Tuesday 3 April 2018

A Mini Retreat

       On the weekend previous to the Easter weekend, my quilting buddies and I had a mini retreat.  We were back near Paris Ontario babysitting the dogs. We spent the weekend working on quilts for our Community Outreach program and we finished 4 quilt tops (more or less).  I'm going to share 3 of the finishes in this post and go into a little more detail on the fourth later.   It was a beautiful sunny day, but incredibly windy so it was really hard to set up quilts for photos.  Today is full of clouds where I live so it's nice to look at this sunshine.

     Here are two of the quilts.   We made these tops with a layer cake of Desert Blooms fabric, designed by Sherri and Chelsi of a Quilting Life.   The sashing is  a Free Spirit solid. I bought it as one of several possibilities to use for the sashing in my Quilters Planner Sew Along Quilt. I rejected it for that project but it looks great in these quilts doesn't it.  We based the design on a quilt we saw in a local quilt shop.




 The quilts are a little bit small to be used for community outreach quilts but  we managed to find some of this fabric on line at Fabric Spark and ordered two different prints to use as borders.  So the quilts will be similar, but different.

     Do you remember this quilt?



     The three of us put this quilt top together as part of Sandra of MMMQuilts FreeFall Quilt along last year.  We won a gift certificate from Fabric Please in the final link up and we used the gift certificate to purchase the Desert Blooms layer cake!

     The third top I will share with you was put together by Cyndy.  She had started this top at our last bee day but hadn't quite finished it.  



     The three of us have been trying to use up the batiks in our stash so we have pooled them together to use in the donation quilts.  Actually it started as me trying to use up the batiks in my stash but the two of them followed in my footsteps.



     I'll share the remaining quilt which was the one I worked on the most next week as there is a bit more of a back story to it.  I'll  be sharing this post at the link ups at Sew Fresh Quilts and at Slice of Pi Quilts.

     Last week Katrina and I brought 42 quilts to the Sexual Assault Domestic Violence unit bringing the number of quilts our guild has donated this  guild year so far to 97. Neat eh (thats so you know I'm Canadian.)

     I'm participating in the Elm Street Quilts Postcard Exchange blog hop on Saturday, so hopefully I'll see you here again.

     

     

     

16 comments:

Gina said...

These are beautiful quilts. I love the fabric you have used xx

Anonymous said...

Such a productive weekend! Lovely quilts.

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

How awesome to enjoy a mini retreat and get 4 quilt tops pieced together. And 42 quilts to donate is pretty awesome / 97 for the year: wow! <3

Janice Holton said...

Ha! Ha! I love that you added that little "eh" in there. I did NOT know you were Canadian. One of my college roommates and still very good friend to this day was Canadian. I love her to death. 97 is IMPRESSIVE!!

piecefulwendy said...

We're almost neighbors, eh? Okay, maybe not quite, since I'm in southern Minnesota. Haha. Nice work on the quilts and on the number of quilt donations! Glad you were able to have a fun little mini retreat!

Pamela said...

Great quilts and a great cause!

Anja @ Anja Quilts said...

I hope you had a great quilting retreat. The quilts look great. Well done.

Louise said...

97?? Wow, that's amazing! I really like that batik quilt with the cream sashing. Beautiful colors! Are you using up your batiks to make room for something else?

Nancy @ Grace and Peace Quilting said...

Such fun patterns for making charity quilts! And 97 quilts so far?!! Wow!!

Stitchin At Home said...

97 that is certainly amazing!! Great looking quilts!

Preeti said...

Looks like a beautiful day - full of sunlight in winter. The first quilt is so neat - love that patchwork. Of course, I remember the Fall quilt (QAL by Sandra). I love this pattern because you can use light fabrics to make the leaves inside the large dark leaf and dark fabrics on the light background. 97? Looks like you need three more :-D

Jannette said...

What fantastic quilts! I won a FQ bundle that is so NOT my taste, but it'll make a great "guys" donation quilt - I'm using the pattern from your first photo for it.
My part of sw Ontario is snowy and cold right now, but I hear that some areas are getting freezing rain and/or 15-30 cm of snow, so I won't complain about our 2 cm...

Karen @runsewfun said...

97 quilts from one guild is amazing! Congratulations! See you in the postcard hop...

Kaja said...

A mini retreat sounds like a lovely idea, and you were certainly productive. I often think about how donation quilts are such a big thing in the US and Canada, but not so much over here; it's such a good tradition.

lelandavestudios said...

That mini retreat sounds like a dream right now! Congratulations on all of the quilts your guild has donated. How wonderful to think of all of those quilts going to people who need to be hugged in warmth.

Nicole said...

Fantastic productivity! And hurray for sewing with friends.

I hear you about the batiks! I used or gave away all that I had a couple of years ago.