Kimmy's Brown Bricks

This quilt was made by Kimmy for her adult son. She used many, many browns and tans and most of them are flannel, with a few minkee fabrics here and there.

It's going to be his couch quilt, so she wanted minimal quilting with a large meander. That's an easy one for me. I think this quilt was on and off within 2 hours. Omni Safari thread and a poly batting.

I still plan to make one of these flannel brick quilts with the fabrics I purchased at our guild auction this past May.

Charlotte's Baby Quilt

The next quilt this weekend was made by Charlotte for a new baby coming soon. She doesn't know the sex of the baby, so she made it yellow and green. It's super soft with flannels on the front and minkee as the backing.

She likes popcorn on her baby quilts and I used Permacore Light Canary thread and a cotton batting she provided.

Another beautiful baby quilt Charlotte!

JoAnn's Tessellating Quilt

I'm not sure of the name of this one, but I believe it's a tessellating pattern.

She asked for an edge-to-edge and I chose Whirlygig. Dan thought it should have something with leaves, but I usually only put leaves on fall-ish quilts. I used Omni light tan thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Hope she likes it!

Kim's Baby Quilt

Now this is one that I have not seen before. The blocks are somewhat like the Keyhole pattern, but not quite. There is embroidery in the center of some of them and it's cute-as-can-be!

Another meander, this time in white thread. This was very tricky because it was hard to see the thread because of all the busy patterns.

Look at this yummy backing fabric!

Libby and Kathy

Two of my newest customers are Libby and Kathy. They are friends with Kim and they like meandering on their quilts as well.
First up is Kathy's. Turning Twenty again is the name of this one, I think. She requested black thread and I think it looks great. I probably wouldn't have thought to use it, but I'm always open to suggestions from my customers.

A close up of the fabrics:

Libby's Bricks quilt is next.

This quilt has lots of reproduction fabrics and she must have quite the collection

Shipshewana 2012 - Random Pics

I didn't take nearly enough pictures this year. Last year, I think I got a photo of everyone at the retreat, but not this year.

Of course we had snacks...we need fuel, you know!

We had some great door prizes donated by local quilt shops and some of our favorite quilting companies.

We had a huge table of garage sale items because we always have things that we no longer love and there's probably someone attending who is looking for just that very thing.

Virginia's Bricks & Stepping Stones #2

This is the second Bricks and stepping Stones made by Virginia for a Chirstmas gift this year. She was schedule to come to the retreat, but had to cancel at the last minute. I really missed seeing her this year and I hope she can attend in 2013.

When I found out she wasn't coming, I meant to get it sent off to her before retreat but I didn't get the pictures taken until today.

It's another lovely one! I chose Feather Me panto, a light tan thread and used a poly batting that she sent.

Shipshewana 2012 - Jelly Roll Quilts

At last years retreat, we had a jelly roll race. What fun that was! I think about 15-20 quilters participated and each one was more stunning than the last.
On Saturday we took some time to show the jelly roll quilts they had made since last years retreat. Lots of variations, some with straight seams and some with diagonal, some with 2.5" squares and some with triangles separating the strips, some with applique, some with borders....all equally creative and inspiring.

Shipshewana 2012 - show-n-tell

Here is our show-n-tell at the retreat. We don't do a traditional show-n-tell as we drape the quilts over the sofas, chairs and tables in the wonderful lounge area outside our sewing room. Then we mingle around and can usually ask questions of the quilt maker and we get to see them up close and personal.

 

We're not done yet, there's more!

There were so many quilts here that I would love to make! The talent within that sewing room was amazing!

Shipshewana 2012

This year's retreat can be summed up in just one word....SUCCESS! We had such a great time. We have the dates set for the next 2 years and I can't believe we have to wait 360 days for the next one.

Here are some shots of the room as we were getting setup.

Those big windows are just wonderful and the lighting in the room was great, even at night.  My plan was to have 5 people share a group of 4 tables. We had several groups that wanted to sit together and had 7 at a group of 4 tables, which worked out great for everyone and left some open tables for laying out blocks and such.

Mary's Teal and Brown

Mary made this delightful quilt for her daughter and I just love the fabrics!

In the shot of the whole quilt, you don't see all the piecing as some of the fabrics blend together, but there are a lot of pieces in this quilt.

I chose Feather Me panto and used Lime Green So Fine thread.
Here are some closeups:

All packed up!

Ready to head out to Shipshewana in the morning for our annual retreat. I'm sure sleep will be limited tonight as I will be thinking of all the things I may have forgotten to pack. I packed more projects than I will ever get done, but it's better to pack too many than not enough. Heaven forbid, I should have to go shopping at Yoder's or Lolly's. LOL

I'm taking fabric to work on: some custom baby burp cloths and the leftover fabrics will be a baby bricks quilt, a pumpkin bib for Calise, a baby quilt for Nick's new little baby, Drew, who was just born on Monday, black and whites for a 1600 quilt, a wallet to finish, an iron caddy, Matt's brown quilt, and a t-shirt quilt. I should have taken pictures of it all before it got packed, but I'll take photos as I finish these projects.

Let's hope the rain stops before we take off in the morning.

If you're reading this and coming to the retreat, I'll see you tomorrow!

If you live near Shipshewana, come by the Farmstead Inn and say hi. We'll be in the conference center, or we might be at JoJo's having a pretzel!

Virginia's Block of the Month

Virginia made this Block of the Month from Joann's to give as a Christmas gift. Her piecing is amazing and I love that she stay stitches around all the outside edges. Makes my job a whole lot easier.

E's and L's in the outer borders and the sashing. I alternated the direction of them in the sashing.  I used a Chantilly Lace block design in the blocks and did a meander in the border with the busy fabric.

I thought I had more pclose up pictures, but they's not on my camera. It's on it's way to Virginia via UPS, so I can't take more photos, but maybe she will bring it to Shipshewana next week for show and tell. I can't believe that the retreat is next week already.

Norma's Turning Twenty

Norma is a friend of Kim's, or maybe she's her sister-in-law. Anyway, she's a new quilter and just look at this quilt. She did a wonderful job at picking out the fabrics and stitching it together.

Another meander for this one and Warm & Natural batting, along with Omni Safari thread.

Beautiful backing fabric!!! Hopefully, she will be happy with it and make many more quilts!

Tropical Custom for Carla

Carla used a panel for this quilt and a couple of her friends bought the same panel. I'm anxcious to see how they all turned out. I sat and starred at this one for along time as that little voice was telling me to quilt around the leaves and trees in the panel, but I really didn't want to do that.

I chose to do a rippling water in the panels, with white thread at the top and about 1/3 of the way down, I changed to light chambray in an unconspicuious spot. The starkness of the white would have been a little too much. It is still a lot of contrast, but the water area draws your eyes to it immediately and then you notice the rest.

I chose molar feathers for the sashing, taking care to start and end carefully.

I was thinking that the business of the fabric would hide most quilting and Dan actually suggested the beadboard for the outer border.

Roberta's Race Car quilt

Roberta made this really cute race car quilt for her grandson, Mac. He's now old enough to spend the night at grandma's and she wanted him to have a special quilt.

The race car fabric is so cute. I don't think I've ever seen this one and her choice of coordinating fabrics is great. We didn't talk about thread color when she dropped it off, but I had that lime green thread on Mabel and I decided to use it for this one. She also requested his name be embroidered on one of the borders, so that's in lime green also.

When she picked it up, she was thrilled with the thread color. She brought a lightweight poly batting and Ribbon Twirl is the panto as I love the movement it creates.