UFO Sunday--Feathered sprays

Welcome to UFO Sunday as I'll be linking up with Leah Day's review of what we've been up to this week in our free motion quilting journey.

What a glorious weekend of quilting with friends! I attended the Emporia Regional Quilt Guild's weekend retreat held in town at a local church. The basement fellowship hall is huge and easily accommodated over 30 quilters for the weekend. The doors opened on Friday at 4pm for setup and to get started on our projects. Dinner came about 6:30, and then the stitching continued until they locked up at 10pm. Saturday morning bright and early, the doors opened again at 8am. The committee treated us to a variety of crockpot soups for lunch and a build your own salad and baked potato bar for dinner. The stitching continued all day with lots of sharing, helping, talking, laughing, and a fair amount of teasing with what's become a regular joke with a rubber rat that appears under someone's sewing table. Sunday morning we returned at 8am, enjoyed a delicious lasagna, french bread & salad lunch, and then started wrapping things up so everyone could help with clean up to be out by 4pm. The ERQG holds these retreats quarterly, providing a fun space to work on our projects together and occasionally hosting a national teacher. Last November we had Pat Speth from Nickel Quilts teach for the 3-day weekend and it was wonderful! We learned to much and had so much fun!

I spent my time working on Cindy's Comforting Words quilt so I can get it finished and mailed off to her before she starts chemo. I got it pinned Friday evening and printed out the feathered sprays that I wanted to FMQ in the borders from my EQ Quilting Designs collection onto foundation paper. Saturday morning I ditched first, quilted the diagonal lines through the Irish chains and echoed the embroidered motifs. With the main part complete, after lunch I started the stitching over the foundation paper on the borders and before I left at about 9:45pm, all of the borders were quilted!

Wow! A picture of ME at work! Fun!

Follow the lines--figuring out where to go to make the stitching as continuous as possible.

And then removing the foundation paper to reveal the lovely quilted feathers.

Most of the gals in my guild send their quilts to long-arm quilters rather than FMQ their own projects. I had lots of people coming to watch the process and it was fun to share the techniques I've learned over the last few years with them. Sunday, when I wasn't off visiting at other work stations or looking at other projects, I was tearing the foundation paper away from my feathers. It's a tedious process, but I've learned that taking smaller stitches and staying on the lines makes tearing it away much easier! Practice makes perfect and before long it was all done and the quilting looked beautiful!

Comforting Words for Cindy--trimmed and ready for binding

Nice shadows showing the feathered sprays that are in all the borders.

Before packing up to head home I managed to get the quilt trimmed and now all I have to do is prepare and attach the binding, stitch it down, and attach the label. Whew! In just over a week this project has come from conception, design, production, and nearly completion. In many ways it feels like this quilt made itself. Even when piecing the back, it came out the same size as the front without planning it that way, and when pinning, it lined up so well I was able to trim right where I had planned without losing anything on the backing. Indeed it is a comfort quilt designed by God that flowed through me to fruition. Blessed be!

Here's a few fun shots of the retreat weekend. There were so many great projects being made!

Joan getting ready to pin her hand embroidered bluework tea time.

Lyn showing off her grandson's Indiana Jones mini-quilt. The animals are all paper pieced! This is my favorite of the weekend!

Queen size Neighborhood quilt

Hexagon puzzle--reminds me of the Card Trick patterns

Sharon with her Turning-Twenty Wizard of Oz quilt that she's added several embroidery designs to for added fun

Sherry with her second Quilt of Valor top finished this weekend

Becky busy on her quilt top

Trish finished adding the 9-patch corner stones and stripped sashings to her finished blocks

Kathy giving her top a good press before...

she taped the backing to the floor to pin her mom's Cardinal quilt.

All in all, we had a wonderful time! Everyone got a lot accomplished and Linda even started to learn FMQ, first using the walking foot on a printed panel top and then switching to the open quilting foot with the feed-dogs down to echo the characters. She is just starting out, but wants to keep at it and become comfortable enough to finish some of her own quilts--probably the small ones to start with. :-)

With tables set up along both walls, as well as a few down the middle, plus ironing and cutting stations, there was plenty of opportunity for stitching and visiting. I can hardly wait for the next one in May!

Back to unpacking and cutting binding strips to finish the Comforting Words before tonight's Downton Abbey comes on.
More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz