UFOs and the Mothership

As you  might have guessed - the UFO theme for last weekends BamQ Retreat was taken quite seriously.  Aliens were everywhere, on fabric, posters, tatoos, peering through the window (pretty sure I screamed) thanks Amanda.

And then there was the honor of the hat. Not only did you "get to" wear it each time you completed a UFO, but you got to embellish it too. I added an eye patch because sewing with one eye covered at 2am is a really smart thing to do- note the furry puppy dog ears in this shot:

My favorite part of the picture however is Angela photobombing a "cheers" from the hallway.

The pieced binding in orange and aqua made me smile.  The Scrappy Trip Along above and Heat Lightning below were completely finished with FMQ and binding too.  The jagged bolt like quilting was the most fun to do all weekend.  I used the machine binding for these charity quilts based on this tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew.
edit: Linking "Bolts" up to 2013 FAL Q2 - goal mosaic found here.

The pillow in the first picture was from a Hawaiian needle turn appliqué class from about 10 years ago.  This pastel baby quilt topped that at 12 years I'm estimating and will be a gift or for charity. 

I tried doing a sandwich method rather than binding and wasn't too thrilled with the processes. I  was pleased however with the quilting in a flower/butterfly pattern and happy it's no longer trapped in a bucket and that soon a special baby will get to cuddle in it. 

That concludes the total finishes and now for the partials... I added the border to the fairies log cabin, 

sewed the final row of Fruit Salad and pieced the backing, 

made two more Jumbo xPlus blocks (shown on the righthand side)

basted and FMQ'd Row Robin, all 80 inches of it, ugh. The binding I had with me deservingly got a thumbs down so I'm going to use a fussy cut navy white chevron like Ruth did on her fabulous quilt.

The very last project I squeezed in was the Taffy pattern in Ride. Here are a few parts mocked up on the design wall.  I'm excited about the progress and it'll go fast because - to quote Alison's song about me "Karen likes big blocks"and can you guess to what tune?

I brought 5 items that didn't get touched, boo. My original post of goals can be found here.

Wow - this blog post makes it seem like a sweat shop retreat but trust me it was far from work, work work.  There was a ton of belly laughs to go around - especially in the self proclaimed "rowdy room". The festivities included  a conga line, demos, super swag, prizes (ugh - yeah, I won.. twice: I hope I get invited back!), a glorious massage, a Rail fence speed contest. We were NOT the fastest but if you squint the seams match up - 'cuz I forced 'em to! 

My friend and roommate Miriam won a prize for oldest UFO finishing up the quilt top she worked on at our retreat in November.  See how discretely she poses with the hat.

The weather and grounds were beautiful, the food delish and best of all the company. Thank you BamQ for letting me join in. You are a fun, generous,  talented bunch of Modern Quilters! Check out more pictures on flickr .

Before I sign off - I wanted to say how exciting it was to have South Bay Area MQG mentioned on The Modern Quilt Guild blog today.  Our 31 quilts in 31 days charity drive was featured so nicely.  I hope it's OK that I've always affectionately referred to them as "the mothership". 

Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday at Better off Thread, Let's Get Acquainted at guest blog The Sewing Chic, TGIFF with Sew Hungry, Finish It Up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts and to  Fabric Tuesday with Quilt Story  - and not just because she posted my xPlus blocks on the blog and called them gorgeous :)

Happy Quilting - Karen