Post Gees Bend Quilters' Retreat - blues

I've just returned from a most delicious and delightful retreat....with the quilters' of Gees Bend from, Boykin, Alabama - Mary Anne Pettway and China Pettway.     There were 36 of us eager-to-enjoy members in the group - all corralled by Anne, our beautiful Gray Center Retreat host.  Yes, you guessed it.  We had a rip-roaring good time.  It was a four day blast of energy and creativity rejuvenation.  And the food was from the gods! 

We came from California and New York and points in between to share ideas and fabric, love and laughter while Mary Ann and China mentored each of us in our quilting patchworks in progress and lifted us up with their soul-filled music. 

From start to finish:  Was it only 2016? that a group of us bussed to Gees' Bend, Alabama.  While there, Mary Ann was working on a little patch and I came home with it....signed, of course, by it's maker, Mary Ann Pettway.

I had the foresight to take the patch back with me last week and had Mary Ann add the final border and add the current date.  I hand quilted it and added binding this week for a finished momenta of the beauty of  a glorious time with queens of improv patchwork. 

This pink and lime predominately thrift store linens, started while at the retreat and the patchwork pieced borders were added this week after I got back home.    I think I'll call it a "running with lemon grass."  It's filled with the lime and lemon colors of citrus. 

and other snapshots while at Gray Center, Canton, Mississippi.

Sisson wears his patchwork!

then it was breakfast and goodbye until we meet again ~

China Pettway following Mary Ann Pettway as they leave
Gees Bend Quilting Retreat

Yes I can - No you can't - Yes I can!

Do you have running debates with yourself?  I'm doing a paint-on-fabric presentation for my art group friends next month and have been making myself believe that I can paint on fabric:  because, that's what the presentation will be about.    Yes, I can!

I also make books ~  Here's the front cover of one that I painted and used to make a color palette photo. 

You darn tootin' I can ~

It's a peel ~

Of all things, it's a peel ....well, only a quarter of the peel.  My heart just wasn't into making four of these little peel quadrants for the whole but I'm loving this one just as it is and the size is perfectly my size with all the straight line machine quilting and all the hand quilting interspersed to jazz it up a notch.

This one was No. 12 on my get-it-finished-in-2019-list.  No, I'm not getting them done in number order....but in my order in my time!