Quilt Retreats – Quilting my way through life!

Last we were together I was up to my eyeballs in these.

Aren’t the little piles of alligator teeth too cute?

(easily amused, yes I know…)

With a little help from my favorite vices…

I was able to complete all of the half Tiny Dresden plates from the 1,600+ petals!

This is all of them sewn;

the extra petals set aside for another project down the road.

The little rows just make me smile!

(again, easily amused, yes I know…)

I was able to make 6 half Tiny Dresden plates from each of the 40 jelly roll strips

of Jo Morton’s New Hope by Moda Fabrics.

During our annual retreat to local quilt shop, Rosemary’s,

I got to work making blocks from the half Tiny Dresden plates for my next quilt.

This is my work space all set up & ready to sew.

My cute little Dritz Mighty Steam Iron showed up just in time to travel with me.

What a great find!

It’s the perfect little Dresden plate iron!!!

It’s extremely light-weight & just the right size for pressing my little plates.

I wish I’d known about them sooner!

I was so impressed that I’m now carrying them on my website for you to purchase here.

Don’t let the small size fool you.

It gets super hot!

It’s great for pressing small half-square triangles too.

I also like it for pressing block parts.

Choosing the center circle fabrics is a bit like choosing which Barbie shoes should complete her ensemble, lol…

Love, love, love each step!

Can’t wait to show you the finished quilt,

but that will have to wait for another day.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Dresden Plate Quilt, Mini Dresden Patterns, My Life, New Quilt pattern sample, New tiny Dresden plate quilts, Quilt Retreats

Retreating Again

January 25, 2017January 25, 2017 suznquilts

It’s always fun to get away to sew (& eat)!

And sew I did, all weekend long…

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I got a lot done on my new pattern sample.

I sewed the Tiny Dresden petals that I showed you last week.

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Trimming and then pressing.

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Turning right side out and making pretty points.

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All 384 of them!

And, not 1 was lost since I was using my new cutlery tray

to transport them back & forth to the ironing board and my sewing machine.

I had made the Mini Dresden centers last week.

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Roxanne’s EZ-Squeeze glue, my Classic Metal Company brochure,

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and Appliquick Bar give me very precise results every single time.

I also had 4 half (+ seam allowance) circles to made for the 4 half Mini Dresden blocks.

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Same process, but you don’t have to cover the long straight edge

since it will go inside the seam allowance when it’s sewn into the quilt.

Fun, fun, fun!!!

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32 Tiny Dresden plates

5 Mini Dresden plates

4 half Mini Dresden plates

32 freezer paper leaves

8 stems

(but I needed 16… 4 x 4 =16, not 8!!!)

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Each 23″ block has 1 Mini Dresden plate,

8 Tiny Dresden plates,

8 leaves & 4 stems.

I got 3 of the 4 big blocks appliqued before we left Sunday,

but you’ll have to wait to see those, sorry.

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This is all that’s left of the pieces.

Can’t wait to finish it.

It’s been a whole month since Christmas.

What are you creating?

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Dresden Plates, fabric shopping, My Life, Quilt Retreats, Quilt Shops

Rosemary’s 2016

January 26, 2016 suznquilts

It’s another January

which mean’s another quilt retreat to Rosemary’s!

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In case you don’t remember, Rosemary’s is a quilt shop in Highland, IL.

Rosemary has a retreat center that consists of sleeping quarters & a sewing room with lots of authentic restaurants within a couple blocks; Chinese, Italian & Mexican to name our favorites, but there are many more.

A great weekend spent with good friends

(at least the ones that didn’t have family obligations to tend to)

& no cooking or cleaning.

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Loraine must have been shopping during this one…

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My “spot” for the weekend.

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Spending valuable time with some of my other best friends

(Moda & Roxanne)

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Making new friends

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only after they promised to get along with my other friends.

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It may appear that I bought the same polka dot fabric twice, but Rosemary & I were a bit chatty & weren’t paying attention to her measuring; a side affect of being in good company!

It’s OK, I’m going to cut it into little pieces just to sew it back together anyway.

(crazy!?!?!?)

(short) Overnight drying time…

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My field of dreams, ahhhh.

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Can’t get enough.

I hope you’re getting time to work on your favorites too.

Just keep sewing!

Susan

My Life, New ideas, New Moda Fabric Collection, New Pattern Sample, Quilt Retreats

A Li’l Bit of Help from my Friends

January 27, 2015January 28, 2015 suznquilts

Last weekend was our annual retreat to Rosemary’s,

our local quilt shop/friendly retreat center.

Rosemary is extremely generous to open her home/quilt shop to quilters who want to meet, sew, shop, sleep & dine at the local yet delicious restaurants of which we choose authentic; Mexican, Italian, & Chinese!

There are more restaurants within the same two block radius from her shop including a diner next door where Loraine & Chris ate breakfast plus many more restaurants & stores throughout the little town of Highland to make this a perfect destination to sew with friends.

I prefer left-over Chinese & DiMaggio’s pizza for my breakfast…

While there, I finally cut into my new Mill Book Circa 1892 collection that I showed you last week.

I’m working on another new pattern using my Tiny & Mini Dresden plates.

I can’t get enough!

I know, right???

Fun was shared by all that were able to attend.

Lots of sewing, chatting & eating…

Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to ask someone to take a photo of our group & my phone doesn’t have a camera timer darn it (at least not that I can find!)

We all accomplished a lot & yesterday I set to removing freezer paper templates.

These are all the petals on my kitchen table drying.

The sun was shining so the lighting isn’t even, but a pretty cool image anyway I think.

Today after helping with charity quilts at our guild meeting & a trip to the dentist for me & Clare, I’ve been making more petals & my sewing room helper (still nameless) is helping.

She’s keeping them wrinkle-free until I can cut apart, press, trim & turn them.

Her services have been invaluable!

Just keep sewing…

Susan

My Life, new fabric collection, New ideas, New Pattern Sample, Quilt Retreats

Retreat means sew, sew, sew

February 9, 2012February 9, 2012 suznquilts

Last weekend I was once again fortunate to attend our annual reatreat at Rosemary’s Quilt Shop in Highland Illinois.

The first floor & basement are the quilt shop floors. Rosemary lives on the second and third floors. It’s a beautiful older home and the owner/occupant is a wonderful host! On the days that she has retreats, she reatreats to the third floor leaving enough sleeping rooms for 6 quilters on the second floor.

For the past 8(?) years a group of us have met for a weekend each winter and sewed, sewed, sewed. The basement is set up to sew and snack 24 hrs. a day if you want. Within two blocks there are authentic Mexican, Italian and Chinese restaurants. No need to pack any food! Of course there are lots of other restautants around town too as well as Walmart, Walgreens, etc.

Another great perk to sewing here is that Rosemary has everything you might need at any time, day or night; fabric of course, basting spray, batting, you get the picture!

This year I decided to take along a project that I started at our quilt designer retreat in November.

I made 7 of the blocks in Minnesota where I bought the book & kit. I pieced all day Thursday (un-pieced half the day on Friday) and finished the top Friday evening.

It’s “Peony Patch” from the book Summer Gatherings by Lisa Bongean & Carole Charles. The finished size is 20″ x 24″. It was designed with little leaves on every block, but after I got those appliqued on I didn’t like them! It took me about 6 hours to remove them and re-sew the stem… I love it now. I’m trying to decide how to quilt it. I’d like to give it to a professional, but it’s so small I’m embarrassed to send it out!

Next I made more of these; mini Dresden plates with my template.

I love using my Clover Mini Iron.

It gets super hot and presses the little petals very flat, plus it’s light-weight and doesn’t heat up the whole room while I’m pressing a million of these things.

Since these seams are pressed open, the mini iron tip can get right in there and press those flat too.

These are looking great with my Salt Air fabrics.

Love, love love them!

Can’t wait to show you how these are going together, but no photos ’til they’re done!

I’ve also got a new lap quilt just for little boys about finished…Nothing like a quilt retreat with all sewing, all the time to get my creative juices flowing!

Until next time,

Susan