Teaching at the Flying Needles Retreat

It's almost hard to see me - I'm surrounded by Pickles - Pink and Purple!!  What fun I had as I spent two days at the Flying Needles Quilt Retreat in Niceville, FL and had the privilege of  teaching a wonderful group of women.  A special thanks goes to my host Kathy, who was also the Chairman of the quilt show and retreat.  Needless to say, she was so busy I didn't even get her picture.  But I want to share a few pictures of the classes.  

The first class I taught was this log cabin variation.  The committe had seen a picture of the quilt and asked if I could teach it.  I designed it using EQ7 -it's based on an Accuquilt pattern.

We were at the Northwest Florida State College.  I had a small classroom and a full class but we made it work and had a blast.  We had several mother and daughter sets which was very fun.

Below is a picture of the West Virginia group.  They were so productive and helpful - thanks for the tips!

I loved seeing everyone's color choices.  They made fun of me when they kept hearing me say "Oh, that's my favorite color" each time I saw their fabic choices.  But their projects were all so pretty and so different.  

Isn't it fun to see everyone's strips laid out?  They had quite an assembly line going.

My class helper Shirlee was so busy and I somehow missed getting a picture of her - sorry Shirlee.

On Saturday, I taught a class on Pink Pickles.  I made the class sample Purple Pickles last fall using some different techniques so they could get idea possibilites.

This class worked very hard as they chose which colors would go where and then learned the paper piecing technique. 

We spent a lot of time discussing different setting options.

How I loved spending the day seeing Pink Pickles hanging in the room.

Here are 9 of the 10 blocks done - I was so prould of all their hard work.

My friend Janan sent this picture of me teaching - I sure hope I was saying something important LOL!!

A big thank you to all my students - you were great sports and I hope you learned a lot.

Happy Stitching,

Karen

Getting Ready for Retreat!!

I only have 2 more days until I leave for Retreat - yay!!!!  The most interesting and different thing about this retreat is that I'm the teacher!  Yikes! How did that happen?  Well, here's what happened..........

To some of you, this will look familiar.  This is the 9 Patch Pineapple quilt I made last year to present as a program for our guild.

I presented it as a mystery quilt, starting with a 6" strip and showing how all the units were made until you ended up with this block.

Here's the finished quilt (before borders).  It is absolutely beautiful in person - so rich with the rusts, browns, reds and greens.  After I presented this I was approached by the Azeala City Quilters' Guild in Mobile, AL to do a program for them, and I decided on doing my One of a Kind Quilts.  I was then asked if I would be interested in being the Retreat leader and did I have a project in mind.  I immedeiately thought of the 9 Patch Pineapple.  Done deal!

We all agreed and I decided to make a smaller version in another colorway to help the girls get inspired :).

I ended up with this Christmas quilt using only 9 blocks mostly from the Grace fabric line.

It's going to look so pretty on my table this year.  It's been over in Mobile visiting for several months, so I'll have to get busy when I get back.

There are 42 girls signed up - two are even coming from New Orleans!!  I've started doing the instructions and my design wall and I will admit there are a few little butterflies forming.  But it's a great bunch of girls and I hope they all have fun.  I'll let you know how it all turns out.....  I'm REALLY excited!!!!!

Until next time,

Karen

Getting Ready

I'm getting ready to go on my first retreat!! I'm really excited. I'm going with my friend Kim, who is teaching one of the quilts from her book, Scrap Basket Surprises. In trying to get some projects together, I found these log cabin blocks I started a couple of years ago.
After making wedding quilts for both of my children, I decided I wanted to use the scraps and make a quilt for me. I love log cabin quilts but have never made one, so that decision was easy.

Since both the wedding quilts were signature quilts, I had lots of small strips of the fabrics left. As I fingered thru all the scraps, the name came to me. It's called "Wedding Memories Linger" for when I look over the blocks, my thoughts linger and I can remember working on each quilt as we prepared for the weddings (2002 and 2007).

I recently saw a post by Wanda in Exuberant Color of her batik log cabin and it reminded me of my stack of blocks. I have struggled with deciding which layout to use, which is why my blocks have languished in drawer for almost 3 years! But seeing her play with several different layouts, I was inspired to finish mine!

These are several different layouts I'm playing with. Knowing me, the finished quilt may not look anything like these, but at least I took pictures to remind me of which ones I really liked. I also bought a batik last year that I think will work perfectly as a border.

So my goal for this project at the retreat, is to finish the number of blocks I need for whatever layout I choose. Fortunately, I don't need too many. I've found the box of scraps and they are ironed and ready.

I've got a couple of other projects I'm taking too, but no time to take pictures. Wish me luck and lots of happy sewing :).
Until next time, make something beautiful,

Karen