Quilt Retreat Weekend

I went away for a quilt retreat this past weekend with my SIL and a good friend.  

It was about 2 hours away from home.  

We go every February and July. 

 It started out in July to celebrate my friends and my birthdays.  

Then we decided once a year was not enough so we planned a February one.  

I packed a lot of things but ended up workin on only one project.  

I make and trimmed SO MANY HST blocks!  

I spent all Thursday night and Friday sewing and trimming HST.  

I need to make 15 more blocks to have what I need for my Ocean Waves quilt.  

I brought one block so I would be able to lay them all out correctly before I sewed them.  

I got all 15 blocks worth of HST cut and trimmed to the correct size 

(Thank God for Block Lock rulers!)

Friday we took a break and went to Seven Sisters quilt shop.  

Always a fun trip!  

(I always look bald when I pull my hair back!)

I didn't take a lot of pictures as I was too busy sewing. 

I made some mistakes on Saturday so put the project down and went to bed.  

I got up on Sunday and fixed them, but that took me over 3 hours of ripping and resewing 

and ripping and resewing some more.  

I finally finished 7 of the 15 I need for this quilt.  

I guess they will go with me to the next retreat! 

 It is going to be pretty when it is finished.  

I am cutting into my hoarded, beloved, Neptune for some of the blocks too.  

I didn't have enough of the navy to make the whole thing out of that but 

I did cut up some of the navy and all the colors.

Cori finished 2 quilt tops for the veterans.

My SIL, Mary, finished this quilt top for her grandson, using the Double Slice pattern

She got all the applique fused to this llama quilt top but still needs to stitch around it all.

She cut all the flowers and letters on her Cricut.  

I love how they turned out.

That llama face is adorable!

She got much of the applique fused on this under the sea quilt for her grand daughter too.  

She still needs her fin and everyone needs their faces finished.

So I finished 7/15 OW blocks and they got much bigger projects finished.  

'm still happy about getting as much done as I did.  

It is so boring to sew the same thing over and over but I know the quilt will be amazing and 

it is going to go on my bed!

~XOP~

Double Finish

You saw the Totoro quilt I made for my new great nephew.  

Well my other niece just had a baby too (they are SILs).  

I had not made a quilt for her first baby as my SIL (her mother) is also a quilter. 

 I got UNENDING grief over that from her, LOL. 

 How those babies needed a quilt from their Aunt Pam 

(Never mind their grandma had mad them a gazillion!!)  

So I decided that when this new baby came I would make one for each of the girls.

I thought this mermaid was perfect for the "big" sister.  

I found the cutest gold metallic stripe for the binding.

The mermaid pattern is by Kidgiddy and can be bought here, if you need to make one too.

Just note that I designed my pattern around the mermaid.

I also mirror imaged her which is not in the original pattern.

One mermaid was done with silver metallic accents

The other was done with gold metallic accents.

This is the finished quilt front.

I was kind of excited about this label too.  

The floss was variegated and I added in some sparkly filament.  

I think this silly girl loved the minky back the best!

For her sister's quilt I decided to keep going with fantasy and made a unicorn quilt.  

The unicorns are paper pieced (like the mermaids).  

I continued the sparkly fabric too and used it liberally!  

I was super excited to find the gradated fabric that I used for the inner border and the binding. 

   

Notice that some of the unicorns have the same stripe for horns that I used for the other binding!

Kathy, of Threadbear Quilting, quilted it with magic wands in variegated colors and it is just perfect!

These were so fun to make!

Pattern is by Unicornharts and can be found here if you need to make one too.

The back is castles and unicorns in flannel.

More variegated floss (without sparkle) for the hand embroidered label.

One happy little baby wrapped up in her new quilt!

I am so happy I can finally share these finishes with everyone!

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Happy Stitching!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

Ever have weak moment when you agree to do something and then regret it?  

Well that was me recently.  

A woman at my church asked me if I would put a quilt kit top together for her.  

You see she is soooooo busy and just doesn't have the time.  

She wanted to donate it to the church to raffle to raise money to 

support the young man from our parish in the seminary.  

Apparently they have no income other than what gets donated to the fund to provide for them. 

 So, dang it, that is a good cause.  

Give it to me and I will try my best to get to it.  

This past Sunday she remembered the kit and now I have it.  T

hankfully it is not too big and I am really hoping that I can get it put together by Saturday night 

so I can give it back to her on Sunday.  

My fear is that if I manage to do that it may encourage her to give me more.  

Honestly, it has not been difficult and is small.  

The cutting was tedious but it is going together quickly.  

I just don't need more of someone else's work to do.  Not sure how I am going to say that nicely.  

She did say to me that since I didn't work it would be easier for me to do it.  

Say what???  

I told her I work...full time.  So maybe that will help.

The pattern calls for many pieces and they are all labeled, 

hence the little blue tags you can see on my pile.  

Got these sewn together on Monday night.  

Last night I sewed the upper and lower border blocks and laid it out on my design wall,

aka the hallway!

There is a border that goes between the center and the top and bottom pieced borders too.

This is the pattern so you can see what it is going to look like when it's finished.

I have sewing the binding on my mermaid quilt as a February goal.  

I did get it all sewn on to the quilt and now am working on the hand sewing part. 

 That is my least favorite part.  

It hurts my left hand and shoulder to do it.  

It is easier when I glue the binding down and then I don't have to hold it as I do the hand stitching.  That seems to help. 

 I LOVE that the binding is metallic!  

The sister mermaids are gold and silver.  I had to add faces too.  I just drew them on.

I have the binding about 3/4 hand stitched down. 

 I am pretty excited to gift this one. 

 I have the exact same fabric on the back only it is minky. 

 It is so soft.  

These are the things I have been working on.  I will link up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

What are you working on?  

Please use the blue linky button to share your projects!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

I have been sewing like a mad woman I tell you!! 

 I can't show most of what I have been working on as they are Christmas presents. 

 I did manage to finish two baby quilt tops though. 

 I will show you those instead.  

Since I have a gazillion baby quilts to make no one will know who these are for, right?

  I am totally going off grid and making what I want to make, nursery theme be damned!  haha.

First up is the unicorn baby quilt.  

I made four paper pieced unicorn heads.  

The pattern is by Unicornharts.  

You can find her pattern here on Craftsy if you need some unicorns in your life too!

This one is my favorite! 

 I made all of the backgrounds out of metallic fabrics and most of the horns.

I was thrilled to find the pastel rainbow ombre fabric for that inner border and will bind with that too.

It is not a big quilt, but babies are not big, right?  

For the borders I used the background on the opposite corner on each of the unicorns.  

Does that make sense?  

So the background of the blue unicorn became the border of the teal unicorn and so forth.

Look how great that pastel, rainbow, ombre works for that inner border!!

Next up is the Mermaid quilt.  

You best like Mermaids and LOVE pink for this one, LOL.

The Mermaids were paper pieced.  

I LOVED this pattern by kidgiddy.  It went together easily. 

 It was time consuming, as all paper pieced patterns are, but it came together very easily. 

 I would make this pattern again.  

If you need your own mermaids, you can find the pattern here.

I chose the theme of silver and gold.  

The mermaid on the left being the gold one and the one on the right silver.  

Their tails have metallic silver or gold as does their top and hair.

  I LOVE these girls!

Here is what I put together for the quilt.  

Very simple, but the pp of the mermaids was what took up the most time.  

I have the pink mermaid background fabric in minky for the back of this one.  

As I said lots of pink! 

 Did you happen to notice the metallic stripe in the unicorn horn?  

That's what I will bind this one in!!

I am planning on doing some hand quilting around the mermaids to make them stand out a bit.  Perhaps my LAQ could put some additional batting behind them to help them "puff" out, we will see.

She is magic so you never know what she will decide to do!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

Your turn.

What are you working on?

Please share with us so we can be inspired too.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up