This week I’ve had lots of opportunities to play. I was at a three day quilt retreat at the Nottawasaga Inn this weekend with 39 other quilting friends. It was great! Good food, good company and lots of inspiration.
I managed to finish off one quilt (I just had the binding to do) and complete another quilt top.
The first one is up-cycled denim and homespun plaids It’s based on a quilt that I saw in a “Quilt It…Today” magazine and I knew I had lots of denim to use and some homespun scraps as well. It took more homespun that I anticipated (I made it bigger than the one in the magazine, so I didn’t have accurate fabric requirements) but since it meant a trip to the fabric store, that’s OK. If I make this again – and I have lots of denim to recycle – I think I’ll use some rectangles as well as squares since I had to baste many of the intersections to ensure that they met correctly. I hope to sell this quilt and use the proceeds to fund more supplies for Quilts of Valour Quilts (see my website: FabriArts.com to see other Quilts of Valour I’ve made).
The quilt top is a black and white “Bento Box” style quilt. I had cut the fabric on Thursday, before I left for the retreat, so I was all ready to stitch when I finished the binding on the denim/homespun quilt. I’m quite pleased with it – the patterned squares seem to float on the plain black and white background!
Monday and Tuesday this week, I was lucky enough to attend
two workshops with Susan Cleveland. The first day, we created a small quilt “Happy Daisies” which uses heavy weight threads to embellish the edges of the daisy applique and also to decorate prairie points.
On Tuesday we learned how to do “Piping Hot Binding”. I was able to completely finish the project to display at “Show and Share” on Tuesday night at the guild meeting (OK, I admit that I added the hand embroidery stitches around the border last night while watching TV).
Tomorrow, I get to go to a quilt show put on by the Mississauga Quilters Guild so I’m looking forward to seeing projects by many of the participants in last weekend’s retreat. On Saturday, I’ve got another workshop, this time sponsored by the small guild I belong to (The Pieceful Night Quilters Guild). This one uses freezer paper piecing to create a quilt with various houses. Paper piecing is my favourite method for making blocks, so I’m looking forward to this workshop.
Fortunately, I have more than one sewing machine, since my newest one decided to up and quit on me. It’s going to be expensive to fix –they tell me it’s the main circuit board that’s blown. It’s also just out of warranty, so I’m not pleased…this is the second time it’s happened so I don’t feel very confident in this machine any more 😦
jmStitching 
Hi, I love the denim and homespun quilt you made from the magazine Quilt It….Today. I was wondering if I could get the pattern? I would love to make that as, I too, have tons of denim to use. I looked on line, but could not find a match. Any help you can provide would be awesome! Thanks again!
Just cut the denim squares 6 1/2 inches and surround it with 2 1/2 inch squares. Then sew the blocks together, Don’t really need a pattern. You could also sew 6 1/2 inch by 2 1/2 inch rectangle onto opposing sides, then add the opposite opposing sides with the 2 1/2 inch pieced square. Easy.