Design Wall Monday::A Retreat

I'm just back from a quilting retreat this past weekend in a beautiful state park lodge.  It's a very popular retreat among the quilters in this area; for years the woman who organizes it had a waiting list and I feel very lucky that I somehow managed to get my name in.  We work in what I would guess is the hotel's ballroom, with plenty of room to spread out, more than adequate electrical plug-ins, and the comraderie that comes from spending two or three days doing what you love with about 90 other like-minded women. 

Even though there were so many quilters, the retreat is very well organized.  There are plenty of snacks and drinks provided, several ironing stations, cutting stations, and even a vendor on hand to supply anything the retreaters may have forgotten at home and provide a shopping opportunity without leaving the sewing room.  It's no wonder that everyone who attended this weekend's retreat signed up for the next one which is to be held in the spring.

I didn't get as much accomplished as I had hoped.  I had to go in for a full day of work on Friday, so I missed most of the the first day.  Oh well.  I did get eight of my album blocks put together.  The fabric I'm using is a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's called Civil War Homefront.  The picture above is giving the beautiful soft blues a greenish tint, unfortunately.

The colors are truer in this picture.  I love how this is going together.

I did a quick trip into town on Saturday morning and scored enough of the missing fabric to complete my kaleidoscope posy blocks, but by the time I finished the album blocks late on Saturday afternoon, I wasn't in any shape to begin the careful cutting I needed to do, so that project got put back into its box for another day.  Just knowing I have the right fabric to complete the quilt gave me quite a boost, though.

By Sunday morning I had moved on to hand sewing. I thought I'd post a picture of the difference a one little quarter inch makes.

On the right are 60 degree diamonds cut at 1.25" to finish at .75", measured from one parallel line to the other.  To the left are the same diamonds, but this time cut at 1.50" to finish at 1".  Pretty big difference, no?  It makes a huge difference in sewing, too.  I need to cut some more fabric to finish this little block.

You can see what others are working on this Monday by checking out Judy L.'s Patchwork Times blog.  And once again, thank you Judy for hosting this weekly event.