More Gwen 2

I was planning to go to my local quilt shop today to share my pictures and things from Gwen's retreat. I made arrangements to take the grandson to a drop in daycare for a couple of hours. I started out the door and guess what! I could tell that I needed to change a messy diaper. How many of us have been in that position? you are ready to go and have to go back and clean the baby up. I started out the door again and I guess I was rushing but I tripped over my own feet. the bad thing was that I was holding the grandson. Fortunately neither one of us was hurt although I have skinned knees like I was trying to learn to ride a bike.

I am including pictures of Gwen demonstrating her famous pinwheel block, her pinwheel quilt and a block I made so I could recall how to do it. Gwen likes to square her blocks in a wonky way. This creates movement in her quilts altough it is an orderly design. This block is easy but definitely had an impact. You can easily chain piece the first steps. It would a cute baby/child quilt combined with a novelty print. I was showing the woman at the quilt shop this pictures and she said lots of people were using very different colors for the nursery so this would be a great way to incorporate a different combination. Several people at the retreat tried this technique. Gwen likes to use incidentals in her quilts, unexpected colors or combinations.

walking and walking

My husband and I really enjoy walking, particularly with Gus and our grandson. Today we decided to go down to the part of town we grew up in and walk downtown from there like we did when we were kids. We had so much fun trying to remember who lived in what house and talking about how much fun it was to grow up in a small town. There was a small service station that we used to love to go to and get those small Cokes and moon pies. It was a long time ago but it sure doesn't seem like it.

I was able to get into my sewing room today while our sweet boy was napping. I have a close friend who is undergoing treatment for liver cancer. I love Tonya's hope quilts so I stole/borrowed her idea. I was thinking of a small wall hanging but now I am wondering if I should make her a small lap quilt that she can take with her to the hospital or use at home.

Beautiful beach weekend

The beach in NC was beautiful this weekend. Gusman just loves playing Frisbee on the beach and then taking a dip. I honestly think he would rather play Frisbee than eat. We had two almost perfect days on the beach. The only bad thing was that this time of year they allow vehicles on the beach. Our beaches are so fragile why endanger them more than necessary.


































Thanks to so many of you for you encouraging words. I have to admit I had a couple of down days last week thinking of how much fun I had with my new quilting friends from Gwen's retreat. Now I have new cyber-quilting friends!

I loved working with solids and I am almost ready (not quite) to throw out all my other fabrics. Gwen says there are so many advantages to working with solids. One is that there is no right and wrong side to the fabric. Some of you asked about the colors. we all chose our colors before we came and almost everyone wished they had brought some color they didn't have. At the last minute I brought some black and I was so glad. Someone brought a bunch of fabric, some hand dyed, for everyone to use. Everybody was so generous and if you didn't have a color someone was quick to say here use some of mine. There was a small quilt shop in Elk Rapids where we could get some colors if we needed to.

more Gwen

It is a gloomy rainy day in eastern NC. the perfect kind of day to escape to your quilting room. And the grandson is at preschool. what a great place for a little one to be on a rainy day.

One of the most fun things Gwen did was floor scrap squares. I was told the first day not to worry about dropping my scraps on the floor! I thought what in the world. We came back from dinner one night and Gwen was walking around gathering scraps off the floor and making little scraps. the first picture is her floor scrap quilt that she put together from week two. She would pick out two scraps, sew them together, square them up and then find a third. She continued doing this until she had a square the size she wanted. it was fascinating to see her work this way.


















After that we all got into to making floor scrap square. These are some square I made from scraps picked up off the floor. it was hilarious to see grown women walking around the room looking at the floor picking up pieces of fabric others had dropped.










































Several ladies got into making small floor scrap quilts.

















More quilts from Show and Tell.








































One of the most creative quilts was a quilt done in shades of green with hot pink slivers. it was amazing.

Beginnings

I was at Gwen Marston's retreat last week and I got so excited I decided (with some encouragement) to start a blog and share my excitement. I almost hate to get others excited because it may mean there will be fewer spots next year. I love Gwen's approach to quilting. I come from a long line of quilters. My grandmother quilted my mother quilts, my aunt quilts, I was destined at some point to be a quilter. I was turned off by making points meet and having to make all your decisions in the beginning. My aunt introduced me to Gwen and I was hooked. I love her methods and ideas.

here is my quilt from last week. The second one is Gwen's liberated stars. what is hard to see is that the darks are not only black but a very dark purple and a dark navy blue.