Our Family Quilt Retreat

I know you think I was away in Cyprus for a 2-week vacation with my husband and daughter. That's what they thought too! Little did they know...that secretly...without their knowlege...they were really on the FAMILY QUILT RETREAT!  After all, what is a retreat?  No housework. Minimal cooking.  Having fun with some friends. Getting away from the world and being able to focus on one thing: quilting!  Well, we had two glorious weeks of that!  With a bit of swimming and sightseeing thrown in for good measure!  Wasn't it nice of me to take them along on the retreat? Aren't I a nice wife/mother? Which other wife/mother takes along the family on a quilt retreat? Only me!

I took along two projects to work on at the Family Quilt Retreat.
Scrappy Triangles Doll Quilt:

I almost finished this one, with the exception of a border or two, which were quickly completed when we got home. And the binding was put on yesterday. Voila! A finished little quilt!
The other project was my Hawaiian quilt:

You may recall my unfortunate Hawaiian quilt from last summer. Sara and I took a full-day workshop to learn how to make a Hawaiian quilt. Everything was going well until the teacher told us that we would have to design our own applique to go in the center. That was when things started to go seriously downhill!  I had never had any experience with this kind of quilt, and had never designed anything of the sort. In fact, I don't know that I've ever designed anything. In short (to paraphrase a line from Mary Poppins)  it was a ghastly mess! However, I pressed on, folded and cut everything according to the instructions (you know, the way we cut a snowflake out of paper), and proceeded to baste and applique my [horrible] shape onto the background. I did it, but I was never happy with it. So you know me. I took out every little stitch. I'm not ashamed to say it: I am not afraid to rip.

Then I borrowed Sara's book on Hawaiian quilts, copied the easiest traditional design possible, the Breadfruit, and went ahead and started over. So here you have it. All appliqued and being quilted. That echo quilting is fun. At first I thought I would mark the quilting lines, but soon gave up that idea. And now I'm just eyeballing it. It seems to be coming out okay.

Our Family Quilt Retreat was lots of fun. And a lot of quilting got done too!