Montana Quilt Retreat

My best friend (and fellow quilter) and I headed to Red Lodge Montana last week for a quilt retreat. She and I have been sewing together since we were about 6th grade.  She still lives in Idaho, so I flew into Boise and we took a road trip to Montana!  Sorta like "Thelma and Louise."

Her sister lives in Billings, MT.  She and her quilty friends had arranged this fabulous retreat--

There were 6 of us and we stayed in this "cabin" in Red Lodge Montana.  It was rough, but we managed.

We spread projects upstairs and downstairs! 

The local ladies brought delicious things for our meals and everyone helped out in the kitchen. 

Here is the view out the kitchen door. My friend and I threw on our sweatshirts and had coffee out on the deck every morning, and happy hour in the evening!

We took 2 days to make the 8 hour drive up from southern Idaho, but hey, there are a lot of sweet and unique quilt stores along the way...and we stopped at them all.

There were also fuel stops. I have never taken photos in a restroom, but by golly, there's always a first. I don't know how many of you have ever even seen a thing like this, but I have not seen one since I was a kid.  Ewwww!  Needless to say, we semi dried our hands on our jeans at this stop.

Big Sky country in Montana.  Dry-farm wheat fields on the left.  The snow just melted a week ago here.

Along the Madison River in Montana. 

Island Park, Idaho. 

Island Park, Idaho.

Morning ice under the irrigation sprinklers where my BFF lives in Southern Idaho.

Snow on farm over Monida Pass as we dropped  back down into Idaho.

Typical dust storm as we drove through Idaho Falls, ID. 

Here are a couple of fun wall hangings the ladies made while we were there.  The Kimono quilt is for a daughter who spent time teaching in Japan.

This western wall hanging is going to receive a lot of TLC with hand embroidery and fun embellishments. 

My friend  brought a couple of machines and of course everyone else brought their machine.  On the way up, we shopped for flannels for everyone and I taught them how to make these self-binding receiving blankets. Link with a tutorial for them here: Self binding receiving blankets

I also made up kits for the "sausage roll" pillowcases.

These are some I made a year ago.

I don't know why I didn't take photos of the pillowcases at the retreat.  It might have been "Happy Hour" and I was off duty on the deck about that time, but here is a link that leads to a tutorial: Pillowcases 

First time I every flew for a weeks vacation and only took a carry on.  I did a little load of laundry one evening and still had one clean shirt when I got home.  Why did I always think I needed to pack everything I owned??

Oh, one more thing- did I mention we bunked with John Wayne?

May Wall Hanging

Well, I am keeping up with my Mom's monthly wall hangings.

Here is the one for May.

Once again, all the fabrics came from my scrap bag.

Pattern by Joined at the Hip.

I love these big 'ol lollypop May-Flowers!

Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Challange

One H2H quilt done and one to go.

You can read all about the H2H Challenge here: Hands 2 Help

I LOVE this quilt!

As I stated in a previous post I found this floral fabric in a bargain bin.

Kind of a Charley-Brown-Christmas-Tree-bolt-of-fabric if you will....  

I brought 1.5 yards home and hooked it up with these bright border colors.

Then, I quilted it with this large funky flowery freehand. 

I used all the leftover fabric from the borders and the binding for the back.

I just wanted both sides to be bright, joyful and full of surprises!

You can read more about the challenge and the charity this quilt will be sent to here: H2H Happy Chemo Charity

On the Design Wall Today

I have a couple of projects up here this week:

1) I have started this black and white "Paradigm Shift"

2 ) and I am ready to applique the May wall hanging for my Mom. 

Spring has Sprung in NW Ohio!

H2H Charity Challange

Sarah, over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict is hosting the 2013 Charity Quilt Challenge.

This week, the linky party is about Tutorials, Tips and Tasty Treats.

I am sending along a blog tutorial that I posted about a year ago on how I do machine binding.  I thought since we were all making charity quilts and machine binding is more rugged than hand binding, it might be helpful.

Machine Binding Quilts 

It's kinda long and as I reread it this morning, there are a few extra tips I had included that I had forgotten about~

Here is the link to Sarah's linky party this week.  Hope you head over to look, already there's lots of sharing going on!

H2H Time for Tutes, Tips, Treats

Brown and Blue

This is a sweet little baby quilt by Lacey.

Squares are quilted with a different take on the Terry Twist.  You can quilt back and forth all across the quilt with these little curly twists. Here's the stitching sequence: starting in the tan block on the left bottom corner, head right, up, down the left side of the blue, head right on blue and so on.  When you get to the end of a row, you simply make your way back to the left quilting all the top twists.  If you sequenced it correctly at the end of the row, you could continuously quilt the whole top. 

On the back, you can see 2 different secondary patterns.

This lily-like flower. . .  

and this rose-like shape. 

To compliment, I did freehand curlicues on the outer borders. 

Dark chocolate minky on the back 

The total package~ 

Thanks Lacey, for sending me so many fun and cute tops to quilt~

Daisy Take 5

Thanks to Joyce for making such a pretty "Take 5" on point quilt.

When I first spread out this top, I knew I wanted to quilt a freehand allover floral in the printed blocks,  As I was contemplating what to do in the white setting triangles, I kept looking at the white daisies in the brown fabric....here is what I came up with. 

Feathers worked out well in the outer brown border because I could stay away from the white flange.  

Crisp white cotton backing. 

The white binding makes the perfect finish to her quilt.