Other Retreat Sewing

I've actually remembered what I was working on at my July retreat!

First, I finished (though I haven't yet trimmed the edges) my Autumn Bargello top:


I still need to find border(s) for it, and add them.  I started this quilt in roughly 2001 or 2002, in a class I took with a bunch of ladies I sewed with regularly at the time, at A Piece in Time, in Akron, Ohio.  At the time, I basically got the strip sets made, did a bit of cross-cutting, and set it aside for the next "ooooh, shiny!" project.  A lot of my UFOs date from those two years, when I took a lot of classes and belonged to both Thimbleberries Club and Quilt Sitters' Circle at that shop (which was only a couple of miles from where we lived at the time), and had projects piling up at an alarming rate.  Of course, I also have a fair number of UFOs that date back earlier than that.  2013 is going to be my year of making serious headway on all those lingering UFOs!

The next thing I did was to change gears.  I had another Bargello-in-progress with me, that I'd started in the late 1990s some time, at a shop called Hoops 'n Hollers in North Olmsted, Ohio.  The shop no longer exists, but in the 1990s I took a number of classes there, and belonged to Quilt Sitters' Circle, and collected a fair number of UFOs along the way.  So, I'd started this Bargello first, before the Autumn Bargello I'd just finished at retreat, above.  I only had a few of the strip sets made, and the rest were in pairs or a few in four-strip units.  I made the rest of my stripsets as Leaders/Enders while I was piecing the Autumn Bargello.  But then I decided that I did not want to sew another Bargello top right then, so that's where the "changing gears" comes in.  I decided, instead, to make these stripsets into a Trip Around the World quilt.  I got the four quadrants made, and made the center strips that tie it all together and make it work, but my seam allowance was apparently off on the center strips, as they were shorter than my quadrants.  So I still need to remake those strips, and finish putting the top together.  Here's a picture of one of the quadrants:

This is the top left, the way it's oriented.  Or, top right, as you're looking at it.  That pinkish square on the bottom left as you look at it will be near the center of the quilt.  Each quadrant is rotated 90 degrees, and there's a strip through the middle in each direction that continues the movement of the fabrics, and effectively makes the "points" where the fabrics change direction, from moving diagonally out to diagonally in.  I hope to get the top together soon, and maybe all that gibberish will make more sense then ;-)

That retreat, I also got borders added to three quilt tops.  The first is a Jelly Roll 1600 quilt, which is bigger than they usually are because I used a Noodle, which is something they used to sell at Hancock Fabrics, which had more than 40 strips in it, and I used them all.


The second top I added borders to was this one, which is a pattern called "Cake Walk," by Sandy Gervais:

I used another Noodle from Hancocks for the blocks in that one, and I used the leftovers for another "Jelly Roll 1600," which is of course smaller than they usually are.  In any event, it's the third quilt top I added borders to at the May retreat:


That was pretty good for one retreat, I think!

Thanks for stopping by to play!  Come back again soon.