Quilters Madder

This is my finished top from Lori's latest quiltalong, Quilters Madder. It's a reproduction of a small antique quilt that Lori saw at quilt show, and we were supposed to use madders for the fabric. I don't know how in the heck to identify a madder, so I picked out a collection of Jo Morton fabrics I had in the cabinet and used those.

I had all of the blocks put together at retreat but wanted to lay them out on the design wall before I sewed them together. Huh, after I laid it out, I wound up ripping apart 7 of the 8 Old Maid's puzzle blocks so I could turn those little bowtie units to match the antique. I liked that effect better.  I couldn't discern the pattern for setting the blocks together from either Lori's quilt or the antique quilt, so I set them the way I wanted.

Haven't got this quilted yet, hopefully in the next week or so. Thanks, Lori, for a fun quiltalong! You can see other Quilters Madder quilts here.

Jackman Retreat

Last weekend was Fall Retreat up in the mountains of Jackman, ME. Twelve of us from quilt group were in attendance, along with other quilters from around the state for a total of 25 quilters. Despite the fact that it was a tad crowded, we all had a great time and got lots of work done.

The drive up was frightful--rain for most of the two and a half hour drive. 20 minutes away from Jackman, the rain changed over to all snow. The snow was wet and slushy, and driving up on the mountain was more than a little hair raising. After we got settled at the resort, it snowed hard the rest of the afternoon, then changed back to rain. By Sunday, the roads were all clear so a nice drive back home. This was the view from our work room.

A number of tops were completed over the three-day retreat, and this was one of my favorites. The fabrics were all from Jinny Beyer, and I'm guessing it was a kit.

Joyce, a new quilter we met, must have had most of her top together before she arrived and then finished it at retreat. This was her original design.

I spent two weeks before retreat cutting and kitting up about 12 quilts, knowing full well I might touch 3 of them at retreat. And now, all that work is done! I worked on a quilt of valor; a small quilt called "Quilters Madder" from a new
quiltalong on Lori's blog,  humblequilts.blogspot.com; and Charity Baby #5, "Jumping for Joy" from the latest issue of Quiltmaker magazine. The quilt in the magazine was quite a bit larger, but mine is only 36" square, which is the size our quilt group has been making this year and last. I'll bind it in the blue.

 Halloween was Monday, of course, so I made this Sweet Pea Pod from Lazy Girl Designs from black vinyl mesh and crammed it full of candy for, I guess what would be my step-grandson, who lives away. My son, his wife, her son, and Baby Girl all came up for a visit on Sunday, and I was very happy they were all still here when I got back from Jackman. I added a band of Halloween fabric to the mesh.

Baby Girl is 4 months old now and a very happy little baby.