Quilt Camp at Joyful Quilter

This weekend another Quilt Camp was held at Joyful Quilter and was attended by 15 devoted quilters.  It was a rousing success (thanks to owner Susan and her cohort)!  It seems to me that all of us attendees worked hard, ate amazingly well (thanks to our chef "in residence" Diane!), talked a lot, laughed well and often, and shared expertise with friends new and old. Finally and at long last I remembered not only to have camera on hand but also to ask for permission to use the resultant photographs here on my blog. 

 

Today begins a tour of the projects worked on during this delightful experience.  But, before I begin, please remember that the photographs are sometimes taken at odd angles in order to avoid including ironing boards, sewing machines, tables, elbows - you understand.  The lighting might affect the color depending on the time of day a particular photograph was taken, and basically, all errors are mine so apologies to the lovely women with whom I spent the weekend for any mistakes I have made.  Let me know and I will correct them if I can.

 

In the room where the kitchenette is, there were six women: Deb, Patricia, Bronwyn, Joan, Maria, and Sandy.  Some of these ladies I knew before (Deb, a fellow teacher, for many years of taking the YA literature course), some from brief acquaintance from quilting classes, pajama parties (also held at JQ), or Quilt Camps, and a few I met for the first time.  If I am lucky, our paths will cross many times in the future.

 

Deb was working on a contemporary quilt - very graphic in design and using today's favored palette.  Do I remember either the name of the pattern or the book from which it came?  No.  But it is in a book of modern quilts that JQ does have in stock.

Deb's contemporary creation

The bag in the foreground is not part of the quilt (!).  There are six blocks across in this photograph; on the far right Deb has a strip that shows the eventual setting for these blocks.  I had a good time discussing which were our favorite blocks with Deb.  Even though the colors are so closely related, each fabric added a subtle difference to the block.

 

Patricia chose some gorgeous blues for her quilt "Phoenix".  I think the opalescence of some of those fabrics created some havoc with my camera as the color in the phoenix photo is not what it should be.  My apologies to Patricia. 

This is the Phoenix for whom the quilt is named.

The label was sewn by Maria for Patricia and has a funny story all its own, but it isn't mine to tell.  You'll have to ask one of them to tell you! 

Chickens were the order of the day for Bronwyn, and I think she won't mind if I tell you a little about the "back story" for these quilts.  Bronwyn is making them for her daughter who lives in Chicago and who at one time raised chickens here in our area.  After moving to that mid western city, she told her mother that she missed her chickens, and what does a good mother do?  She provides her child with her heart's desire: Chickens in Chicago!

 

This one is Tessellated Chickens and Bronwyn told me that figuring out the math in this one was a challenge.  All I can say it that it's a good thing it was she doing the math, not me.  Her daughter would never have received the quilt! 

Here are funky chickens in this one compared to the realistic (even though tessellated) chickens in her first one quilt.  I really enjoyed the border fabric she chose for this one.  Unfortunately I didn't take photographs of the backs.  Bronwyn makes wonderful quilt backs in order to make the quilts reversible.  Ah, but where does she sew the label?  I'll have to ask her the next time I'm fortunate enough to see her.

And this is only the beginning of the wealth of quilts I plan to tell you about and show you over the course of this week - or however long it takes. 

Stay tuned for more!