I've been on a quilt retreat!

I just got back from the Trinity Valley Quilt Retreat. Four days of complete focus on sewing. No cooking, no cleaning, don't even have to make the bed....Heaven!

I took three old projects that were fermenting in my unfinished projects bag. All of them needed borders, and I hate adding borders, so they had been sitting for a long time. And I also packed a lot of my hand dyed cottons and hand dyed silks, as well as a few of my batiks.

For every quilt that I put borders on, I allowed myself to work on one art piece. This strategy worked really well -- I got all three old projects done, and pieced three new pieces. And finished piecing one fiber art piece I had started before the retreat.

For my art quilts, I decided to focus on spike-like shapes. This first piece is Fracture #3. It is 18" x 24". I really think this turned out well -- I had it pinned up on the wall and the more I looked at it the more I liked it! In fact, another guest at the hotel (not one of us quilters) wanted to buy it:

This next quilt is Fracture #4. 30" x 24" I'm not sure of the orientation of this piece. It looks very different when turned 90 or 180 degrees. I used some pieces of fabric I had rusted and batiked at Susie Monday's Burning Woman workshop in this piece, as well as some of my domestically produced hand dyes and batiks. The black spikes are cut from a piece that I had discharged at Bethany's house last September:

This next piece is Fracture #2. 20" x 22". Rather than using a block format this quilt was pieced from the center out. The large pinkish field near the center is a lovely piece of hand dyed silk. And of course it has pieces of my circle stamped batik -- I love the texture of the large "bubbles."

I had started making blocks for this next quilt several weeks ago. The color in this picture is awful -- it is much more red-violet and rust than it appears here. I'll have to photograph it again when I have better light:
And finally, the three quilts I put borders on. Finished and ready to quilt!



I had a great time and felt like I had a great creative burst. It was funny -- I was the only art quilter at the retreat and everyone was gathering around to watch me cut and piece. Maybe I'll start a new trend at the TVQG! No rulers allowed!