Back from Quilt Retreat

I spent three wonderful days at the Red Barn Retreat in Coldsprings, TX.  Good food, good friends and lots of quilting.  I took a lot of pictures, so I am going to spread them out throughout the week.

As you can see, the weather was beautiful and hot.  There are four hummingbird feeders on the front porch.  I do not have a lot of pictures of birds, because they fly really fast and they were very busy fighting with each other.  The Hummingbirds and Red Birds are always a delightful site.  The owners of the Red Barn feed them well, too.

Below are just a few of the quilts that hang on the walls inside.  There are many more and one on all twenty-four beds.  So, when we leave, they still look pretty.

That is all for today, I just wanted to give you a little eye-candy.

A Rag Quilt for Aunt Letha

Aunt Letha is my only living Aunt on my Mother's side.  She is my DM's younger sibling by seven years.  I had not seen her in years and was going to be near her small town for a weekend.  We arranged to get together for a visit at her home.  During our conversation, we noted that we are only ten years apart.  For those of you doing the math, yes, my DM married at 15 and had me at 17.  Unfortunately, she passed away at the age of 53. 

My Aunt had five children of her own and always had a house full of dogs and cats.  She gave me a baby poodle in 1976, which I named Ledet.  Ledet was my perfect fur baby for ten years.  

Anyway, this occasion called for a quilt.  I made my first Rag Quilt as a gift for my DA.

I used two layers of soft flannel with a cotton batting in between.  It went together quickly and washed beautifully.

Golfing Quilt Anyone

One of my BF had a 60th Birthday Party for her DH.  He loves to golf.  I went on the hunt for golfing fabric in person and online.  I see it everywhere now.  I wonder if I had anything to do with that.  By the time I got the fabric in my hand, I had to go into rush mode.  I used the pattern "Take Five" and it went together easily and made a nice lap size quilt.  He seemed to really like it.

As I said, I was in a hurry, so I just turned the backing to the front and hand stitched it down as the binding.  I love a good double fold binding, hand stitched to the back, but it wasn't to be this time.

The back.

Texas Wildflower Quilt Project Ready For Retreat

Saturday was our 34th Wedding Anniversary, so I spent the day with Sweetie.  Sunday afternoon, I wandered into the sewing room to work on a project for retreat in two weeks.  I am trying not to wait until the day before to get everything ready.  After working all day, it is a pain, even when I am excited about going. 
In July, My BQF and I hit three QS in one day.  Two were in The Woodlands and one was in Old Town Spring.  One had a display of quilts made with Texas Wildflower fabric.  It was a simple pattern and I ask some questions (and purchased all the fabrics and more).  They were kind enough to give me a drawing they had made up to help me.  This is the second quilt I plan on sewing at Retreat.

The Texas Highway Department plants these Wildflowers all along our Highways.

Here are the directions using a finished 4" block for the Texas Wildflower Quilt (with my notations).  The layout was 9 blocks by 12 blocks with a 1' border of orange and a 3" border of wildflowers.  The finished quilt would be around 44 1/2" x 56 1/2".

I decided to make mine in 6" finished blocks,  9 blocks wide and 12 blocks long.  My 1st border will be a 2" orange and then a 4" wildflower border.  It should finish at about 66" x 84".

Here are all the pieces, ready to go to retreat.  This is a better picture of the colors.  I have been wanting to use orange in a quilt for a while now.  I'll share the finished top in a later post.

High Heeled Feet

I was going thru my pictures and came across one of my favorites.  It is not a quilt, but it has potential as a great art quilt subject.  I was in Grand Junction, CO a few years ago on a short, working vacation.  We wondered downtown and it was filled with sculptures from the Grand Junction Public Art Works.  Below is a picture of my favorite.

It is "High Heeled Feet" by Clee Richeson .

It was purchased by Benge's Shoe Store on Main Street and is on permanent display just outside the store near the street.  It rained and the sculpture is filled with water.

I couldn't leave town without visiting the LQS, Quilter's Corner at 421 Colorado Ave.  The shop was full of beautiful quilts, fabric and nice people. 

BQ Quilt for Retreat

I walked into my LQS on Friday and saw a beautiful quilt in the BQ pattern put out by Maple Island Quilts.  It was made in fabrics designed by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex.  They were out of some of the fabrics in the quilt.  That was ok, because they contained a lot of green.  Green is not my favorite color.  However, there was a set of fabrics with blue and purple.  My favorite colors. 

The larger piece with the selvedge attached is the last border.

I'm making some progress. 

All the pieces cut for twelve blocks and two of the borders.  I just had to put together one square to see how it looked.

I'll put together the other eleven blocks at a Retreat in three weeks.  I like to have everything cut for my projects before the retreat.  It makes things go faster and I am less likely to make a mistake or run short on fabric.

A Spiderman Quilt for DGS

My DGS is madly in love with anything Spiderman.  So, when I saw this panel at Walmart, I had to get it.  This would be a great project to practice my free motion quilting on.  How hard could it be to follow the outline of Spiderman and draw a few spider webs?

How hard indeed.  Halfway through, I called my quilter BF and was laughing so hard that I was crying.  I told her that I had tortured Spiderman and then went back and murdered him.  Those easy webs had to be taken out and drawn on with chalk for another attempt.  Luckily, my DGS thinks all of my quilts are beautiful, especially if they are for him.

When I gave the quilt to my DGS, He threw himself on it and said, "Take my picture, Grandma."

A Kitty Quilt for Sam

I made this quilt, because I saw one at a quilt show for sale.  I hesitated and it was gone.  My stash contains an abundance of cat fabric and I am a quilter.  Just a thought, I could make my own.  When I made this quilt, I did not know the pattern had a name.  Later, I saw several variations called, "Warm Wishes". 

While I was working on this quilt, I saw several Black & White Kitties in the fabric.  This reminded me of my beloved Kitty of 15 yrs.  He showed up at our house in 1989, as a tiny baby.  My daughter fell in love with him and he stayed 15 yrs.  As a baby, he was named Samantha, but it turned out that he was a Samuel.  My DD use to dress him up.  He would come to me, whining, in his dress, to tell on her.  If he thought living with DD was hard, in 1991, DS was born.  DS, at 2 yrs., cut off all of Kitty's whiskers and eyebrows.  Later, DS put kitty in a popcorn can with lid and even later, in a backpack and then the popcorn can.  We had several talks about dead and gone forever.  And no more popcorn can lids allowed.  Kitty always slept with DD.  When DD moved out in 2002, Kitty became desperate, he began sleeping with DS.  All went well, until we went into Daylight Savings Time.  My DS would complain that Kitty would wake him up an hour too early.  We never did find Kitty's DST switch.

This quilt hung in our 2009 Guild Show.  I decided to name it," In Memory of Samuel Kitty."

Kitty's favorite place to be on Christmas morning.

Designed this Quilt for my first Grandbaby

In 2002, I was told that I would have a new role, Grandmother.  It wasn't long before we knew the little bundle of joy would be female.  Time to make a quilt.  This was the first quilt that I designed from scratch.  The theme was to be "Kitties and Rainbows", which later became the name of the quilt.

Here is my DGD (aka: Princess) examining my work.  When I put it on the floor, she danced on it.  I can't think of a greater compliment.

Her quilt hung in our Guild Show in 2003.  I did three obvious no-nos and the Judges were kind enough to point out each one.  If I had known I was making a quilt to hang in a show, I would have done better.  It was my only finished quilt at the time that had not been shown.  The Judges did say some kind things about it and it was enjoyed by many people.  It is one of my favorites and it always makes me smile.  It  was included on the scavenger hunt sheet for the young attendees as "Find cats wearing sunglasses".

 

The Judges did like that I had carried over the theme to the back.