Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I)

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

If you are a maker, you’ve likely heard of a “Design Wall”, but have you ever heard of a “Design Sofa“?

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This is what happens when a couple quilters get together for a quilt retreat weekend at a rented vacation townhome that was not designed for quilt retreats: you improvise…

But let me back up and explain what the title of this post means and how a Tula Pink All Stars Quilt Retreat happened.

It’s All Dana’s Fault

I’ve seen Tula Pink fabrics in the past and I’ve appreciated the designer’s creativity, use of color and quirky sense of humor. However, except for a couple fabric scraps given to me by other quilters, I’ve never had an interest in purchasing any of her fabric.

Until our May 2018 annual Quilting Sisters retreat and one of my quilting sisters, Dana, brought collections of Tula Pink All Stars fat quarters (coordinated collections of 18″ x 22″ cuts of fabric) to the retreat and began piecing a sampler quilt:

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I had a couple posts about the fabric and her blocks during the retreat, including one in which Dana and I asked my readers to vote on which color combination to use when we were stuck:

Please Vote On The Color!

The Votes Are In!

When I returned home from retreat I could not get out of my mind the utterly delicious Tula Pink All Star fat quarter collections of main prints, dots, stripes and solids.

The next thing I knew (and I think it was a fabric-induced-out-of-my-mind-experience) I was ordering 4 sets of fat quarters from the DawnNeedhamQuilts Etsy shop that Dana recommended:

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Honestly, I am not sure what happened, it was if I could not control myself. I’ve never bought 4 fat quarter sets of fabric at once, and I’ve never purchased Tula Pink fabric before!

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Still cannot believe I bought all this at once!

I was not alone, Dana had infected another quilt sister with the Tula Pink All Stars bug, Judy (my original “Quilt Sister” who got me into quilting!) and before she knew it, she had also purchased all 4 sets of fat quarters in the Tula Pink All Stars collection!

So What Do We Do With All This Tula?

Dana has never visited Central Oregon and Judy came up with the idea of a road trip to Central Oregon to visit me. A group of quilters….coming together for a weekend…

Hmm…sounds like an excuse for a quilt retreat!

I have a small house which would not comfortably accommodate a quilt retreat, so I came up with the idea of renting my friend Laurie’s vacation townhouse in Sunriver, Oregon.

Dana, Judy or I (do not remember who) came up with the idea that since now we all had these Tula Pink All Star fat quarter sets why don’t we all work on piecing Tula Pink All Star sampler quilts?

Armed with my Stack-o-Tula I headed to the retreat!

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Vacation Rental Townhome into Quilt Retreat

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) helped bring all the stuff over to the rental townhome to transform it to a quilt retreat including a folding table, iron board, etc.

With a little temporary furniture rearrangement, we had our quilt retreat center:

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We even turned part of the kitchen into an ergonomic cutting table area and ironing station:

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Luckily we still had some left over kitchen counter for preparing meals!

In the next post, I will show you details of what we made (more on the blocks on the “design sofa”), non-sewing adventures we had during the retreat, and the special guest that stopped by our retreat.

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

41 thoughts on “Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I)”

    1. Thanks and I am still surprised as these fabrics are not really my style. I cannot believe I was influenced to to make crazy purchasing decisions but now I am totally in love – you’ll see in next post how much fun we had with making combinations in our blocks 🙂

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  5. Many of us go on retreats to be pampered with yoga, massages and evening cocktails. A quitting retreat sounds much more fun ~ and you could still include evening cocktails. 😉

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    1. We did include evening cocktails and it was fun to prepare food ahead of time for the retreat as well as have a couple meals out. Of course yoga and massages sound like a nice retreat also!

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  8. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what happens when creative and extremely talented people get together for a “retreat”. Except there was no retreat here. Instead, it was full advanced and engagement in the bravery of craftmanship. With military precision, they set up an outpost in civilian quarters to prepare for the battle of the quilters. Taking up sewing armament to defend their honor and protect the guild and secure the prosperity of their legacy. Preparing meals to fuel their fight against monotony and mediocrity, this was only the beginning. Alliances have been formed, and loyalities have been tested. Quilting will never be the same. October 2018.

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      1. You provide such great material to work from. Not to mention I am reading a Charles Dickens novel at this time, so my writing and verbal communication is over the top.

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  9. Wow, I have never seen our rental house with so many beautiful colors and quilting squares! I hope the space worked out for you guys. It looks like you had a fun and very productive quilting retreat :-).

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    1. Thanks so much – yes we had a great time! Funny I was going to e-mail you the links to Part I and II (comes out in the am) so you could see what we did to your vacation rental – ha! 🙂 (But we cleaned it all up afterwards and put the furniture back!) 🙂

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  10. Eeek! Tula Pink fever is contagious… Now I’m looking at those lovely fabrics (especially the polka dots and stripes) and imagining all kinds of wondrous Beastie wardrobes! Your impromptu quilt retreat sounds like a blast, too… I can’t wait to hear how you got on!

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  11. The pic of the blocks on the couch made me chuckle…we quilters will do whatever we can to create beautiful works of fabric art! I used to do the same when I lived in my tiny apartment.
    If you ever want to fly to Maine, I’ve got a cute cabin on a lake that makes a wonderful retreat for creative friends! Ask me how I know…

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    1. Oooh that sounds wonderful – cabin in Maine retreat! But likely only in the summer – ha! (It’s cold there – I grew up in the NE) Yes crafters make the space they have work. I have a small studio at home and wouldn’t know what to do with a lot of space 🙂

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      1. Yes, I hope that will happen someday. I had to drop out of the class due to aging parents that I needed to take care of and since then, my quilting teacher moved away. I’m working on getting my craft room in order so then I will actually have a place to do all the sewing and crafts that I want to do. I also have a couple of friends waiting on me to get it done too. LOL

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  17. What joy!The description of your fabric-induced-out-of-mind-experience had me chuckling. The improvised retreat centre and the couch display are very enticing. Can’t wait for the next installment

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