Meeting Kim at Cindy Needham’s Retreat!

Getting to go to Cindy’s retreats are a balm to my soul; a time to get together with other like minded sewing maniacs with Cindy’s advice along the way, seeing what other people are working on and getting some progress made on my own quilts.  This time I brought somebody else’s to work on, but more on that later.  I think the recipient may be on Facebook now and then and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.  I brought one quilting project and two piecing projects.  I got to a stopping point on everything and left a little earlier than planned – I broke my own retreat rule, which is ALWAYS BRING ONE MORE PROJECT THAN YOU THINK YOU WILL HAVE TIME FOR! 

For piecing projects, I’ll bring cutting to be done and sewing up to block placement.  I can never make up my mind fast enough to be able to put things up on a design wall and get them all sewn together by the end of the retreat, so spend my piecing time making what I call components.  Then when I get home I can lay them out, mess around with them until I get them where I want them (black and white filter on my phone camera is priceless for this step!) and then sew it together.

The retreats generally have a mix of people that I’ve met before and new ones, most of them intermediate or advanced level quilters, but this time I was charmed by Kim Cameron-Smith.  Kim is a first time quilter who purchased a Start Quilting book by Alex Anderson, talked to her quilter mom about going to the retreat and jumped in head first! 

I took a picture of Kim, Cindy and that very first quilt which, you’ll notice, she even got bound during the retreat!  I sent that picture to Alex who commented back, “This makes my heart super happy!”  I forwarded Alex’s response to Kim and she emailed back to me:

Hello Paula,

Thank you so much for lovely email! Attached is a photo of my 6 year old daughter Lydia with the quilt. She has been carrying it around ever since I gave it to her.

Thank you for forwarding me Alex's reply. I'm still loving her book! I've cut my fabric for my second quilt already. That book and the accompanying DVD are so clear and easy to understand. Definitely got me off to a good start.

I'm planning on another retreat and I've joined my local quilter's guild. I'm officially obsessed. Hope to see you at another of Cindy's retreats!

Kim

And here’s a picture of Lydia with the quilt!

I think another quilter is on board – don’t you?  And it’s so cool that she has something new to do with her Mom!