We had an incredible time this past weekend at Woodland Ridge Retreat for the first ever Project QUILTING Retreat weekend!  It was full of inspiration, talent, quilting, fun, and camaraderie.  The challenge was given to the retreat attendees at 1:00pm on Friday, January 16th and they had until 11:00 am on Sunday, January 18th to have a completed quilt!  Just 46 hours!!! One of the coolest things about a real life retreat was that the challenge could be more specific.  Specific fabrics were given to the participants that they were required to use and we taught a special technique that they also had to incorporate into the challenge.  Both of these are difficult to do on online challenges..

The challenge – APE

A – Applique Incorporate the new painted appliqué technique that Trish and Kim demonstrated for you as part of your final piece. The inspiration for the ‘Applique’ portion of the challenge came from Linda M. Poole’s newest book ‘Painted Applique A New Approach.’ P – Piecing Incorporate some of the fun fabric you found in your new Project QUILTING duffel bag into pieced blocks for your final piece. Using some of the fabric designed by Annie Young Arts is a must.  (Each person received a half a yard of the daisy print and the dragonfly print along with a fat quarter of one random art print from Annie).    E – Embellish Have fun and embellish! A lot or a little. Beads, fiber, glitter, and fun! Add whatever you’d like to add some pizzazz to your final piece.

The Weekend

The weekend started with a demonstration on the ‘painted applique’ technique.  Once everyone saw what we meant by that – they were off to work! Well … except Trish.  She had a hard time focusing on the challenge at hand right away. Diane knew what she wanted to do right away.  And when she got stuck – she kept right on going!Karen had some fun with metallic thread!  But in the end it was all worth it! Trish finally got her inspiration and went right to work! This is what her piece looked like before I went to bed … She stayed up until 4am to get it to this stage.  I waited until normal morning hours to take the picture. Six quilters, 46 hours, six finished quits. Here is the lovely group of quilters that did such an amazing job at the very first Project QUILTING Retreat weekend! Hi my name is Trish and I love Project Quilting because "It forces you to try new things.”  Trish’s quilt is named, “The Muse, in blue”.  Trish won the door prize of three spools of Aurifil thread donated by the Fat Quarter Shop.  Hi my name is Chris and I love #projectquilting because " I like to see how everyone interprets the challenges."  Chris’s quilt is named “Time in Eden, part 1Time in Eden, part 1”.  Chris was the lucky winner of Annie Young’s beautiful painting shown hanging on the wall!  My name is Diane and I love Project QUILTING because " the participants do amazing things!"  Diane’s quit is called, “Folly of the Fae.”  Diane won a gift certificate to Nancy’s Notions.  Hi my name is Kelly and I like #projectquilting because "it gets my creativity flowing."  Kelly’s quilt is named ‘Dandelion and Daisies.’  Kelly won a gift certificate to Nancy’s Notions.  My name is Karen and I love Project Quilting because " it allows me to bring out my inner fiery rose."  Karen’s quilt is named “Cocky Rose”.  Karen won a gift certificate to Nancy’s Notions.  My name is Kim and I love Project Quilting because, "it has brought a whole new depth and dimension to my quilting and my relationship with others in the quilting world.”  My quilt is called ‘Stackaderm” and I’ll be blogging more about it on Friday. Wow!  What a weekend!!!! See more pictures of all the fun we had by checking out #PQ4Me on instagram!