Quilt Retreat

I went to my first ever quilt retreat at the weekend. It was a bit like a cross between a school camp and a work conference, but there was no flying fox and no boring lectures.  It was just a weekend of sewing with friends.  Fortunately the retreat was still in town, so it was quite easy to get real coffee each morning.

I arrived at the retreat at 6pm on Friday night and some people were already sewing up a storm.  A number of my friends had taken 3, 4 or even 5 projects to retreat with them.  The supportive environment, and lack of family and pet distractions, resulted in some long overdue projects being finished at retreat. Here's a small selection of our weekend work from Instagram.

I only took 2 projects. I chose to work on my la passacaglia and a new wool felt applique Christmas quilt.

I'm going use this great low volume background with a tiny bit of silver sparkle in it, and add a bit of red with gold sparkle.  It won't be all traditional Christmas fabrics, but I do want to incorporate these three above.  

I cut out all the leaves and birds, and started preparing some of the flowers.

I chose not to take my sewing machine, and instead did hand sewing all weekend.  I really enjoyed getting to know some of the guild members better, and look forward to going again next year.

Here's how my la passacaglia is looking now that I've joined some of the rosettes up:

And another section I've just started on:

 It feels good to be joining up the rosettes, but I'm still a long way from finished.  I'm quite slow at choosing the fabrics because I really don't want to have to unpick any rosettes.  Therefore I'm taking my time and choosing carefully, trying to balance the colours and patterns.

This is how my kitchen floor looks some days: