Quilting retreats are the best!  Working from home gets lonely, so I am always excited to join other quilters for a day of sewing or taking a class together.  Last week, I joined my church’s Quilting Retreat and we had a blast.

The hostess planned simple meals and turned on Netflix while we worked. One gal sewed bindings, another hand quilted, some baby quilts were finished and many borders sewn on.

Quilting Retreat Project 1: Easy Pillowcase

My first project was a Halloween pillowcase for my daughter. The fabric was purr-fect for my cat lover.  I used the All People Quilt Roll It Up pattern. This will double as her Trick or Treat bag before it goes on the bed.

Quilting Retreat Project 2: Charity Quilt

Next on my to-do list was to finally sew my split nine patch blocks into a quilt top. It took me several years of stitching these blocks in between other projects to have enough for a 60×72 quilt.

I spent some time playing with half square triangle designs in EQ7 and settled on this one.

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Quilting Retreat Project 3: Something for me!

By day three of the retreat, I was ready to tackle my final project.  At a quilt show last spring, I fell in love with the Two Color Bargello quilt (find the pattern and kits here). It comes in many colorways, but blue is my favorite so I decided this would be a new quilt for my bedroom.  It needed borders, so I improvised the inserts of the focal prints with the ombre and black fabrics.

A very productive retreat!  And sharing stories and laughter with good friends is even better.  I highly recommend going on a quilting retreat.  If travel to a camp is not in your budget, follow the low-cost option that my church group uses. Someone opens their home, everyone brings their machine and a folding table, buy pre-made pasta for lunch and dinner and you are all set for days of stitching fun!