Design Walls at Retreat

 Last week I went with 8 others from Pebble Creek to a retreat ranch in southern AZ. We had a wonderful time, and everyone accomplished a lot. I have so many photos, I'm going to split them into two posts, design walls today and finishes on Friday. 

Deb worked on blocks for her very long term project and now she has only one block to go. I love the luminous effect of these blocks in these colors. 

Both Teri and Linda are working on a Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern making pineapples:

Nancy worked on a modern design, a jelly roll pattern. She added the charcoal grey and white. She asked for advice on the layout, and everyone had suggestions about moving the blocks around. I think this is how she ended up before borders. 

Maria is a new quilter and she struggled with blocks that were from a poorly cut charity kit. Unbeknownst to us, some of the white patches were cut at 6-1/4" instead of 6-1/2" square, so nothing went together properly. Fortunately Linda had brought another of the same kit that had correctly cut squares, but poor Maria spent more time with the seam ripper than she did sewing. Gotta give her credit for her cheerful perseverance! 

Edna, on the other hand, is very experienced and is not the least intimidated by tiny, tiny piecing. She specializes in patriotic themed projects. 

Judy worked on a three dimensional project, a complicated pattern.

Linda has a beautiful palette for her modern diamonds paper piecing project. She'll feature lots of  negative space in the final layout.

Photo credit: Linda L.

I was able to  make progress on something that dates back to 2014. There's a back story here and I'll tell it in a separate blog post. For now, I'll just say that the results here exceeded my expectations. 

And finally, on the design wall I played with some blocks made from gifted 5" squares of Kaffe fabrics. The beginning of something may be here, but it's not ready yet. I'll keep going and maybe I can get the concept to work out.  

So there you have most of the design wall activity from retreat. Come back Friday and see what we finished! 

Linking up with Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts