Quilting the Night Away

Ah, I'm still coming down from a wonderful weekend with my quilting group.  We had our annual retreat last weekend, my first in 3 years!  I'd forgotten how I love the constant buzz of productivity, the conversations, snackies and the inspiration from all the lovely projects.  I didn't use my camera once.  Not once!  I didn't want to cut into my productivity time.  I was on a mission, people!  Luckily my fellow quilter and friend, Jen did.  Following are some of the projects from the weekend.  This is by no means all of them!  I'll share what I worked on in another post.  Let's just say it was my most productive retreat to date.

Herewith, are some photos (thanks to Jen!) 

 Red, White, Gray and Black.  Yes, please!

 Christmas fabrics in a Dinner Plate pattern. 

 Anna Maria fabrics surrounded in blue.

 Think Morocco.

 Inprov in primary colors.

 Go Huskies or Gophers (as it really was intended.)

 Americana.  Look at the beautiful red batik sashing.

 American Girl doll dress. 

 

This jelly roll is not for eating.  

This makes my fingers twist into a Celtic knot just looking at all those tiny stitches!

 Meals were simplified, salad bar and soups.  That didn't stop one quilter from makin' it fancy with some cheese puffs.

The retreat re-awakened my love of quilting and sewing.  I hope I can keep my momentum up.  I've been collecting inspiration on Pinterest.  

Blackberrylicious

Saturday was the first Quilt Club I've been able to attend in 2 months. I was glad to catch up with my quilting peeps and anxious to work on some projects. Despite the gorgeous view of Lake Union, I was able to accomplish 1 whole project! I'll fill you in on the details tomorrow or the next day. This post is reserved for the nummies I brought. I have told you that Quilt Club is about eating, dishing and quilting ~ mostly in that order. Anyhoo, with a portion of the fresh blackberries my mom gave me I whipped up some Blackberry Turnovers. Think of these as the berry sister to Angry Chicken's Rhubarb Hand Pies. Ha!

Here's what I did (all amounts are approximations):

Blackberry Turnovers

Refrigerated Pie Crust
Blackberries (2 cups)
Sugar (1/3 cup)
Flour (2T)
Fresh Lemon Juice (1T)
Lemon Zest
Butter

Mix sugar, flour, lemon and zest with blackberries. Using a cottage cheese sized container, cut circles out of the pie crust. Place some filling on one side of the circle, leaving a 1/4 inch margin around the edge. Dot with butter. Fold over and crimp. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.

Apricot Bars

I noticed this recipe for Apricot Bars tucked in the pages of my Grandma's 1961 Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook. Bryce had it out the other day when he was making cinnamon rolls. In between the well worn and grease stained pages are recipes that my Grandma put away for safe keeping. Some are clipped from magazines or newspapers, others are photocopies. My favorites, though, are the ones penned by my Grandma. This recipe is one of those:

Apricot Bars

1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1 egg
1 T milk
- - - - - - - - - - - -
1 cup apricot jam
- - - - - - - - - - - -
1 cup sugar
1 egg 4 T butter, melted
2 cups flaked coconut
1. Combine butter, flour, baking powder and blend until crumbly
2. Beat 1 egg with milk and stir into dough until mixture holds together
3. Spread dough into greased 7x11 inch pan. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 15 minutes
4. Spread abricot jam over pastry layer
5. Combine sugar, egg, melted butter. Stir in coconut. Spread over jam layer
6. Bake in 350 oven for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and set. Cut into bars when cool. Yield: 24 bars.

Me and Grandma circa 1974.

Highlights

Back to reality. But refreshed and rejuvenated from the time away. Here are my personal highlights (in order) from the retreat:

obscene amount of pork consumption and all subsequent pork jokes, puns, rhymes and innuendos

walks on the beach in the SUNSHINE

the pleasant buzz of productivity and viewing all the amazing projects

the margaritas ~ no explanation needed


Happy sigh. Let the planning for next year begin.

Retreating Soon!

My annual Quilt Club retreat is this weekend - Yipeee!! I couldn't be more ready for a relaxing LONG weekend full of great friends, fabric, stitching, delicious food and NO little people (did I say that out loud?) This is our 6th retreat of our 8 years quilting together. This year I hope to get my Chinese Coins quilt marked (I've decided on circles), sandwiched and to complete a significant portion of the hand quilting. I also plan on constructing the binding for this quilt, it will be a pieced, scrappy looking binding.

Speaking of marking a quilt top, my friend Carolyn sent me this great marking tip. Marking the top is my LEAST favorite part of the quilting process. I've used washable pencil, pen and also tape. I've had various problems with each. Here is what Carolyn suggests:

In the past few months, my life has been completely changed by a product designed for children (or, I should say, their parents). For years, my least favorite part of the whole quilt-making process was marking (and re-marking) my quilt top for quilting. The blue marker doesn't show up on dark fabrics. The white pencil constantly needs sharpening and breaks in the sharpener. And both are apt to fade with the excessive handling I put all my quilts through. These are no longer problems for me now that I spent $3 on a set of fine tipped Crayola washable markers. With a set of 8 colors to choose from, I can pick a marker color that will stand out against all the colors in my quilt. I used purple marker on my olive and orange North Wind quilt, for example. The color goes on in a strong but thin line that doesn't falter, and better yet, it stays until I'm done with it. It does not come out during a quick dash through a snow storm, nor with sweaty hands or a humid setting. Yet all of the colors I've tried (including purple, red, orange, and green) come out completely in the wash. Hallelujah!

A quilting detail from Carolyn's North Wind quilt.

p.s. Can anyone tell me why my second paragraph insists on being smaller and scrunched? I've spent almost 20 minutes trying to fix it. grrrrr.

Grape Ape

Trina from Woven Chains was absolutely so supportive and sweet when I posted about my Monkey Love shirts and ended by saying her daughter would love one. So I offered to make one for her. They supplied the shirt and I supplied my monkey magic. I was contemplating the design when I remembered Trina's affection toward purple AND that our monthly Etsyrain creative challenge (thanks KC) was Purple Rain. So behold GRAPE APE:
Finding purple fabric proved to be a bit of a challenge as it is not a color I naturally gravitate toward. However, I ended up having a lot of fun going through all my scrap bags to find the perfect purples for this primate. Humor me a minute while I walk down memory lane and tell you where all these pieces came from. The solid lavender is from the VERY FIRST QUILT I made (see pic). The stripes are from a baby quilt I finished a year ago. The stars and dots are from a yearly strip exchange that we do in my Quilt Club.

Hope it's a hit with Trina's daughter!

Chinese Coins

Thanks to Trina from Woven Chains I found a pattern for the baby quilt. She loaned me a stack of baby quilt books filled with patterns. I decided to go with the Chinese Coins pattern. One that I've wanted to make for some time. The pattern would showcase the sock monkey fabric but also allowed for a random, scrappy look. I bought some additional sock monkey fabric from ebay and also picked up some coordinating reds, browns and creams at The Quilting Loft in Ballard.

Today my quilt club met, so I had 5 glorious hours to work on this project - in between eating, talking, showing, telling and then more eating. Always more eating. Food highlights included Thai coconut soup, Valentine sugar cookies, and candied nuts. Surprisingly I did get a lot done on the quilt. I finished the 4 columns and now need to decide on some fabric to go between the columns. Some suggestions have been to use solid chocolate brown with a thin red outer border or to do just the reverse. Take a look at the columns or "coins" and help me out. What do you think?