Rainbow Scraps at the Quilt Retreat

I decided to work on some more scrappy paper foundation-pieced Briar Patch blocks during the guild retreat ... with the goal of making ALL of the rest of the blocks I need, in the colors that I need them.  The colors of the day for me yesterday were red, pink and PURPLE, putting me in sync with the Rainbow Scraps Challenge this weekend.

Here are three of the six purple blocks I made yesterday.

The end of the paper piecing phase of this quilt project is in sight. Yay! You're maybe as sick of seeing them on my blog as I am of piecing them ... next up is arranging and rearranging on the design wall, adding the plain squares and setting triangles and cutting fabrics for the pieced inner border of half-square triangles.

Before returning to the retreat this morning, I had to put them up on the design wall to double check the blocks/colors needed.  So now, the in-progress quilt looks like this:

That perfect backing fabric that I found on Massdrop has been shipped and is on the way.  I'm also thinking it will work for the outer border if there is enough. Who knows?  If I continue to push to get this top pulled together, perhaps I'll make enough progress to be ready for it when it arrives.

Updating this post to link to Angie's WIPS Be Gone list–now that all the blocks are pieced, the end is in sight.

Retreat!

I think quilt retreats are universal in many ways.

Quilters gather in a large room, with cutting tables and ironing stations.   Sometimes you're one of the lucky few with a spot near the window and enjoy the natural light; sometimes you end up in a dark corner, glad you remembered to bring some lighting of your own. 

The food is always good.  You may not have as many vegan and gluten-free options as I enjoyed today, but it's always tasty. 

The kale chips were a nice change from the usual chocolate and sweet/salty snacks.

Finishes are shared and celebrated. 

If you're organized and focused, you can get a lot done. My day today started like this.

Looked like this for much of the day.

And started to look like this around dinner time.

At the end of the day, I had 19 feathers completed ... and 33 more in progress. I couldn't resist bringing the finished ones home so I could put (some of) them on my wall.

(It was after dark when I got home so the light/color in this photo isn't great.)

Really, the biggest difference between the retreats I've attended, in California, Michigan, Texas and New Mexico is the architecture.