I went on a quilt retreat. I had no idea it would be like this.

Have you ever been on a weekend retreat?  I've been on a few, usually of a religious/spiritual nature.

But never a quilting retreat.  This past weekend was my first one, sponsored by the Connecticut chapter of the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA).

It was a lot of fun in so many ways, and I'm going to tell you about a few of them. But first I have to tell you about the setting, because it blew me away.

This retreat was held at a place called the Incarnation Center, in Ivoryton, Connecticut. I'd heard of the place, but I had no idea it was situated on so many rolling, wooded acres.  The property was laid out in such a way that trees and rocks had been left in place, with the result that each building, surrounded by trees, looked as if it were set into its own natural nook.  I took this photo from a window of the building where the retreat was held.  It gives an idea of the "nookiness" of the place.

And miles of hiking trails.  I had no idea that there were going to be any outdoor activities there.

Wrong!

I went exploring with my buddies Carol and Linda.

 I could not believe that there was a cedar swamp on the property.  This is a big deal to me, because although there are a few cedar swamps in Connecticut, they're not common  by any means.  I like them because they're so eerie and spooky, with shadows, and ferns, and trees growing out of still, mirrorlike water.

See the boardwalk in this photo?  We were walking on that when Linda's phone rang. It was her son, calling from Florida.  When she told him where she was at that moment, walking on a boardwalk through a cedar swamp, with me and Carol, he told her that she was getting 'way too in touch with her inner white girl!

But what a day for a walk.  Everything you could want for a fall day, especially one that dawned so darkly, with wind and driving rain.  By afternoon, the sky had cleared and turned blue, and though the wind stayed brisk, it had the advantage of bringing down cascades of leaves.

Carol catching leaves

November roses.  What a blessing.

There was also a farm on the property, where Carol saw some llamas, and a mile-long lake.

Who knew?

I went to a quilt retreat and found all this.

And that's not even mentioning the warm camaraderie, kindled by a common passion, and the chance to have my work critiqued.  And the food was good!   I'll tell you about all that next time.

Camaraderie

Critique

Layers, Literally

So there's this art quilt exhibition, a juried show themed "Layered Voices," which is sponsored by the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), and which challenges quilters to think about layers, from physical layers like those of the earth's surface and those we wear in cold weather, to abstract layers such as those in literature and puns.

http://www.saqa.com/calendar-detail.php?ID=4808

I took the theme and ran with it.  I made a nine-patch, 40 x 40 wonder, centering on...what else?  A hen with an egg.  A layer.  Heh heh.

This one was felted first and then embroidered. When that was done the hen figure was padded with extra batting and the background was quilted.

The other eight squares  around the central layer are all double puns on the concept of layer.  For example, each of the eight squares itself contains a layered stack of smaller layers: a silken padded layer on the bottom, a piece of handmade silk paper next, followed by smaller, padded and pieced layer, a felted layer intended to look like geological layers, then a final layer of hand pin-weaving.  On the top of each layered stack:  a photo of something layered.  Like a lasagne.  Yeah.

For this I learned to make my own silk paper:

I also pulled out the pin loom on which my grandmother taught me to weave:

My neighbor Grace was so inspired by  my chicken as I worked on it that she made one of her own:

 

The deadline for the completed piece is September 30, 2016, and I still wasn't done when Joe and I left for our Cape Cod vacation on September 18. I had intended to get it done at home so that Joe could photograph it at home, and I could send in my electronic entry from home, and I could put the whole thing behind me and enjoy my vacation.

In the days before we left for Cape Cod, Joe saw me working nonstop on it, and worrying out loud about it.  So he decided that it might not be so bad if he were forced to bring his photographic equipment here on our vacation.  On my part, I was glad to take a little time pressure off myself.

So we brought the sewing machine here, and I worked on the quilt for four days, and finished it, and Joe set up an impromptu photo studio in the attic of the cottage we're renting.

 

WHAT A GUY, huh?

Then he spent a lot of time editing his photos.  He decided that he's not happy with the quality of his work, problems caused by the dimensionality of the piece and the unevenness of the lighting.

So now, with the time clock ticking, he's trying to locate a commercial photographer here on Cape Cod who can do a better job. We went to Orleans Photo and Video, where a man named Dick did a great job for a reasonable price. 

I put quite a bit of time into deciding what to call this piece.

The final decision:

"Layers, Literally."