Sew In with the Cozy Quilter, Day Two!

The Quilters are busy down in Louisville!

Location?  The Drury Inn , with a spacious conference room just right for 50 of your closest quilty friends to gather and get their scrappy on!

There is something extra rewarding about extended time with folks – retreats just have a more relaxed and festive atmosphere than a “normal” workshop time period where you are trying to cram everything in to a mere 6-hour time frame.

There is time to get to know your neighbor across, behind or beside you, if you did not know them already.

I like to say that “We are only strangers once!” And it is so true when it comes to quilters.  The exchange of information, conversation, cell numbers, email addresses and social media befriending is fierce as we make plans to do this again NEXT YEAR!

Happy Anniversary Jayne!

We had barely fired up our motors when a box full of sweetness arrived – unbeknownst to Jayne, her hubby had sent over cupcakes enough for the whole room in celebration of their 33rd wedding anniversary! 

It got our day into a very yummy start!

And it’s kismet when your cupcakes matches your outfit!

And your sewing machine!

Four-patches by the arm load!

Daybreak from String Frenzy may look very straight forward at first – "Simple four-patches are easy!" As long as you are “consistent” with your sewing, what does seam allowance or unit size have to do with anything? It will all work out, right?

Well here is something that my students will say was very enlightening to them, or distressing in the way that quilt lessons can be -

Measure, measure, measure!

Before cross-cutting strip sets, make sure the strip set measures what it should! Four-patches that are under-sized or over-sized are just going to cause a problem once we start adding triangles around the outside of them.

Challenges with this block are found as we work from the inside out.

Triangles added to the right size of four-patch -

There should be 1/4’’ seam allowance at all 4 corners of the four-patch so when you sew it into the block next to its neighbors, points don’t go missing.

Avoiding problems from the inside out!

If the inner five units are the right size – then the setting triangles WILL fit!  But guess what happens if the four-patches are too large, and the small triangles around them don’t quite fit?  then the outer setting triangles will absolutely be too small.  And if you've already cut them ahead of time - now you've got a bunch of triangles that don't fit your over-sized four-patch units.

Success depends on the size of the four-patch so check, check, and recheck at each step of the way and you’ll have great success!

So super cute!  I love the yellow!

And don’t forget to throw in some string piecing to relieve all of the stress of point matching!

beautiful New Home machine – 1960s!

Thanks everyone for the great day!

Click to Play:

I can't wait to see the quilts these ladies come up with!

Upon returning from dinner we checked in on how things were going in the sewing room, and machines were still humming to the ring of much laughter.  Yep.  Cheaper than therapy! Or if not, the best therapy available whatever the cost.  And there were very few cupcakes left.

Today – Day THREE, our grande finale.  Orca Bay from String Fling! I can’t wait to see the color plans that folks have for this one!

Quiltville Quote of the Day

It takes great courage to embrace change and see it as an opportunity. You've got this!

Grow through the shake up and the growing pains!

Have a wonderful Saturday -