Notice the Similarities?

Last October, my Guild put on a Retreat at Grizzly Creek Ranch, just outside of Portola. It is a great location, not far at all of the highway, yet totally secluded. The weird thing is that I used to ride horses in those hills; now the horses are gone and this facility is there instead. Progress??? I'm not so sure.

Anyway, we had these two amazing ladies from The Sewing Room in Redding that taught the retreat and brought almost their entire store with them. It was fun to sew and shop and never have to drive anywhere!  The quilt was a mystery and could be made a double mystery by telling them what fabric combinations or line of fabric you liked and they would then bring the appropriate yardage for the quilt. Almost everyone opted to let them pick the fabrics...double mystery.

This week, I quilted two of them.  This is the first one; it belongs to Mona. I love the colors and although she wasn't sure about the outside border, I do think it pulled everything together. I did an allover swirl on it.

Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see the quilting.

And the back..

.

This is the second one and belongs to Katherine. Katherine is a hand quilter and hadn't pieced a quilt on a machine, nor had one quilted, in a long time. She loves oriental fabrics and also participated in the double mystery aspect.

Here are a few closeups...

Down one side...

Here's a pick of the middle of the back. The fabric was actually a nice peach to match the front--not sure why it looks so white.








And this is mine.

Notice the size difference?  Unfortunately, when I called and we talked about color, the employee of the shop that put mine together just tried to pick all the colors I mentioned. When I received the fabrics, I wasn't too sure about them, but hoped they would work. Luckily, the first round came together nicely; the second round of fabrics did not work at all, so I have a wall hanging instead of a quilt. I do think the end product turned out well... I think it will look great hanging on my wall, when its quilted of course!