My Retreat Accomplishments

I managed to get quite a few blocks done for another quilt with a deadline. This one needs to be ready before Christmas and I'm on schedule so far. It's a modified log cabin with some theme blocks similar to the idea behind the character quilt (see sidebar).


The recipient picked all the fabrics and we numbered them so that I knew how many blocks she wanted off each print/colour and how she wanted the theme fabrics to be matched with strip colours.


I ran out of muslin at the retreat (I forgot to bring my stock, doh!), so I started as many blocks as I could so I wouldn't have to refer back to my instructions over and over again.
That did save me time when I got back home on Sunday and I now have all but 8 out of 56 blocks finished, hurray!


I also worked just a tiny bit on my apple baby quilt by appliqueing a little leaf to the apple stem. Well, little steps, little steps! I think I hadn't actually shown a proper picture of this quilt before, so here it is, including the applique worm:


Next, something very exciting! I learned how to paper piece (foundation piece) and do curved seams. I agreed to do a second raffle-quilt block,one of the difficult ones. I practiced the foundation piecing with my scraps and then just jumped in. I was so pleased that it worked out!

Here's the practice piece - I was so excited about the actual block I forgot to take a photo. My curves got better on the raffle quilt block, they didn't have the bumps that this practice piece has :)

And lastly, thanks to all the fabric-activities we had, I now have a pile of Christmas fabric where before I had none, and I also won this beautiful batik fat quarter: