Thursday, October 18, 2007

What a Swell Time!

Ahhhh.....there's not too many things closer to a quilters heart than a few straight days of sewing with friends and not having to cook/clean/step&fetch. Call it immersion quilting - sewing saturation - quality time with a warm machine. LOL - whatever, it's my far and away my favorite escape. I took a large box of pre-cut pieces and made 11 more 16 inch blocks for what I'm now calling Paintbox. That green sure did something to it, just not quite sure what:
Sorta hurts the eyes, doesn't it? This is scrap wranglin' at it's finest; I don't pay attention to what goes with what. My darling friend Mavis who is utterly coordinated to the MAX kept trying to re-arrange pieces, saying "you have 2 greens here" or "Do you really want that many blues?" I love her to bits. By the last morning she was taking pictures and swearing she wanted to make one just like it.
I also took this opportunity to try my hand at teeny minis - paper pieced of course, and 3 inch finished.

The angel who arranges these trips and does all the work is Kerrie Hershey, owner of Kerries Quilting in Lakeport, CA. She gave me the best best best paper piecing tip I've ever learned. That thread cutting feature on my machine (that I thought was worthless) is the BOMB for paper piecing!! No 1000 miles of threads all over the place. She also pulled my name to win the neatest new cutter:
How cool is that? The picture doesn't show it as cool as it really is. Olfa is testing the water with these, and have only made 2 colors so far apparently, purple and orange. Ironically, the morning before the drawing I had relieved the LQS of 5 or 6 yards of assorted oranges. Spooky, huh? Like I have POWERS? (snicker snicker)
The scraps I trimmed off the Paintbox blocks made a little Broken Dishes quiltlet, NOT pp.

Those HSTs finished at an inch and a quarter. WAY small for me. I seem to be getting sucked into a leeetle bitty vortex - is there treatment for this???
For the 5th time I won the award for Most $$ dropped at the LQS. Sigh. Where's the competition???? Somebody put up a struggle! I'll show you the loot later, right now I have to go catch up on what's happening in blogland. Toodles!
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17 comments:

Fabricfaire said...

Oooh,you had so deservidly much fun! I can envision it all! I am off to "fishland"!

dot said...

The paint box is wonderful. Oh how I would love to have that orange cutter. Orange is my favorite color. I am a bit envious. I have only seen the purple. I will have to keep my eyes open. Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Love you Paintbox! When WE RETIRE we are gonna have to celebrate...
somehow, someway.

Glad you had a great time, can't wait to see pics of your shopping spree...how fun 5 years in a row...not sure I would have given you a run for your money, but I would have tried!

Pam@
www.pamgwillim.com

julieQ said...

Sounds like you had a marvelous time. I like that cutter. Ok, I thought I was the queen of shopping?

grins, JulieQ

Cher said...

fabulous paintbox...love all the color-I didn't spend the most but had fun nonetheless! love the other tops too...

Elaine Adair said...

That Paintbox is on my list of "To Do's .. in fact, YOURS looks like it could have come from MY stash ...very interesting. I'm keeping you as "New" so I can look at this quilt over and over. GREAT stashbuster! Did you do the triangles per "Mary's Triangles" ? or did you make them one at a time?

Kim said...

Sounds like you had a wonderful time, and I really like your paint box! Oh, and congrats on winning the "most money spent" award! LOL!

~Bren~ said...

It all sounds so wonderful. I LOVE your Paintbox quilt and the mini from it's scraps! Your cutter is too cute...I want one!

Michele Bilyeu said...

Scrap quilting at its finest, Sue Bee! Any honey, you're not in a little vortex...you're in a twister! And about having those powers...well, what do you find at the end of the twister? Red high heels, a great imagination and super powers!!!Oh, and please don't land on any witches. She might be borrowing my broom. P.S. Now tell me again, who trusted you with an orange rotary cutter? What was she thinking of????

Anonymous said...

Oh, goodness. Very nicely done on the "scrap wranglin'!" The Paintbox is really terrific, so bright and vibrant. The small pieces make my head hurt to think of making 'em, but thy are lovely. Great work!

Paula, the quilter said...

Retreats are just so much fun! I'm also delving into the "small side". But not as small as your blocks.

Anne Ida said...

Looks like you had a wonderful time and got loads done! Your Paintbox looks great! Wonderfully scrappy and bright :o) Your minis are sooo cute, and I absolutely adore that broken dish mini quilt!

Hedgehog said...

Doesn't hurt my eyes at all! Love your paintbox and glad you had fun on the retreat!

Pam said...

The Paint Box quilt is a great one for a scrappy quilt - I've not seen that pattern before but I really love it. I don't think it is too green in the picture. It is good that scrappy is scrappy and where the colours end up is where they stay.

I bought myself one of those cool Olfa cutters - although I have yet to take it out of the box!

MARCIE said...

Your Paintbox quilt is terrific! Is that your own design? Well done! And I love the minis and the little broken dishes. There is no cure, you are hooked!

Marilyn Robertson said...

It looks like you accomplished a lot and had bunches of fun at the same time! I love your paint box! It doesn't hurt my eyes at all - I think it is eye candy!

Saska said...

Paintbox is georgous! I love anything scrappy and it is really an eye-catcher.
Would love to attend a retreat like that. Nobody hollaring "MOM"?! ..that would be wonderful!