I'm back from Gwennie's retreat....

LOL.  That's what she calls herself....Gwennie!  What a fun lady.

Nancy, Sharon and I attended her third week, Beaver Island Quilt Retreat up in Elk Rapids, MI from Tuesday through Sunday.  It was labeled as the Liberated Quilt Retreat.  What a fun time we had. 

Anyways, let me get to the pictures right away.  I worked on the liberated baskets. 

I did these basket in the French General line.  Much more tame than the fabrics that Gwen uses, but I knew these would go in my house.  Now mind you...I intended to make a queen sized quilt, but by the time I finished these, I was done with baskets!

Now let me show you Sharon's lovely quilt....small but beautiful.

She has the liberated basket (flower pot); liberated log cabin (flower); liberated stars and liberated flying geese and liberated spikey border.  As Sharon would say....two yards of black and several fat quarters later, she has a lovely, but small wall quilt.  She committed way too soon and did lots of ripping.  Still love it though Sharon!

Then we have Nancy's great quilt.  It started out as baskets, but she embellished so much that we decided it was liberated purses.  Aren't they adorable?

One night when Nancy went to bed earlier than us, we took some of the scraps that she had on the floor and made up a couple of the log cabin blocks and the star block.  She loved them so much that she decided to make more of them and make them her border.  Hey!  What are friends for?

Now on to some of the other great quilts that were up on the walls.  I don't know the owners, but I will give you a quick overview of some of Gwen's particular liberated studies

This gal was smart.  She made her liberated "fruit" basket blocks all the same height.  It made it much easier putting the quilt together, whereas mine was a big headache at times, but I loved the "fruit".

These are called Kathy's blocks and that is because during one of Gwen's classes, this gal wanted to learn how to make the liberated stars.  Well, she did them all "wrong" and thus this block came to be and Gwen called them Kathy's block and put it in her book.  It makes for a very pretty quilt.

This one is considered a medallion quilt.  I love the great witch fabric.   The flying geese got turned into  witches hats by adding the strip below each flying geese. How ingenious!

This gal used shirtings and made strips with lots of little, very tiny,  liberated blocks of all styles.

Now this one looks so Amish to me.  Maybe it was the colors, but I just loved this one.  I guess you can say these were liberated snowball blocks.  I loved watching this quilt develop. (Oh, look...there's Gwen).  She never stood still long enough to get a good picture of her).

Here's a great liberated star quilt.  Love it!!

Then there was this great quilt.  I am going to call it liberated sticks....kinda like pick up sticks.  Don't you just love the varying reds in the background.  Sorry this picture was taken on an angle.  It was hard getting good pictures at times with so many people crowding around. 

I really fell in love with this quilt.  It is all liberated  in a variety of styles, but the great thing about this one is that it is made with silk ties.  I have been saving my father-in-laws ties and I think I finally know what I am going to do with them. 

Finally, this one has the liberated trees and houses.  What a great way to use up Christmas fabrics, yet not look like a Christmas quilt.  I am going to store that idea in the back of my brain, too.

Now, this is about the best picture I got of Gwen showing one of her quilts.  Like I said, she was a very busy lady and didn't sit still long, but I just had to post one picture of her and tell you that she gives a great retreat; AND it helps to go with some great friends, too.

One more thing though.  I was amazed at how "messy" people could get.

and it wasn't until a day or two into the retreat that it was explained that all your scraps were to be put on the floor for people to "shop in your mess" and then next year they will come back with a little quilt made from "floor scraps" and their quilts are then called "floor quilts".  I saw some pretty good looking floor quilts, too.  Wish I had taken a picture of them, but I forgot my camera that night.  Take my word for it though, they were adorable.

Well, it's back to the old grind here.  I am hunting for fabric on line to border my baskets with and when I get them done (soon I hope), I will post a picture of the finished quilt. 

Wish you could all have joined us for Gwen's retreat.  Think about going to one of her retreats.  I think you would really enjoy yourself. 

Thanks for looking in.