BIQR 2011

Last week was a beautiful time of year to spend in northern Michigan...Elk Rapids to be exact. Jeannette, Lois and I met Carol and 26 other quilters at Elk Rapids for Gwen Marston's retreat. This year's topic was small studies with the theory being that you can test color choices and design options very quickly using small quilts. Gwen had completed 37 small studies with many different design ideas incorporated in one or another of her quilts.

Here Gwen is shown with a larger quilt based on one of her small studies - you can see the small study 4th from the left on the middle row.

After an introduction to the concept and a few demonstrations of curved piecing techniques, we were off. I have to admit that I struggled with this idea for a few days. It always takes me awhile to integrate new information and this year was more challenging than most. Gwen used solid fabrics almost exclusively. There are a few prints in very small amounts. Well, I brought mostly prints and decided to try the technique with them. Although she cautioned that my composition might end up looking muddy as the prints blurred together, I gave it a shot.

My inspiration was a Van Gogh painting in a children's book, compliments of Carol R. Yes - the two green prints next to each other were somewhat blurred but the other prints showed up nicely. I also did a trapezoidal small study rather than a square one - primarily due to the curved piecing and availability of the sunny fabric used at the top of the quilt.

With that sample completed, I concentrated on other projects, completing two of the quilt kits I had purchased in 2008 and 2009. Yeah!

The last day there was a gorgeous day - bright and sunny, pleasant temperatures and with a slight breeze. I went with our Australian quilters, Ann and Rosie, to Renee's House of Quilting for their annual sale.

Ann and Rosie at the tent behind Renee's, looking for bargains.

After the sale, I walked to town and spent a delightful hour watching boats as they either came home to the marina or left to explore Grand Traverse Bay. Sunny, warm, waves lapping on the shore - what a gorgeous way to spend a lovely afternoon.

As a final wrap up on Saturday, each student had to stand up and introduce their small samples. One overachiever (Carrie - you know who you are!) completed 10! This included attaching the binding and quilting them. There was an interesting collection of small studies with lots of variety. Jeannette is using Gwen's liberated pointer (a stick picked up outside) to point to one of her small studies. You can see my trapezoid and Lois' beautiful study with the graceful curving pieces to the right of my quilt.

The ride home was long and uneventful but very pleasant with Jeannette and Lois keeping things interesting.

Now - back to work.
Cheers!
Margaret



































Here's my result.