Retreat

This weekend our guild had an in-city retreat.  We've done this a couple of times now and it's been a blast.  The husband of one of our members has allowed us to use one of the big meeting rooms at his workplace.  So we get a wonderful room with lots of natural light and tables.

This retreat, one of our members made us presents.  She made these wonderful seam rippers with little pouches.  She custom made the bags to suit each of our preferences and she really got our tastes.  If you've never used on of these before, they're amazing for separating your blocks when chain piecing.

I took advantage of the fact that we were in a room with lots of tables and brought a few quilts to baste.  Hopefully you'll be seeing them finished in the not too distant future.

I also worked on Dear Jane.  Here are the blocks that I finished.  I also managed to get a few more pieced that are just waiting for a little applique to complete them.

Windsor Gardens

A second finish and the month has barely started!

This quilt is raw edge applique done as a quilt as you go project.  I took this as a class in at the quilt show in Houston.  I really love how it turned out especially when I consider I had no clue what I was making when I picked out these fun fabrics.

One Flower Wednesday

Well, I'm making slow progress on the garden but progress is progress.

If you want to see more hexagons, check out One Flower Wednesday.

Cape Cod

This was started at a retreat a couple of years ago as a break from a more complicated quilt that I was working on (Dear Jane).  Funnily enough, I'm still working on that one.  Hmmm.  Maybe I need fewer breaks on that one. :)

I did a wavy organic line quilting on the diagonal.  I really like how it turned out.  I'll definitely have to try this again.

Hexagon Love Continues

The love affair continues....

There are others in love with hexagons too!  There is even a whole website dedicated to these wonderful flowers.  If you want to see more, check out One Flower Wednesday.

Sadly, this is all I have to show for the past two weeks.  I wish I could have some fun and amazing tale of adventure but, nope, it was work  (and I won't even pretend that anyone but my co-workers are remotely interested).  Oh well, life is back to normal and now it can resume it's crafty goodness.

Hexagon Love

Remember the hexagons I fell in love with?  The love affair continues! 

Building Blocks - Set in seams

I was working on these blocks and someone looked at them and said eewww set in seams.  They're really quite simple to do and shouldn't scare you off from a block that you're interested.

So, I thought I'd do a little tutorial.

You start off by attaching the first piece the the centre block.

Leaving part of the seam undone.  I usually do not bother back stitching with this step.

The next piece is added just as you always would.

Same with the next piece.

And with the next piece.  You'll now have something that looks like this.  And now you see why we left part of that seam un-sewn.

Now you finish that last seam.  I usually don't bother with pining but have done that here so you can see how I fold the block for that last seam.  This is the seam when I backstitch to make sure nothing falls apart.  When I do the backstitching I overlap it with that first seam I've sewn.  This helps reduce some of the bulk in the seam but still secures everything.

And here is the sample block all pressed and ready to go.