I met Cindy about four years ago when she taught a two day class, including a thread bar lecture, at the Ridgecrest CA quilt guild. I then signed up for her four day design retreat and the following year took her Linen Ladies retreat. Since then I’ve been to a couple more; it just seems that the time totally dedicated to nothing but quilting plus Cindy’s input has made me a better quilter. I treasure this time!
This was the first time I had been to the Mercy Retreat Center in Auburn CA and I was very happy here. Had a big table with excellent lighting and lots of work tables set up with cutting mats. There were also cordless irons – in other words, you could piece, applique, baste, mark and/or quilt and have plenty of space for any and all of it. I took a couple of pictures of the room, but since there were so many windows, they tended to come out dark.
We had a show and tell on the last day. It went so fast that I didn’t get names, but here’s what people were working on:
I love this! She was making it for her 12 year old niece; we could all see lots of quilting possibilities for those light diamond areas (of course, I’m voting for feathers), but then we were thinking – all that work an it will be taken care of by a 12 year old?
Loved the stars!
And an itty bitty pincushion that you could wear on your finger! How cute and how fortuitous that she had a nice manicure!
A ruched flower made from ombre fabric which is what made this so pretty. I have a closeup of the flower, too, but I liked this one because of the cute shoe!
Closeup of the flower – the ombre fabric totally makes this. It shades from bright yellow all the way through burnt orange to almost a brown.
The piecing was beautiful but the quilting was even better!!
Look at the dragonfly….
A classroom shot – lots of room for everybody to lay out all their stuff – and, wow, do we bring stuff!
This is the project that Cindy was working on when she got a spare moment or two. A beautiful piece of linen with lots and lots and lots of quilting.
This is what I worked on at the retreat. I had started this in the Linen Ladies workshop I took from Cindy two years ago. I got all of the feathers done during that retreat and then brought it back last year to work on some of the background quilting. Now all I have to do is hand stitch down the doily that inspired it all.
The quilt is constructed of two pieces of Radiance (50% silk/50% cotton blend fabric from Robert Kaufman), the rose color on the front and a pale pink on the back. I interfaced the Radiance with Bosal, an iron-on woven interfacing that Cindy recommends to make the Radiance less slippery and more manageable while quilting. Batting is one layer of Quilter’s Dream Cotton topped by a layer of Quilter’s Dream Wool. I wanted the cotton for stability and the wool for loft.
After I get the doily sewn on, I intend to do more hand stitching (gasp!!) to attach tiny pearls to the doily. That will nail the whole thing down and add some pretty. Only problem is, I can’t find the pearls I bought for the project. I know where they SHOULD be, but…..
This is the back – I wanted some quilting interest on the back in the space reserved on the front for the doily, so I used one of Cindy’s Ultimate Stencils (you can buy these on her website, www.cindyneedham.com) to design the center medallion.
I’m really pleased with everything I got done and am already thinking about what I might work on next year!
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