WIP Wednesday

You could just look at last week's post. 

I'd love to get back into the swing of quilting, but it just isn't happening.  I am buying bits of fabric here and there and intend to buy even more next week  But as for time for sewing?

It's just not happening.  The house is still so unorganized from the move, I'm spending my weeks back in the old city at the office hoping that eventually I'll get answers on a move to the office closer to home and I'm almost done my training for the half marathon - which is FINALLY this Sunday.  Then a week off for good behaviour.

Then?  I've got all of December (practically) off from work.  I am going to quilt quilt quilt.  I can't wait.

So, bear with me for another week and half and then I'll be active again!

Happy Thanksgiving & retreat photos

First off, Happy Thanksgiving for all the Americans in my life.

Also, I thought I'd post some pictures from my quilt retreat. Yes.  The one back in May. 

This is where I was set up.It looks like a big mess, but I'm sewing together a king sized quilt top.  I haven't decided yet if it'll become a duvet cover or a quilt.  I have the batting and some backing for it, but that's a LOT of quilting for someone to do. and my little machine won't handle that.

Here's the setup in the communit centre.  It was a great big space and everyone had so much room to work.  I can't wait to go again next year!  (already signed up and paid)

This was one of my favorite quilts.  She was laying it out on the last day and it looks so great.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to ask her for any information about the pattern because I'd love to make one like it.  Maybe I have to just suck it up and figure something out on my own.

I believe one of the quilt guilds in town made this quilt for the town's centenial celebration in 2009. 

I'm starting to love black and white quilts with a single colour.  So pretty.

We had quilts hung everywhere and such a great range of patterns and colour.

And such beautiful traditional quilts

And some stunning modern ones

And thankfully room for me to lay out the quilt I was working on.  I'm so happy with how this one turned out.  I think I'm going to have to go ahead and finish it up asap.

This was my first quilt retreat ever.  If you've never been to one, I suggest going.  This one was an entire weekend long.  We started Friday and quit Sunday around noon.  I got SO much done.  I finished up everything I had to work on and was helping Mom work on a purse she was making for my niece on Sunday morning.  I gained so much in the way of tips, encouragement, laughter and new quilting friends. 

WIP wednesday

Imagine that.  I'm here on a Wednesday AND I've got WIPs to post.  Shocking, right?

Wait, you probably can't see that for the cat, right?

First, we'll start out with what I found when we cleaned the garage to move.  I found these:

An old stack and slash from a class I took years ago.  I'm not sure I'm fond of the colours now, but I'll still finish it.  Funny story, I though the quilt top was long lost, so I used the backing I'd bought for it as well as the varigated thread I picked up for the quilting.  Oh well, more shopping for me, right?

A yellow brick road quilt.  I apologize for the quality of this picture.  Ideally it would've been taken in much better light and not on my living room carpet.  However, we were having ridiculous winds that day (ahhhh Chinooks) and outdoors was not a feasible option.  I'll be finishing this up as a baby quilt for a friend.

This is a lap quilt I made at the quilt retreat in the spring.  It was much quicker than I thought it would be - once I got it laid out.  It was random fat quarters from my stash and I bought yardage for the border and the background bits.

And finally, some Christmas stars.  I also finished this up at the quilt retreat in the spring. 

So as you can see, I have a lot of quilt sandwiches to make and quilting to complete.  Can you tell that's my not favorite part of the process?  But at least they're all smaller and therefore easier to work with on my home sewing machine.

Finally - my FINISHED postage stamp quilt

I started this as part of P.S. I Quilt's postage stamp quilt-along.  If you followed that link, you'll see that it started in January.  Granted, January 2011 so I'm finishing it within a year but still.

I had it quilted by a long arm quilter.  The pattern is made up of dragonflies and loops. She did a fantastic job!

An explanation and some geese

I started posting again in early October.  Then we moved.  I'm just now kind of getting settled.  I say settled because neither my husband nor I have our computers set up.  In fact, I took pictures of some of my quilts last week, but I was unable to upload the pictures because the cable for the camera was in this this pile:

Turns out, it wasn't exactly in That pile.  It was off to the left of the picture, under the paper?  There was another similar pile of cables.  Yup, we're organized like that.  There are all nicely wound up though, aren't they?

My computer is actually set up.  The problem?  The room it's set up in doesn't have any connection to the internet.  So I'm using my laptop which isn't a problem at all - I'm using it for work anyway.  I'm just a creature of habit and my habit is to blog from my desktop.  I wish I had a better explanation for that. 

I have taken some pictures with my phone that I'll share with you.  On the labour day weekend, I had a mini quilt retreat with my Mom.

I made geese.

A lot of geese.  And this is only a small portion of what I'll need for the entire quilt.  I think I need 12 strips?  43 geese per strip...



This project all started with a ridiculous piece of fabric from my grandmother's stash.  Mom inherited it and we looked at it and couldn't even figure out what the pattern was supposed to be. 

That fabric at the bottom of the picture?  That's what started it all.  Is that pineapples?  Airplanes?  Trees?  WHAT???

Regardless, it started a search in an effort to save it.  All of the fabric for this quilt is from my stash and Mom's stash, with the majority of it (I believe) coming from Grandma's stash.  It's going to be a twin size when it's done and it will use almost all of the ugly ugly fabric.  woo hoo.

So. Friday is my day off.  What should I do on my day off?  Work on the geese?  Move the computers to their ultimate destination and get them all set up?  Go thrift store shopping for fabric or stuff for the house?  Finally hit the quilt store in town?

Up tomorrow?  Some quilts I finally found in the move, and I finally finished my postage stamp quilt.  Yay me.  There WILL be pictures (finally!)