Monday, January 12, 2015

Quilt Retreat 2015 is coming up!

Last year's retreat was such a success we are super excited about this one! 2013's retreat, the very first one, was great and we're determined to top it once again.



We've secured the same amazing, light-filled, spacious venue we've used in other years - Immanuel church's foyer!



A few more photos from the last two retreats:







The charity quilt everyone contributed to: 



Such a fun event, perfect timing to break up the winter blues. This year's Quilty Pleasures retreat (haha! I still get a chuckle out of that name!) is scheduled for Saturday, February 28, 2015, from 9am till 9pm. A whole day of sewing, chatting and yummy food that I don't have to cook! I'm in, for one! :D




Monday, January 5, 2015

Rainbow Diamonds Quilt

Finally finished! I actually started this quilt at last February's quilt retreat, so this one has been a very long time coming. A couple of years ago I was gifted a set of rainbow charm squares by a lovely group of ladies who were doing a swap. That started this quilt - I think there were 8 each of 8 colours, no doubles.



Then I cut some more from my own (very small) cotton scrap bin, and Suzanne let me dig through her scraps for the rest, till I had 13 of each colour total. I added gray to make them into half-square triangles. Part of the reason this took so long to make was because I couldn't decide how to arrange the blocks. There are just too many options with half-square triangles! I debating doing a spiral, chevron, or random placement, but eventually came up with this off-centred diamond rainbow.





The quilting was easy enough - just straight-line echoes in the gray. For binding I debated several options, but anything with a colour in it made that colour in the rainbow jump out, and the same dark gray made the gray the focus. I settled on solid light gray and I think it's just perfect.



I love the awesome backing! I found this great cursive script numbers fabric at IKEA a while back and knew it had to be a quilt backing. Especially for $3.99/metre! If I recall correctly, it's called Nummer. Slightly thinner quality cotton, but just fine for a backing.



At about 52" x 64", it's a great length for one person (even a tall one!), or it's also good across two laps - just what we need for the couch.