Gerry K.'s "For the Birds"

At the CQI retreat this year, Gerry offered to do one of my "For the Birds" blocks while she was at the retreat. I had asked her to be in the round robin, but she was too busy at the time, so of course I said "Yes!". Here is a picture of the block. She asked me for the picture so she could tell you all a little about it, so you will see it on her blog as well. (-;

My Chinese Auction Winnings!

Last weekend I went to the CQI Crazy Quilt Retreat at the YMCA of the Rockies. It was a lot of fun. One of the activities was a Chinese Auction where we all brought something handmade to participate. All the players took a number and the person with number one picked the first gift. Then person number two could either take a new gift or take the gift of person number one. If she took person number one's gift, person number one would choose a new gift and on it went. I ended up with this cute chatelaine made by Leslie E!

CQI Retreat in Breckenridge 23 - 26 September 09

I attended an awesome retreat in Breckenridge put on by the yahoo group leaders of CQI. We (14 of us) stayed at a home in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. The food was awsome, the classes were interesting, and the company the best! It is really wonderful to spend time with gals who have your same passion. Everyone was on their best behavior I assume because, for the most part, all of us got along famously. (-; We dyed laces and ribbons, made polymer motifs, painted buttons, sewed, ate, shopped, hot tubbed, walked, made ribbon flowers and leaves, embossed velvet, played with punch needles, talked, had a chinese auction, shared "ugly" ties, and collected fabric goodies mostly provided by Cathy. Here are some pics of the girls!

Lace and Potassium Permanganate

Cathy gave us a lesson on aging lace at the CQI retreat. Most of these laces were a bright white before application. Some are darker because the solution was fresher or I left them in longer.

Velvet Embossing

One activity at the CQI retreat was velvet embossing -- this requires some practice (at least for some of us!) I figure there are two kinds of stitchers in the world -- those who have ironed a hole in velvet, and those who are going to!! We figured that the velvet was either cheap or the iron was too hot. Here are pics of my beautiful work (ha ha!). Leslie came to the rescue and cleaned the iron with a dryer sheet so we all learned something from my mistake!

Piecemaker's Quilt

We were lucky enough to have the honor of viewing the Piecemaker's Quilt while at the CQI Retreat. Ingrid from California thought to ask to bring it for us to see -- Thanks Ing! This was my favorite butterfly motif -- a thing of beauty!

Gerry's Button Painting Class

Gerry K. taught us how to paint birds on buttons at the CQI retreat in Breckenridge and these are a few of them. Everyone really enjoyed the class and some self starters went on to paint mountain scenes (Carolyn).

Leslie's Charming Landscapes and "Swinging" Escapades!

Lesley also shared a couple of quilts she's been working on while in Breckenridge. The colors are striking and I love what she does with fabric texture to make these landscapes come alive. And of course her trademark tree! Make sure to double click on the "swing" picture to see her expression!

Laurie's Lovely Under-the-Sea Quilt

Laurie brought her lovely quilt to the CQI retreat for us to see. I took some pics of it and these are the best ones, but there is much more to it -- she put so much work into this quilt! It is really an amazing work of art.

More pictures near our retreat site

Sometimes I felt too busy to take pictures, but one day Cathy and I went out for an hour or so and just took pictures of our surroundings -- what a gorgeous place!

The Beauty of going to a retreat!

These pictures were all taken within 5 miles of our retreat house. Nice place to be inspired by beauty, isn't it?

Techniques learned

I took two Jay Rich classes. One was to teach making textured silks and the other was stitched resist dying. I feel I have enough knowledge to be dangerous and am starting to make monthly orders of silk velvet, silk charmeuse, dyes, and chemicals for another week or two of experimenting in dying and texturing! I also took MaryAnne Griffin's Beyond the Seams class and learned many, many fun techniques! I wanted to try them all and so quickly went to each station to get that lesson under my belt. It was a relief to go to Jay's class the next day and play with the castrator and marbles to dye my silk charmeuse!No - I loved her class! We put pictures on polymer and mica, played with shiva sticks, embossed velvet, textured fabric, and played with angelica fibers. I love learning new techniques and so all my classes were technique classes. Loved them all and can't wait to experiment some more!

Omaha Crazy Quilt Retreat - Stash collection

At the crazy quilt retreat many vendors sold there wares and lured me in with beads, fabric, trims, laces, and all sort of other temptations. I did succumb. Sigh. Here's my stash which now has to be sorted and contained so I can get into my sewing room to sew! Some of the crocheted goodies I got on the road when I stopped to peruse an antique store or two.