Quilter's Retreat

As the upcoming Bloggers' Retreat approaches, it is rather fitting that I have my Mini Round Robin finished this week!  This was my OMG for September, and sadly, I missed another deadline, finishing it less than 24 hours after said deadline.  All four of us who participated in this summer-long project had planned to be together at the retreat, and unveil our finishes in person, but unfortunately, one of us is unable to.  :-(

At the time I made the centre block, I had no idea that I would, in fact, be heading to Ohio for a Quilt Bloggers' Retreat in October!  Funny how the Universe lines things up, isn't it? So many times in my life I experience this.

To refresh your memory, I made the centre 6.5" block.  I mailed it off to Tish, who added the paper-pieced Friendship stars (those 12 babies finish at 3" square!).  From Tish it went to Julie, who added the floral rectangles, skinny town print with Doxies in it(!) and the corner offset square in a square.  She then sent it to Cindy, who did the stunning, tie-it-all-together final 3" finished round.

I quilted this on my longarm, Avril using Aurifil thread.  I wasn't going to but then when I knew I'd be doing a fair amount of ruler work, I thought nope, it's going on Avril where I have a ruler foot and a great ruler.  I am finding that I really need to buy a 6" ruler; the 12" one is a bit too awkward for smaller areas and smaller quilts.  Aurifil 2600 was the bomb for this quilt! I used it in every round except for the final elongated purple triangles in the final border, which is where I used 2625.

Centre done, working on the stars round

Sidenote: did you see/hear that FINALLY Bernina has listened to our incredulity that they do not make a ruler foot (you have to get a generic foot from Westalee and then buy an attachment from Bernina; I investigated all this last winter) and they are now making one?  Great news, long overdue IMHO.

I approached this 24" quilt a little differently than I would a large one; I started in the centre and worked my way through each round, because I wanted to do something different in each one.  This meant a little more back and forth rolling of the quilt, but I'm very comfortable doing that now that I have been on a few recent quilts, (need to write a post on the advancing/backing up/handling of some quilting motifs I know).

For the stars you can see I quilted an "X" from point to opposite point and then filled in with a elongated 'V' (dot to dot technique).  Then I did a checkerboard design that I first saw on Leah Day's 400+ FMQ Designs. I left the middle squares with one single line.  That line allowed me to travel from one star to another.   ;-)

In Julie's round I did feathers in the rectangle border, treating the the two strips as one unit.  These are Kathleen-style echoed ones which I just love doing.  Fast and fun!

In Cindy's round I got a little more fancy.

A Natalia Bonner technique here in the purple triangles and purple/yellow square

You may recall I said I'd got Natalia's brand new class on Craftsy?  (--that's an affiliate link, and btw have you checked out their brand new look that just launched? Pretty spiffy!)  I started watching it this weekend, and just half way through Lesson 1, I knew I could use something in the Mini RR that she teaches you: ignore the block shape and find other shapes created by extending lines.  Kind of the dot to dot idea but not quite.  So here in the four corners I took Cindy's elongated triangle points and looked at them as part of Julie's square in a square corners, extending my inside echoes right through her squares to hit the point where the Doxie fabric meets the floral fabric.  Then I quilted a diamond shape around that yellow centre just by extending lines from various points.  You can see I did a quilted 'frame' in the grey background with echoed straight lines and ribbon candy.  Some Angela-style dot to dot in the green triangles and a different dot to dot with figure eights motif in the blue ones completed Cindy's round.

I bound the quilt with the last of the pretty blue/green/purple Monet-type print that I'd put on either side of the centre house block.  I used up the rest of the Quilters' Town fabric on the back.

Didn't have quite enough, so I sewed the label in as a part of the backing, piecing in three more rectangles to make that strip wide enough, and then sewed on a piece of the fabric I used for my Nesting Bowls

You can see I sewed in a 'mmm! quilts' label on the lower right side, but I needed a bigger label for...

You know I am anal about labelling my quilts; well this little one is no different and I especially wanted to include the four quilters who collaborated!  I also am pretty particular about spelling and grammar, as you know.  The name of this quilt for me is a bit like a sliver in one's finger:  shouldn't it be Quilters' (plural, for more than one quilter to attend, right?) Retreat, not Quilter's (only one quilter owns this) Retreat??  However, I did stay with the name on the fabric, as maybe it IS one quilter who owns that retreat, and she (or he) allows other to come...

One last photo in the shade:

Compare the first photo with this last one.... Oh how I love the sun for showing off quilting!  Hoping we get some tomorrow so I can do Dayna's quilt justice!  It's been far too gloomy for this blogger's liking.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  Original Design
Size: 23.5" square
Fabric: scraps and stash
Batting: Pellon Legacy 100% Polyester
Quilted: on Avril the Avanté;  52 939 stitches
Threads: pieced with various cottons; quilted with Aurifil 2600 and 2625; The Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up with Beth at Cooking Up Quilts.

And also with Julie's ongoing Round Robin Link-up at Pink Doxies.