Quilt Some More

The best part of my trip to Manchester was visiting my BFF to take part in our own quilting retreat! I left Colorado in the wee hours of the morning. 

Iconic "Blue Mustang" who greets air travelers on the approach to the airport.
Do you see his eerie glowing eyes?

When I arrived Marjie and her husband had the family sewing room prepared, down to the smallest detail. Two large tables were pushed together in the center of the room and held two sewing machines and two large cutting mats with rotary cutters, scissors, rulers and scrap bags. Marjie raided her Halloween and fall fabric stash and had piles of fabric awaiting our scissors. There were magazines and patterns displayed around the room for inspiration. Within a short time of my arrival in the late afternoon, we were snipping and sewing. 

Even with time out for an excellent dinner at "Cotton",  a local "farm to table" restaurant, we had both settled on a pattern, and had begun sewing before the evening was over. 

The next day saw us back at the machines early in the morning, taking a break for breakfast prepared for us by Marjie's tolerant husband while we were sewing. We ventured out to visit "Keepsake Quilting", one of the Holy Grails of the quilting world, and a few other shops in the area. 

One of the quilt shops had an impressive collection of vintage sewing machines.
The owner has over 120 Singer Featherweights! Wow!

Upon our return we went back to sewing, only after showing off our purchases to the ever patient husband, who later delivered a glass of wine to me while I toiled at the machine. Perhaps not the best idea, but I didn't dump the wine and the only silly mistakes I made occurred when my sobriety was not at issue! Another break took us downtown Manchester, 10 minutes from Marjie's house, at most, to begin exploring the World Quilt New England show. Seeing all of the beautiful quilts was motivation to continue our own projects.

My tablecloth pieced and ready for quilting upon my arrival at home.

On the third day of our retreat we followed our morning of snipping and sewing with another go at the World Quilt show, and participated in a workshop to learn more about felting from Debora Konchinsky, who taught us the secrets of creating felted quilt wall hangings like her "Wooly Fish". 

A portion of Debora's wall hanging.

This is what I accomplished in the workshop. Some day I'll get back to it! I enjoyed felting and hope to incorporate it in some garments for my grandchild.

After we returned, guess what?! More sewing! 

The sewing continued, on and off, for a total of 4 1/2 days. We did a bit more shopping at local quilt shops, we looked at more quilts at the show, and checked out vendors there as well, and we did take breaks to eat and play with Marjie's adorable "Boss"ton Terriers. By the evening of day five, we laid out our projects: a "flimsy" (just the top of a quilt) for a Halloween themed throw, a loonnnggg table runner, quilted with the binding almost finished, a Halloween pillow, 4 pumpkin shaped quilted placemats, a Trick-or-Treat bag, a hat and a mug mat. Whew! We had a blast and can't wait to "retreat" again!

The next morning I was dropped at the Manchester, NH airport. I whisked through security and soon was on my way. A change of planes in Baltimore left me sitting on the runway waiting for thunderstorms to pass. And then I was in the air and on my way home.

Quilts Galore

I took a break from gardening, sewing and enjoying Colorado in the late summer to head to Manchester, NH to visit my BFF and attend the World Quilt New England Show. What fun! There were quilts of every description, every color and every size. 

The smallest quilts were a mere 15" square. The quilting on some involved lots of little bits. I enjoyed seeing the craftsmanship, but don't know that I would enjoy sewing and pressing such tiny scraps of cloth. 

All of this in 15"!!!

Wow! Another example of a 15" quilt.

And, one more 15" quilt.

The tiny quilts were part of a challenge. There were several other displays of challenge quilts in the exhibit. Some focused on the cloth used in the quilt. The Tiny Quilt Challenge quilts had to use American Made Brand solid cottons, and the Hoffman Challenge included quilts, apparel and dolls incorporating specific fabric from the Hoffman line, for example.  Some challenges were topical. One included quilts depicting the theme of "Let it Grow".  Another challenged quilters to create a piece that commemorates their birth year.  There were other challenges as well. Some of the exhibited quilts represented art guilds from across the U.S., included quilts from the Savannah, GA area and others from Santa Fe, for example. 

Other quilts were fabricated in far off lands like Germany and Israel. The quilts spanned all manner from traditional designs with pieced fabric to modern quilts with elaborate quilting, to quilts that were painted and those that used thread as paint. Quilts were judged for best use of color, or innovative use of materials or for design. Viewing hundreds of quilts of different colors, sizes and quilting designs was amazing. Just when I thought I had found my favorite, I'd turn a corner and find another favorite quilt. I am truly inspired and have lots of ideas to explore. 

Here are just a few of the hundreds of quilts on display:

This scene is a quilt using fabric and "thread painting"

Here's a closer view

 This is reminiscent of a Mongolian Monk's shawl.

Each scallop had a bright batik fabric on the back.

 You can barely see the reflected color in this shot.

Some of the quilts were whimsical:

Here's another thread painted quilt.

This one used 75,000 yards of thread and 7 million stitches.

The quilt required 2000 hours of work by two seamstresses

over 7 years! Wow!

This is not your traditional quilt!

I was intrigued by this quilt. 

Layers of solid colors were quilted 

and then cut in different ways.

Fascinating!

Here are another few quilts that played with color:

I was intrigued by the quilting and took quite a few close up shots.

I was in awe of the workmanship.