Stitching with the gals!

I am lucky to have a few friends who I go to a sewing retreat with a couple of times a year.  Last week we again went away to beautiful Sewjourn in Lancefield.   We sewed away the days and evenings and had a great time. 

Four of us were there for the six nights, and two were able to join us for three nights.  Our seventh girl chose to do some beautiful embroidery and didn't bring her machine.  

Here's most of what we created.

We were amazed when we put everything on the table to photograph it!

I'm going to post photos of what I made while we were there over a few posts.  This lovely lap quilt flimsy is from a pattern by Anorina that appeared in Homespun recently.  Anorina was a member of a bee I was in, and she sells pre-cuts at great prices through her shop which you can find through her blog.

Called Step by Step, it came together fairly quickly although I was glad to have the use of a design wall to lay it out as I sewed the rows.  It helped me to keep the 'step' pattern working.  This quilt pattern uses a couple of charm packs and two different solids.  I was given a charm pack of Salty Aire for Christmas so ordered a second one, and I matched it with a warm eggshell and a light blue.  

I am really happy with this, it was a great way to use these special charm packs.

I'd done a bit of sewing before we left, and got this quilt top together.

I finished the blocks at least 12 months ago, I don't know why I can get quilts to that stage and then put them aside for so long!  My sister had dropped around and made me drag out all my UFO's, and when faced with them all I realised that I had a few that wouldn't take long to get together, and this was one of them.  Of course laying out the blocks so that the colours were distributed evenly was a big challenge as it usually is for me!  It's called Paintbox, and is a free pattern by Elizabeth Hartmann.  It was originally a quilt along Elizabeth's blog, Oh! Fransson.

This close up shows the white fabric I used in the blocks, and the kona champagne that I sashed it with.  I wasn't sure using these colours would work but I think they look really lovely.

I have heaps of quilting to do now!