Ugly Fat Quarter Quilt Tops

At the mini-quilting retreat we had last week in Payson, AZ, each lady who attended was asked to bring 2 ugly fat quarters. A challenge was given to the winner to make a quilt from them. Guess who won the ugly fat quarters!?  Since there were enough fat quarters, I was able to make two quilt tops.  Here's what I put together using these "lovelies".  I used the Turning Twenty Again pattern for both of these quilt tops.

This one is made up of the purple, lavendar, pink, and misc. colored fat quarters - I used a lavendar butterfly border.  Kind of reminds me of uglies emerging into butterflies.  This one will either go to a granddaughter, if one of them dibs it, or will go to charity. 

I used the more antique looking fabrics in the following quilt top and added the border fabric in with the blocks.  I may keep this one........it actually looks kind of nice.  The fabric that won as the ugliest was used in this top.........I didn't think it was so ugly........it's the mustard colored fabric with the bear paw prints on it (click to enlarge if you can't find it). 

Mini-Quilting Retreat in Payson, AZ

Thursday and Friday of last week a group got together for a mini-quilting retreat at our Payson mountain home.  It was really enjoyable.  There was lots of good conversation, plenty of food, and door prizes for all.  Plus we got a lot of sewing done.  Here we are working away.

In the following picture you can see a few more of the retreaters and a few of the door prizes (on the TV tray) that hadn't been won yet.

The ladies each brought baby pictures for one game.  For other games they also brought 2 orphan blocks and 2 ugly fat quarters.  The challenge to the ladies who won both of these was to use them to make a quilt.  Here are the orphan blocks.  There were so many pretty ones.  It's going to make an interesting quilt.

The ladies seemed to enjoy the door prizes.  LindaSue won a border quilting guide roll, Patty won a block carrier roll, Laura won the orphan blocks, Joni won some applique goodies, Joanne won the other block carrier roll, Joan won some thangles, and I was the last one to win so guess who got stuck with, strike that, I mean, who has the priviledge of making the ugly fat quarters into a quilt.  Laura brought the fat quarter that was voted to be the ugliest.........some of these fat quarters were really UGLY and are going to be quite a challenge to put together into a quilt.  There was one additional door prize, a digital camera; Joni took that one home.  Each lady also received a thumb pin cushion stuffed with wool batting so their pins will stay nice and sharp.

We had absolutely wonderful weather.....in the mid-70's.....and were able to eat outside on the patio for all of our meals.  What a relaxing time and a great get-away.

AZ Retreat 2010

I went to the AZ Retreat Thursday through Sunday (Feb 18-21) and had a wonderful time.  We had lots of free sewing time and also had plenty of time to talk and get caught up with friends. 

They had goodies on the tables for us this year (a heart pin cushion and a filled snap bag):

The hostess at my table (thanks PatH) also gave us a gift - some fat 8ths of some beautiful batik fabric:

 

We did a right and left game where a quilting story was read and we passed 5 fat quarters.  I won some more beautiful batiks (thanks Jonna):

There were door prizes that were drawn throughout the weekend - I was so happy to win Elly Sienkiewicz's DVD - Advanced Baltimore Applique:

We were also invited to pick out goodies from an exchange table - I enjoyed getting a few gently used items to bring home with me.

We had a fantastic guest speaker this year (Terri Doyle, an amazing longarm quilter). Here is a direct link to the pictures I took of her trunk show:   http://good-times.webshots.com/album/576862581OVIICb

We did some mini-classes; one on paper-piecing and one on making a large tote bag. There were some off-topic mini-classes this year too; on on tatting &amp on on beaded bracelets. We had one dinner out together at a nice restaurant (the Elephant Bar).  We did a block lotto, had an ice cream social, and of course went shopping at a local quilt shop (The 3 Dudes Quilt Shop).

The highlight for me is always show and tell.  Since there are 32 of us we spread it out so that there are several who show their quilts each day.   I just love seeing what the other ladies have made and it inspires me to keep quilting.  Here is a direct link to the quilts shown during the show and tell sessions:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/576859887zKTQKK