Missives from Quilt Camp Spring 2014

I made progress on several projects, but no spectacular finishes--yet.  Here are some sneak peaks ...

Tree of Life Wall Quilt

I made progress on The Tree of Life wall quilt that I worked on last year at Quilt Camp.  I stitched down the tree silhouette.  Then I sandwiched it with batting, and stitched around the tree to make it pop out.  It really added a nice relief to the piece.  Now I need to work out how I want to quilt the rest of the background.  I didn't feel I had the right thread with me to blend with the background so I decided to wait on finishing it.  

String Quilt in Red, Black and White

The test block from The Red String Quilt.  I completed 1 block and trimmed it up before starting any of the other blocks.  I laid it out as inspiration and guide--always visible as I sewed on the strips for the remaining blocks.  I spent most of the Quilt Camp weekend working on this one project.  By the end of the weekend, I only had 1 strip left to sew on the white side of the blocks.   Great progress!

Easy Origami Bag

This was my warm-up project Friday night.  I always bring a small-ish project that I can warm up with, and actually finish on Friday night.    I used 2 squares of fabric about 20 inches square.  Instructions here. 

Flying Geese Quilt

During my stay-cation, I spent most of the week quilting this Flying Geese quilt.  With my new sewing table (made by my sweet husband), it's easier to quilt at home than at camp.  That wasn't always the case.  I brought this along for show-and-share.  I didn't finish it, but I made serious progress during the week.  The whole center part is quilted now.

At the sewing expo at the local tech school the week before, one of the vendors was drawing / auditioning possible machine quilting patterns on a photo of the quilt top on her iPad.  I asked what app it was, and she told me.  So I played with Doodle Pro to do the same with this quilt.  Very helpful for getting familiar with the motifs, and developing a path over the quilt.  I had originally thought I wanted to do feathers in the channels (It's a flying geese quilt--feathers are called for!), but it seemed like it would be too heavy, too much quilting for this light-hearted quilt.  So I went with the more open undulations instead.

 

View from the back of the quilt -- so far.

View from the front

 

Afternoon Break

Quilt Camp took place at Silver Birch Ranch, a camp only about 20 minutes from where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin.  They were still in the throes of winter, but I did venture out to walk the roads Saturday afternoon.  Here's some of what I saw that afternoon [Here's what you missed, Ma!] :

Although there is little snow still on the ground in the horse pen, I was standing knee-deep in a snowbank to get this pony shot.  The horses had thick coats and good fat layers to keep them warm.

The chickens were really hard to photograph because they are always in motion.   There's a setting for that on my camera, but heck if I can find it in the moment!