Scrappy Celebration with Friends, and Retreat Prep

 My quilter friend across the street had the idea to pull together a small group of skilled quilters to make a Scrappy Celebration quilt, as shown on the cover of this month's American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. When she asked me if I'd like to participate, I jumped at the chance. There's a variety of blocks and we can make it as scrappy as we like. 

Image from Better Homes and Gardens

I pulled some scraps and small cuts in the featured colors and shared this photo with my friend:

My fabric pull

She had also pulled fabrics, so we got together, edited some out, and combined them into this palette. We're both going to a retreat this week and we'll take all this and work on blocks there. 

Inspiration Palette

My friend sent the palette photo to all the participants for inspiration. The other girls will add fabrics so we'll have lots of variety. 

Some of us couldn't resist, and jumped right in to making blocks. Edna made Block A in pinks and it's perfect. I want to make one of each block. I made Block B and Block D, both of which use nine patches with 1" finished squares. They're only 9" finished blocks so the patches are very small and fiddly and the piecing must be very precise. Although I'm not ordinarily a starch user, starch is definitely needed for precision with these blocks. With multiple makers, precision is even more important so all the blocks will fit together. 

Block B

Block D

I need to pause on these blocks now and pack for retreat. I have the Flying Geese project and a UFO from before I moved to AZ that I plan to take. I ordered some fabric for a different UFO but it hasn't arrived yet, so I'll save that project for another time, maybe the July retreat. 

The UFO I'm taking requires a couple of special rulers so I have to make sure they're packed with the stuff I'm taking. I need to make sure I have the right threads with me, white for the Scrappy Celebration project for sure. I think I only have grey and beige in my travel tool kit so I need to check. And I want to clean and oil my sewing machine before I go; it gets a lot of use at social sewing and it's probably due.  

We'll have 2-1/2 days - and 3 nights - of sewing time. I hope to have some progress pics to post next week!

Link up: Small Quilts and Doll Quilts