Retreat Recovery

Since I came home from my last retreat, I've been working my butt off at the longarm, trying to get ahead of customer projects as the Christmas rush is starting.  I made good progress so far this week, and finally felt I could take a couple hours off this evening to spend time back in my sewing room. 

The Modern Guild Canada 150 quilt is still up on my wall.  Jigsawing my way through it, and it is slowly coming together. There are going to be a pile of Y-seams in the remaining section, in order to get it all together, but hopefully all will go smoothly. I only had to re-sew the first Y-seam twice.

Next up, assuming I can steal some more time this week, will be two of my current mystery projects, since clues for them came out this week.  I have to stay on top of those, because Bonnie Hunter's mystery starts next Friday and that's going to throw a big wrench into all my plans :)

When I find a few minutes I'll post some pictures of the finished tops from my various retreats. There are about 10 of them
Block Party
Edge of 17 shop hop
paper pieced stars
Merry Mayhem New Year's Day mystery
row-by-row
Christmas tree
paper pieced table runner
Banner
Disappearing Dresden
Kaffe handkerchiefs

Complete!!

This top has taken me about 3 years to finish.  I dragged if to every retreat I've been on since I started it,  but usually find something more interesting to work on. This time, I left an entire bag of projects at home, so when I finished my top on Friday I had little choice about what to work on.  So this one had to come out..

I'm pretty sure the others at the retreat were tired of hearing my complaints about all those little y-seams. But I finished the blocks before I went to bed Friday night,  and got the entire top assembled yesterday. DONE! And now to find a pattern for all the leftovers from this quilt.

Another Retreat

Day one at retreat number 3, and I am off to a good start.  Got step one done in one of my mystery quilts. And I made myself a banner for my business. I can hang this in my window when I don't have an appropriate seasonal quilt to put up. Now on to the next project.

I left one of my project bags at home this time which is disappointing.  But it has forced me into working on a quilt I've been avoiding for ages.  All the blocks are assembled now,  and i can move on to putting the quilt together today.

Mystery Time!

It's time once again for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt! The colours and amounts are posted over the weekend,  so it's time to start shopping. When I saw the colours,  my first thought was. "I'm definitely doing my own thing this year" .

But then I hunted through my stash,  and started pulling fabrics.  Since I don't want to do scrappy,  I was looking for options that have enough yardage - 1.5 to 3 yards in most cases.  That limited my options,  but I pulled out all the possibilities lurking on my shelves.

And after many trials and adjustments and switches of fabrics, this is what I came up with.  Look familiar?  That's right,  essentially Bonnie's colours. I guess she knows best :)

I'm pretty sure this is what I'm going with.  I'm not completely happy with the white - it has little dots of colour throughout. So I might do some shopping for a replacement. But I do want white. The beiges I tried made the quilt dull. And I might end up worth a different yellow,  if something jumps into my cart when I'm shopping for white .