While I was on my blogging break I attended my guild's annual beach retreat. We spend 3 days in July on Seabrook Island -one of Charleston's barrier islands - and sew on our own projects. 3 meals a day are provided by the facility.

This year I worked on a Christmas tree skirt. This photo is of what the skirt should look like when I'm done, but I'm a long way from finishing. It's a very intricate foundation pieced project.



I also worked on finishing up two charity quilts. These are one block wonder quilts. It's always fun to see how the blocks turn out.




Here are some other quilts that were worked on during retreat.










The 2013 retreat has been moved up to January, but I'm not going to be able to attend.

Fans

It's been a long time since I posted here. I've been more active over on Facebook and have been neglecting my poor blog.

I got back yesterday from a week long class in Tryon, NC at Marilyn's Melrose Inn. It's a B&B/retreat center being run by Marilyn Doheny.  melrose-inn.com.

Our class was on using Marilyn's 9 degree wedge ruler to make interesting fan designs. We start by sewing strips of fabric together into strata sets and then cutting them up in various ways with the rulers.














Some of the designs were more popular than others. We all enjoyed making this spiral fan.







Here are some other designs











We even made some bugs (which we all decided we didn't care for)



Marilyn's Inn is quite eccentric. She has funky decorations everywhere. After a while the sheer volume of stuff began to wear on me. Every surface was jam packed with stuff.




The food was excellent and I came home several pounds heavier than I left!