 main zipper pockets in the lining and final zipper to close the bag itself!



Here's the finished bag



Don't think I'll try to make another bag in the future - but it was a good learning experience :-) Think I'll stick to nice, flat, zipper free quilts

[Jennifer D.]

Rosemary that is a nice bright quilt! I really like it :-)

~ Jen

[wendy w.]

smashing bag