quilt retreat 2012

All year long I think about the our next Quilt Retreat, and then, suddenly, it's over! We had a great time again this year in Gimli, Manitoba. There were 20 of us that were able to attend, some of these ladies I only see once a year at Retreat, so needless to say, although alot of quilting gets done, the chatting is the most fun, the food a close second. We get some really great, and filling meals served to us and inbetween the meals they serve us snacks! So we always joke when snack arrives but somehow we manage to cram down those yummy muffins and danishes, too. It was cloudy on Friday but Saturday and Sunday were beautiful sunny days! Even though it was only 12 degrees I had two nice walks on the beach looking for beach glass and nice stones, which is one of my favourite things to do.

             No quilt weekend would be complete without buying a little fabric for the stash!

These are some of the squares I completed this weekend.

                                Some of the quilts others worked on this weekend.

Saturday evenings two prize winners, bags sewn from recycled juice boxes and filled with goodies.

baby quilts

It's fun to make quilts for friends who have babies! The first baby quilts I helped make were for  three women who quilted with our group. The babies who received these first quilts are no longer babies!

This one of the first baby quilts I made on my own, for a friend.


This baby quilt was made 10 years ago for my niece. I made my sister dig it out of storage and took this yesterday!


I made two exactly the same for my twin nephews. They arrived a month before their due date so in this photo they are on one of the quilts. They are almost 7 now.

        This quilt was made for my cousin's daughter.

      This one was made for a friend's new baby son.

This is one was made for a cousin's son.

 

I made this for a neighbour's son and his wife who recently had a baby boy.

I realized when I was gathering these photos that there are lots more that somehow I managed not to take any photos of! Oh well, lesson learned.

giving and receiving

I just spend a couple of hours trying to find all the photos for this post, I sure need to get better at organizing my photos! These are a few of the quilts and wallhangings that I have made as gifts. I realized that there are some wallhangings that I never took photos of unfortuantely.

 Taylor and I made this triangle quilt for my mom for her 80th birthday. Taylor picked the design and we both sewed! If you look closely you can see the matching pillow my mom is holding.

This is a quilt I made for my mother-in-law when she moved into her new condo. It is so simple but it is one of my very favourites.

 I made this twin size quilt for a friend who was ill, she lived out of town and I wasn't able to visit her during her illness and wanted it to be like a big warm hug. I used some of the scraps from my mother-in-law's quilt.

I made this lap quilt for a friend who was having chemo, she was able to take it with her for her treatments.

 This quilt was made from Amy Butler fabrics I purchased in Vancouver, It became named the Amy quilt. I took this photo on my bed when it was completed. It wasn't intended to be a gift quilt, but my daughter saw liked it and asked if she could have it. So this is how it looks on her bed. Barry and I made the headboard for her bed this spring.

 I made this wall hanging for my friend Mona a couple of Christmases ago. Two of the purses have have vintage rinestone pins on them that she can wear.



These are two beautiful wallhangings that Mona has made as gifts for me.

What it says is very true!

I love teapots so this was a perfect gift. Mona crocheted the lace doilies.

I made this little wallhanging for my niece when she got married New Year's eve. Her theme was wintery outdoors, including birch trees.

quilt retreats at gimli

s we started tp plan for our Quilt Retreat for 2008, someone realized that this was our 15th year of quilting together. Normally we quilt at the community centre, the women are all great cooks so we plan out the meals and everyone brings something. The food is as much fun as the sewing. But the preparing and clean up takes time so we decided we would celebrate by letting someone else do the cooking. We went to resort in Gimli, Manitoba, right on the beach. They gave us a large conference room with nice window to use for sewing, brought us coffee and snacks and at breakfast, lunch and supper we just walked down the hall and enjoyed the food. We thought we would do this just once but we've been there 4 times so far, this fall will be the 5th.

At the retreat in 2008 I spent the weekend cutting and sewing the coloured blocks for this quilt, which I call Beach Glass.

In 2009 I bought all the fabric for this quilt in Vancouver and made this wall hanging. It's called Noriko, the middle name of a friend. I especially love the border fabric.

I had enough fabric left to make a second one, something I've never done. This time I only used 3 fabrics in each square.

In 2010 I decided I'd better sew all my squares together for my Beach Glass Quilt, so I bought white fabric with green dots and sewed it all together.

It's a really simple pattern but it turned out to be one of my favourite quilts. I had someone do the machine quilting and if you look closely you can see the flower pattern.

In 2011 I cut the fabrics out before retreat so I could get more done and I acually managed to sew the tops of a wallhanging and a lap quilt.

I call the wall hanging Amish lava lamps, since th Amish quilt mostly with solid colours.

This is the lap quilt, it is not named yet. I used fabrics from a collection called moonlight garden so that might become the name.

      I decided to free motion quilt this myself, as you can see it's far from perfect but not too bad.

These are some of my quilting friends at retreat.

                          

a day at the fair

Hi, my best friend Mona came in from Vancouver with her sister last week to visit their dad, who lives 3 houses down from my mom, that's how we became best friends! Anyway, besides the visit, she also came to enter some items in the St. Vital Agricultural Fair, which has been going on for over a hundred years. You can enter all kinds of things, vegetables and flowers that you've grown, baking and all kinds of handicrafts. So the three of us, plus a good friend entered some things and all four of us actually won some ribbons, and a little cash!

I won first place in the wall hanging category for this felt quilt.

I won second place in the fancy cushion category, you can see part of my friend's sunflower cushion which won third prize.

I won third prize in the watercolour category for this columbine that I painted last summer at Clear Lake.

Mona won first prize in the applique quilt category. When I took this photo she told me it better not end up on by blog, but the quilt is so beautiful it had to!

Mona's first prize quilt block, mine didn't win anything! Her's was much better.

Our friend's first prize cake in the cake decorating category, looks good enough to eat!

Mona's sisters honourable mention watercolour!