A Retreat at Home!

Have you ever done this?  Had your own quilting "retreat" in your own home?  

Well, I decided to do just that this past couple of days.  I decided, after doing so much sewing for dead-lines, to just work on some loose-ends and do some of my own "stuff."  I have to say it felt wonderful!  I stayed in my PJ's and sewed on what-ever I felt like working on and did I ever get a lot done!

 

First I decided to put together those little postage stamp baskets that I made a long time ago for my Postage Stamp Basket video tutorial into a nice little wall quilt.  I just love vintage blocks in 30's prints!  I plan on hand-quilting this so I've layered it and will hand-quilt at my leisure now ;-)

 

Next I was a couple months behind on Accuquilt's BOM so I decided to get caught up on that.  The block on the left I am less than thrilled about - I had altered their piecing method to make the blue one solid strip but I think that it is just way too much blue!  I think I am going to rip that off and alter the block so there is less blue and maybe a couple more leaves.  It just doesn't seem to fit to me.  Or, maybe I'll just sub out the entire block with something else.  I haven't decided yet.

 

I found this panel in my stash with  co-ordinating fabrics and thought that I could whip up 4 preemie quilts for our local NICU.  I try to make several of these every year.  Sometimes I make just 4 or 5 but other years I have made 20 or so :-D  I love the safari fabrics and I think that they might appeal to new parent who have been to Africa.  When I look at these I think about a couple of our friends who have spent time living in Africa and how they would be perfect for them!

Our NICU likes our preemie quilts to be about 22" square to 24" square.  If you are interested in making some of these for your local NICU make sure that you check to see what they would like first - since I have been told that other hospitals like other sizes.  If you would like to see a tutorial on how I do the "inside-out" method to make these so that you don't need to do a binding you can find one here.

 

I used the same fabrics and another jungle print for the backs.  I love how they turned out!  Now I have 4 little quilts for 4 little babies ready to be turned in.  Wait!  I'm the one collecting the preemie quilts for our guild LOL!  Looks like I'll just go put them with the others ;-)

 

After I had finished trimming allllllllllll those HST I decided to get those pin-wheels finished and ready for my next leaders and enders quilt.  This was a picture I had found on the web and really liked it so I adapted it for my 2" squares.  I love the optical illusion it creates.  When I showed my husband and Mother the blocks I needed they argued with me for a couple of minutes telling me that I was wrong!  So, finally I had to cover up all but one row of the quilt and show them the blocks - pine-wheel, 16-patch - etc - and then they could see it. 

I needed 15 pinwheels going one way and 16 of the mirror image.  That is all finished now and I am happy with the way that they turned out.  Now I just have all those 16-patches to finish.  I feel a little guilty working on this leaders and enders quilt when the one I am working on is not finished yet.  But, I've found that when I feel like working on something I should strike while the iron is hot!

 

Next I pulled out all those rag squares I cut with my 8.5" rag die when I was demoing the Accuquilt Go! for a local quilt shop and for my rag die video tutorial and had set aside to work on later - sigh.  These are ready to be quilted now but I am debating on how I want to quilt them - just the large X or free motion?

I pulled out all my long pieces of batting scraps and was able to cut enough squares of batting (6.5" square) to line the entire quilt!  This will be a 7 x 9 setting  63 squares all together all from scrap batting!  Yey I love using up scraps of batting for rag quilts!  I remember years ago I worked for a quilt shop and people would come in and say - I need 3 meters of batting for this rag quilt.  I would always ask them if they had any batting scraps, cut from the edges of finished quilts, sitting around?  Usually, unless they were a newbie, they would say YES!  I would then suggest that they use those up and then come back and buy what they needed to finish.  People would be thrilled I had made the suggestion.  I'm not sure that the quilt shop was thrilled LOL!  But, people were happy to find a use for those bits.

Sometimes I/we can get bogged down by stuff; UFO's, WIP's, stash, scraps, batting bits, to do lists etc.  The last couple days I gave myself permission to get some of those things done and out of the way or at least make some progress on them.  I used only what I had on hand and what I had already started.  I have to say - I feel great!  I was able to bust some stash and de-clutter my mind and sewing area and now I feel like working on these projects more now and getting more things out of the way.  YEY!

Wow that was a long post LOL!  Are any of you working on UFO's or WIP's?