Retreat Project Finishes

Happy Mother’s Day Weekend, everyone. I hope your hours are pleasantly filled either with friends and family visits or with time for leisurely sewing/crafting.

First of all, let’s congratulate Joan O. for winning a free quilting magazine. Like many of you, she is participating in the “Favorites” Block of the Month quilt along this year. She commented “Done” on April 30th, indicating the completion of BOM #3 — “Weathervane” variation and “Ribbon Star.” The instructions for BOM #4 are on the “Favorites BOM QAL” page of this blog – happy sewing!

I attended a quilting retreat during the third week of April with nine quilting friends. The fellowship was superb, the quilt shop hopping opportunities were unparalleled, and the dedicated time for sewing yielded beautiful results. My main sewing goal during the retreat was making blocks for a Christmas quilt that will be published in Quiltmaker next fall. So sorry — I can’t show you a picture, it’s a secret until published, but I know you will love it!

Besides buckling down on the Christmas quilt, I worked on turning two groups of fabrics into baby/lap quilts. The “Giant Star” instructions were published in the August/September 2020 issue of Fons & Porter’s Quick + Easy Quilts. (Click here to purchase the magazine from Quilting Daily. Click here to read the original blog post about the publication of these quilts.) The design is fat quarter friendly; you need a fat quarter each of four fabrics plus background fabric. Since the fabric companies generously sent me half yard cuts, I had enough to re-make the quilts. I determined to sew the star patchwork while on retreat. Done!

And my goal for this past week was adding borders, quilting, and binding them. I am so happy they are now complete. The quilting pantograph on the red, tan, and blue quilt is “Becker’s Shooting Star” and can be purchased from Urban Elementz. I quilted spirals freehand on the gray and teal quilt. Do you like the geometric contrast of triangles and spirals?

The backing conundrum: The quilts are a little larger than width of fabric, so I had to piece the backings. Here’s the back of the red, tan, and blue quilt. I cut the yard of coordinating plaid fabric into quarters and sewed “Sheepfold” blocks in the space between the quarters. (“Sheepfold” is a favorite scrappy Leader/Ender block; I store the blocks in a shoebox and select colors to coordinate with the project at hand. I often use them to expand backing fabric or to add a border to a scrap quilt.)

If you are in the market for a “Giant Star” baby quilt or wall quilt, let me know (aby.quilts@gmail.com). I love these quilts but could be persuaded to part with them “to a good home.”