Retreat

My last post is dated the 6th, today is the 9th; but it feels like I've had about month in between. Firstly, Heavenly Harry (Mark II), aka "Kevin's Heaven". My boss was sitting on a different floor to us for a several months and it was a right pain in the proverbial. When he was finally moved to the same floor he tacked to his door a scrappy piece of paper, held in place by great globs of packing tape, "Kevin's Heaven". I try very hard to overcome my perfectionist nature, but after a while the untidy nature of the note started to irritate me. Last Thursday I had a brain wave. I remembered an applique pattern I had made called "Heavenly Harry". (In case you collect magazines, he's in Australian Homespun, No 19, Vol 4, No. 5). I made Harry in batik-like fabric 'cause Kevin spent several decades in Indonesia. I was pretty impressed that I whipped him up in a single night!


Friday afternoon I headed off to my annual quilting retreat. The lovely Julie organises this weekend every year and it my favourite annual event. Some of us know others of us in real life, but many of us only know each from Julie's retreat. We all take our own projects and work on whatever we want to work on. Last year I had the sewing blahs and achieved precious little. This year I was pumped and ready to go. I previously posted my plans and I came up with the goods:



Hopefully later I can get a better picture. It's rather overcast and gloomy today and I have no spare hands. I am quite pleased with the finished result. The plan now is to add a narrow blue border as most of the fabrics have blue through them, and then a wider pink border to keep the warm feel. Then I'll have a think about whether that's enough or not and what to bind it with.

It took longer than I expected but not as long as I thought :-) I was thinking "6 FQs, 6 blocks, easy done". But I've also never made a quilt from someone else's pattern and instructions.

The 1/2 square triangle instructions were to cut strips to something and some eighth. I don't have good 1/8ths on my large ruler so decided to go for the next 1/4. A good proportion of my finished blocks turned out the right size. That's a good thing, except it means either my cutting or sewing (or both) aren't terribly accurate! The four patch in the double four patch was also measured in 1/8th so I cut those to the nearest 1/4 too. And what do you know! All of them needed trimming. And because they're 4 patches I had trim every side to keep them even :-( Just can't rely on myself to maintain standards of inaccuracy!

It was fun and I will possibly make another quilt from instructions now. There's less stress, particularly for one who is mathematically challenged. I'm tempted re-try a Hidden Wells quilt. My last one was a disaster. Note: lots of ironing of seams and poly thread don't go together. And neither will your quilt when the threads all melt!

It's now Monday afternoon and although I had a great night's sleep in my own bed last night I'm still stuffed. I feel like I spent the weekend hiking not sewing.