Wow , Retreat was Amaze, Amaze, Amaze

 Yes, I'm naming my post with yet another movie quote.

 Can you guess where it's from?

It is from one of the latest "save the world" movies, 

"The Hail Mary project".

Those three words sum up my retreat wonderfully.

The 4-day format was great.

The time away from home was a bit long but,

the world didn't end while I was gone

and nothing fell apart so all  was good.

Lots of projects were moved forward.

The result is that I'm farther behind in my quilting!

Behind probably isn't the appropriate 

word since everything I do is self-directed.

That's the great thing about not having a job,

all my deadlines are self-imposed!

So here are some of the finishes from retreat.

First, I buzzed through the two 

string projects I'd kitted up.

This was the layout for number one,

and the finished product is pretty close.

Number two had the lattice in a different direction

It finished off nicely.

Then I moved on to an I spy quilt.

The feature squares were sorted into groups of 6 unique stacks. 

Each square was 5" and I had 79 per bunch.

Stitching together the squares makes a nice quilt 

and finishes at 35" x 40".

I wanted to make them larger 

with either borders or lattices.

An alternate square is a good idea also, 

but I really wanted to maximize the use of feature squares .

A dive into Pintrest yielded a hexagon style

 so I precut two of those.

I spy fabrics really seem to self-multiply.

The problem is when buying a WOF of a nice design,

you end up with five different pieces that you can use.

Now you have enough for five quilts!

There is also that strange quilter thing that happens.

If you say it you need blue jeans for a project,

suddenly bags or boxes of blue jeans appear on your porch. 

One stitching buddy requested 

a piece of orange from her friends for her birthday.

Now she has enough for four orange Queen size quilts.

Quilters just seem to be generous!

As soon as I started working on the I spy,

 I got four more pieces of I-spy fabric!

 Everyone seems to be carrying them 

 like a basic quilting Supply.

Anywho, here is the work on the hexie I Spy. 

First, I start adding two opposing triangles to the hexies.

Then laid out  the rows and filled in 

all the remaining triangles.

Next, the sides of the quilt. needed finishing.

Every other row needed to have the 

finishing hexis trimmed to match

the desired width of the quilt.

Depending on the construction, 

they will not be cut into exact halves so don't pre-cut them.  

Trim only after you've pre-fit them into the edge of the quilt.

I pinned the edge blocks roughly to the correct size 

and trimmed after the rows were sewn together.

The extra triangles from the cutoffs 

can be reclaimed for other projects.

Ta Da!!

Lots more to come!  

Stay Safe and Sew On!

Linking up with :

Sew & Tell

Monday Musing

Design Wall Monday

SrSPS

Wait Loss Wednesday

To Do Tuesday

More Retreat Fun I Spy

 Always more to show so here is 

another I Spy from this lovely fall retreat!

Remember the piles of 79 feature fabric squares?

Well, the basic sew everything together is great,

but I wanted something a bit larger with adding borders.

First I made four patches out of the 5" feature squares.

I laid them out on a portable design wall,

and started adding frames.

The process of choosing the strips and making the 

frames was oddly satisfying.  

My Consulting Group, (other attendees)

suggest making it bigger so I added more.

I found the frames from the massive pile of scraps that we

built from all the attendees.

The organizer planted some starters and  

the rest of us just piled things on. It was awesome. 

After all the frame squares were complete

rearrange them to spread out the colors. 

Then they were joined up  and  

finished into a lovely 55" x 66" top.

We even had time to start another by raiding the other 

bundles to make a 16 frame baby quilt ( still in progress).

Have fun with the I Spy!