Quilt Away

In the spirit of having a year of adventures, I went to my first quilt away. What is a quilt away? Well, easy enough it is a trip where you go somewhere (not your house) in order to quilt. Seems a little obvious? It is. But it is an incredible amount of fun. I went with my mom and several other ladies from a south Jersey quilt shop. We went to a small bed and breakfast in the heart of Amish country, Lancaster, PA.

We stayed for three days and two nights, although it all blended together with very little sleep. The neighbors help out the bed and breakfast by sharing prepared food, which is what we ate during our stay. We had a nice meal the first evening, and then we all set up our sewing machines. The rest of the time we were there, we ate wherever there was room. :)

Before the trip, we were all given a list of required fabric amounts and what to cut out. We were not given any other information about our quilt. This made for a lot of curiosity and building anticipation. Once the machines were set up, we were all given our first clue. Then we were able to pace ourselves. Once we finished with the first step, we were given the next clue, until we had finished our quilt top.

We stayed up late into the night, sewing and talking, ironing and cutting. Some went to bed earlier than others. We all went to bed after midnight, and we were all back up for coffee and breakfast before 8am. We all got extremely tired and a bit punchy, but we had a grand time, and most of us even finished our quilt tops. With so many different fabrics and color combinations, one simple pattern can look like several extremely different quilts.

This is my finished quilt top; it is a queen size: