Turkey Tracks: The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

Turkey Tracks:  October 22, 2016

The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

We had a great time!

As happened in May, we want to go back soon, soon, soon…

And we will in May and October 2017.  AND we will add a day for those of us who want a bit longer time sewing at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk, Maine.  (This forty acre property sits walking distance to the town or the beach and the grounds themselves are lovely.)  We checked in Monday at 1 p.m. and left Wednesday around noon, but could have stayed until 1 p.m.

This time, we were in the gym.  Look at this awesome set-up:

(That is Vicki Fletcher at the cutting table.  See her quilt below.)

We had lots and lots of ironing boards and design walls and a table full of snacks we had brought with us and coffee, tea, and water supplied.  We have breakfast every day, lunch on the full day, and dinner on the two nights we are there.

Here is Vicki’s quilt–which is made from a four-patch of five-inch blocks that get sliced and resewn.

Sharon Flanagan and Margaret-Elaine Jinno.  Margaret-Elaine had pre-cut Farmer’s Wife blocks and she made SIXTEEN of them over the two days.

Sharon worked on hemming some curtains for her brother and left Saturday afternoon for a special high tea at MIT, returning early evening.  She and Margaret Elaine stayed up late, and when the rest of us came down in the morning, we found this quilt on the design wall.  It’s an “amazing” quilt.  Do you see why?

Lisa Niles brought her friend Sandy Pushaw.

Here’s Lisa’s quilt:

Here’s Sandy:

And here’s Sandy’s quilt developing:  a trip around the world.

Nancy Saulnier, or Mac, is Jan Kelsey’s friend.  She came last May and is coming again, with or without Jan.

A Christmas beauty:

Tori Manzi was with us for the first time:

Tori did a retreat with Pink Castle quilts (a good site to follow) up in Michigan.  The medallion and each of the borders were designed by different designers.  We had such a good time watching Tori make these borders.  There are more borders to follow I think.

Here’s another project Tori is working on–a “sampler” type quilt of these big, intricate blocks.  This one is foundation pieced.

Jan Kelsey worked on a number of projects.  There was a quilt with half-square triangles that disappeared from the design board before I got a picture of it.  Here Jan is working on one of the grocery bags made from feed sacks.

Look at this cute feed sack!

My friend Penny Rogers Camm came over from Burlington, Vermont, to join us.  You can see her FIRST QUILT in an earlier blog post.  Here she is with Becca Babb-Brott (check out Becca’s Sew Me A Song Etsy store).

Penny fell in love with Amy Friend’s “Tell Me A Story” quilt and here are her first blocks for that quilt, which is FOUNDATION PIECED.  She is doing fine with that method.

She went home with this many blocks made.  I am very proud of my student!

Lots of sharing went on among everyone.  We really loved this unified setting we had–no middle aisle to separate us.

Becca worked on the Jen Kingwell project she has undertaken–a fusion of three Kingwell quilts, using all Kingwell blocks.  Becca is creating a geographical “scene” in this quilt.

See the sky, the town buildings, etc.

Mary Sue Bishop finished her sweatshirt jacket.  Behind her is the beginning of her trip around the world quilt.

Here’s the back of Mary’s jacket:

Linda Satkowski worked on several projects during the retreat.

Linda sashed blocks from the Bonnie Hunter 2015 mystery quilt, “Allietore.”  Isn’t this gorgeous?  She will add another row maybe and, definitely, a border.

Becca wanted to see what kinds of colors she had in the Farmer’s Wife blocks, so she just randomly put blocks on a design wall.  The camera is making her grey background look flat, but that grey is all shimmery and glowy in real life.  This quilt will be so much fun.

As I said, as we were driving away, we wanted to return.