Spring 2014 Quilt Retreat

Last weekend a bunch of women from my guild went to Canton Quilt Retreat for a retreat. I had so much fun. It was really laid back with everyone working on our own projects. On Friday I focused on the Crosshatch Bag from Vintage Quilt Revival. I'm not a huge fan of paper piecing, but I loved this bag enough to give it another try. Catherine (the owner of the retreat center) is a Judy Niemeyer teacher and she showed me the JN way of paper piecing. I can't say that paper piecing is my favorite way of assembling a quilt block, but I'm no longer terrified of it. (Don't tell anyone, but I'm almost excited for the Fall workshop where we'll make a Judy Niemeyer table runner.)

I got all of the paper pieced bits done for my bag. Sadly I didn't check for pattern errors before leaving so I only got this far on my blocks. Thankfully the pattern gives you room for errors so I have enough of the light blue and white to recut with the proper measurements. I haven't had a chance to redo the middle section, but you can see that this block will look awesome when it's done.

Of course Friday before supper we went shopping. I found a cute charm pack for Bluebird Park. (Can I just say hedgehogs and fabric!!!!) I also found a jellyroll of Twenty-Three that had been marked down to twenty dollars and got a spool of grey thread to use for piecing and quilting. I find grey is becoming my go-to thread color for quilting.

Before the retreat I was able to finish piecing the top for my paint chip quilt. At the quilt shop I found a multi-colored pink thread, some batting, and backing so I was able to do the quilting on Saturday. I'm not completely in love with this quilt so I'm just sharing some sneak peaks right now. I tried several new things which I think is why I'm not loving this quilt. First off I used Quilter's Dream Cotton. Normally I use Warm & Natural, but the quilt shop only had Quilter's Dream. I've never had a batting pill as much as this one did. I'm sure it will look better when it's washed, but I've never had to wash my quilts before using them. (I know this is a horrible admission, but our apartment only has coin operated  laundry and we have really hard water here so I avoid washing my quilts if I can.) I also tried spiral quilting for the first time. The outer edges look decent, but it's obvious that I struggled at the start. (Note all those little white bits...that's the batting. Yuck!)

I found this red onion fabric on the clearance table for $3.75. The pinks and reds match the quilt top perfectly so the ladies on the retreat convinced me it was a good back. I'm still not sure about the onions, but they're growing on me. One of the ladies convinced me to use some of the leftovers for the binding. I loved only needing to cut four strips and the fabric looks really cute as a binding.

I'm going to try and get this quilt washed this week and maybe next Monday I'll be happy enough with it to show the final pictures.