The Magic of Stitching Retreats!

I'm just home from a 4-day stitching retreat in rural central Ohio!  Do you have the opportunity to get away from your at-home sewing area and devote yourself to some stitching?  I hope so because I find it's a great way to refresh my state of mind!

I've been hosting and attending retreats for many years.  I've graduated (finally) from taking more than two people could accomplish in the allotted time to a reasonable assortment that keeps me busy and delivers a morale boost of reaching a few goals (not necessarily "finishes").   This time I also limited myself to hand work -- easier to transport myself!

Sometimes I use a retreat as a time to start that new BIG project, but this time I focused on six projects with the goal to make progress on each.  The first was a small wallhanging I whipped up last week from a long-hoarded fabric and maple leaf blocks left over from my big fall leaf quilt finished 15 years or more ago.  Because I didn't have to do any piecing, it was set together in an afternoon and quilted in two more sessions.  I want to hang it during February (the beginning of maple syrup season here in Northeast Ohio) so the first retreat project was to finish the binding and add a casing!

Now it's ready to hang!!

Finishing a project was a great start to the weekend!

And now I can let go of the hoard of "maple sugaring time" fabric! 

Leave a comment below if you'd like to buy a hunk off of me!

Then I turned to an old teaching sample -- these 12 blocks were buried on my UFO shelf with the book.  Before the weekend, I pieced the rest of the background blocks and finished prepping a couple of the circles for applique.  During the weekend, I worked on the applique a few blocks at a time between other projects.  Now all of them are appliqued and ready to be trimmed and organized into a small wallhanging when I get motivated -- having the blocks ready will make it easier to get going again.

Friday morning after a good night's sleep, it was time to take on one of the big goals for the weekend -- get the borders attached to the "mystery" EPP quilt top I made last year. It was designed and shared by Jemima's Creative Quilting in Australia.  

(She will be starting a new one February 6, 2023 -- preliminary info HERE!!)

I appliqued the pointy edges and machine stitched the straight edges so having an empty table to work on was the main reason for doing this during the retreat!?!

I pieced the border print to maintain the up/down direction of the print all the way around the quilt top so to make the best use of the yardage I had.  That gave me the opportunity to share a trick I use when matching for invisible seams with other retreat participants.  I took photos so I can share it with you, too!

My strips are cut from repeated sections of the print and are longer than needed.

Lay the two pieces to be joined end to end, wrong side up and press back about l/2" on one.

Flip both strips to the right side.

Now move the right hand (pressed under seam) onto the left hand strip.

It you focus on the pinkish flowers repeating along the middle of the strip, it will be easier to follow what is happening.

Keep moving the right end towards the left until it aligns with the print on the left strip.

My finger is just under the edge of the right side so you can see how easy it is to achieve a good match.

Without moving the left strip, flip the right strip right side down onto the left strip holding the seam in place so it doesn't shift.  One of the other gals suggested using a temporary sticky thing like glue or two-sided tape -- great idea!!

Time to stitch!

I press the seam open to make it flatter and even less obvious.

The seam is at the end of the pin, but I can't see it -- can you??

Now I need to organize a backing -- preferably out of my stash -- and decide whether to machine or hand quilt this one.

I also layered my Homage to Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top -- big empty table again!  I've decided to machine quilt this top and have a plan for that in my head -- hope to start next week!  There is a regional show in April where I'd like to exhibit it.

Once I had those four goals accomplished I lost a lot of my focus but I had a couple other projects in progress with me so puttered with them prepping for next steps.

When I got home Sunday noon I was still pumped to stitch so spent part of the afternoon organizing borders for a tablerunner UFO I'm upcycling into a twin size quilt for a charitable project -- more about that another time.  

This week, I'll focus on quilting the Sakura strippy quilt top I made earlier this month out of my 2 1/2" strip stash (see the last post). 

The retreat has energized me and I just want to spend all day with a needle!!

It was great to see what other quilters are doing -- there were some great projects happening and I have a few new ideas (which I don't really need) which adds to the energy!

Have a good week!!

Mary

PS -- If you live in central Ohio, the Central Ohio Modern Quilt Guild is hosting the lovely and creative Nicole Young of Lillyella Stitchery at this event next month!!  

The venue is gorgeous and the tickets are limited to 100 so don't hesitate! 

I'm Retreat Bound Again!

For the past couple years, I've been confining the retreat projects I haul out of the house to hand stitching only!  It's so much easier to pack and I'm more relaxed while at the retreat which makes it more fun to be away from the studio.

This weekend, I'm working on my 2019 #sharksdinnerBOM blocks.

I went back through my blog photo archive and was surprised to discover how few pictures I've shared on the blog?!?   

I shared lots of pics on my Instagram feed!! 

But these are the only four process pictures I shared on the blog?!? 

All my tile fabric assortments began with a large scale multicolor print from Kaffe Fassett.  I then worked to use other non-Kaffe prints and along the way, many of my "nature" themed prints started to become a regular feature of the tiles.

It has been a "sew my stash" project from beginning to end!!

These English paper pieced "tiles" were designed by Elisabeth @lemonshark in Switzerland and shared via her blog during 2019 -- twelve designs in all.  Each tile has the same exterior shape, but all of them have a different interior breakdown.  Then everyone making the tiles laid out the darks, mediums, and lights in different ways individualizing the finished look of each tile!  You can check some of them out by searching the hashtag #sharksdinnerBOM2019 on Instagram -- here's a link. (Scroll way down to see some of the variations more easily.)  

She did not however design a "setting" for the tiles so everyone has taken their own approach to this step. Kim, in England, has been designing crazy quilt looking backgrounds to English paper piece around each tile as she squares the blocks up.  I've been a bit intimidated by her ideas and in awe of her energy but one of her designs inspired me to design (a much simpler) machine pieced background for my blocks.

You can see Kim's amazing background HERE!

Working on graph paper to full scale, I designed a set of triangles that will frame each tile.  I contemplated random low volume fabrics but settled on black and white to emphasize the drama of each tile.

After the first test block to make sure my idea worked, I set to work every afternoon for the past two weeks piecing the backgrounds and basting the tiles to the backgrounds in preparation for a weekend of hand stitching to applique them in place. 

Each corner consists of a triangle with a mitered stripe border to I was able to use my Set-In Piecing Simplified tricks and my Marti Michell mitering tool*** to perfect results! 

This is what each finished background looks like -- the tiles are 18" across and I left that big empty center primarily because I didn't want to "waste" any of my terrific low volume white and gray prints!

I alternated the "sashing" borders between black and white which turned out to be better than I expected!  It sets off each tile beautifully.  The position of the tiles in the final layout isn't set in stone at this point, but the primarily "cool" tiles will definitely alternate with the primarily "warm" tiles as you see here.

Once a background was finished, I spent time removing all the papers which were thread basted in place.  (Sorry "glue lovers" but I don't like glue basting one bit and I've given it a fair try.)

Then with the background laying perfectly flat, I positioned the tile and basted it 1/8" from the folded edge.

As I left for the weekend, all twelve tiles are basted and ready for a weekend of stitching. 

The finished blocks are about 20" square (my design wall is not long enough, so they are overlapped here) and I did a quick trial stitch earlier this week and am predicting it will take about 90 minutes maximum to finish each block!

I'm feeling confident I'll return home with twelve big finished blocks ready to set together and contemplate borders!  (I packed a couple other hand work projects just in case, too!?!)

So often when we start a BOM based on someone else's ideas/designs, we become disenchanted for various reasons.  That happened with this project for me -- 7 months ago I couldn't imagine how I would pull these tiles into a cohesive quilt so I was losing interest.  It felt like I would end up with a bunch of big pillow covers!?!  Individually, I loved the blocks -- but together???  Not so much.

As I shared my frustration, several of the makers on Instagram encouraged me to keep at it with helpful comments that made me aware of what they were seeing that I didn't see.

I put all the tiles up on the auxiliary design wall to allow them to simmer in the back of my mind.  That's when I realized the warm versus cool color palettes and how much fun I was having incorporating some of my nature prints.  So I forged on with a new sense of purpose -- balance the warm and cool blocks plus include a nature print in every tile.

When I basted that first tile onto the background, it felt right!  Can't find better words than that?

The backgrounds are unifying the crazy fabric/color scheme so much better than I expected.

I'm so glad I shared my frustration and grateful for everyone's input.

This is going to be an awesome quilt!!

So if you feel letdown about a project, get it out and put it up someplace where your subconscious can work on it.  Share it with folks and get their perspective!  Carry on!!

Hope your weekend is a pleasant one!

Mary

***EDIT April 2025

Marti Michel closed her business in late in 2024 and while some shops may still have a stock of her templates, you can also find them on Ebay and Etsy. 

The Retreat Aftermath!!

Many of you attend an annual stitching retreat and some of you are lucky enough to have the time and resources to do it several times a year.  I'm just home from the annual retreat with "my people" -- a group of students who were long time customers in my shop and we go back a long way!  They are inspiring to be with because they are so independent and creative.  I also love to see all the friendships that started in workshops and classes at my shop -- still going strong and growing!! 

The rural setting we enjoy is lovely no matter the time of year -- I took this picture early Friday morning with the sun shining across the snow dusted fields.  The large lone tree to the right is an oak, a favorite of mine -- I think farmers often left them growing in pastures because they live a long time and offer shade to animals during the summer.  Love the shadows in this scene!!

Two years ago, we expanded the length of the weekend and now start on Thursday morning.  As you can see, it doesn't take us long to take over the large sunny room and fill it up with stuff!!

Most of the group devoted Friday to shopping as there are several quilt shops in the area.

Saturday, it was all business and the room was full of cheerful conversation and serious stitching.

I decided to focus on making progress if not finishing an assortment of older projects.

The oldest was Doug's Market Ties -- quilted and bound, ready for a casing and a new life on the wall in my studio instead of on a shelf in my studio!  Working on it this weekend brought up some happy memories of my husband's cheerful attitude!

I layered up this giant beauty -- we always make sure there are two or three empty tables available for layering up and cutting out and problem solving sessions -- plus I rarely have another set of hands around the house to help with one this large (81" by 90"). 

Now I have no excuses -- the hand quilting can commence!

This is a close-up of a stack of placemats I pieced several years ago.  I love piecing them but find myself grumbling through the finishing process.  With a couple weddings coming up this year, I decided to push forward finally -- that wasn't so bad!?!  A second set that was still in the construction stage also got enough attention to get it back on track -- hopefully I'll find another 1/8th yard of the border print in my stash as I'm short 3 squares. 

One of the highlights of the weekend was a surprise birthday party.  I think it went something like this . . . . "since we are all together this weekend and someone is having a milestone birthday this year" . . . . I was so surprised that I could hardly put a coherent sentence together.

There was a singing hat?!? (Thank you for not making me take that home!)

There was a yummy cake!

There was a miniature topiary (long standing joke) which is a must-have for all important occasions.

And they gave me a quilt signed by everyone?!? 

This is only the third quilt someone has made for me.

I'm not sure it's the crowning event, but supper together on Saturday evening is always a happy affair.  By this point in the weekend, most of us are suffering from a serious carb overload but it's hard to pass up the country-style food.

At the end, we achieved a grand total of 119 goals (not the same thing as "finishes").

And we didn't have to drive home in a snow storm -- that was a welcome treat!!

I hope you have a "retreat" with your quilting friends in your future!

 

Mary

 

P.S. My actual birthday is still 3 months off but I'm partying all year!!