More About My Retreat

Sorry to tease everyone with my goodies and promise to tell you more about my weekend and then disappear for the whole week. Sometimes life just gets in the way of the fun stuff. But, here I am to tell you more about the weekend. First up is my hotel room. Since I'm in the hotel business I'm always looking for the best rooms when we go somewhere, so you can imagine my delight to get this room. The bed was incredible (it was a Sealy pillowtop mattress), the room was large and had a sloped ceiling. I was on the third floor of the hotel and ceilings that were 20 feet high when you entered the room and then sloped down like you see in the photo.

The retreat was more of a four day get together than what I would call a "working retreat" but I did bring my Birthday Garden quilt along. Jen, from Australia, is a master hand piecer and quilter and she had promised to teach me how to hand quilt. Well, to hand quilt you have baste the quilt so here is a less than flattering photo of me basting my quilt. Actually I tempted anyone to take a photo of me in this position and immediately 3 cameras started taking pix. This one was sent to my DH in Dubai. When he asked me about it I told him it's a good reason to get back on the diet. He replied, "I'm not allowed to comment on that." What a sweet response.

Here are Jen (on the left) and Bette from Tucson working on my quilt. The were 4 of us who worked together and did a group baste. It only took us about 90 minutes to get the quilt basted.

Here I am posing with my basted quilt. The design is my own and I used 35 FQs to make the quilt.
We had some mini demos by various members over the weekend. One of them was applique. I had to give it a try and here I am grinning with my results. I had more fun doing applique than I thought I would. There is a new trend in my quilting experience lately - more handwork and less machine work - hand piecing, hand quilting, red work and now applique. I guess that will mean more time spent with DH watching baseball, golf and football. Hooray!

Before the Jamboree our group did a doll swap. Three of the women who came to the weekend brought their dolls and they participated in many of our activities. Here they are ready for our tea party.

Here they are tucked in for the night. They were joined by a troll doll that one woman received in our tea cup swap. The table runner they are sleeping under was made by one of the women who tested my table runner pattern that was adapted from my birthday garden quilt.

And last, but not least, at 4 pm on Friday I realized I needed hand quilting thread for my quilt so I yelled across the room, "Anyone want to go shopping?" Of course! Eight of us went to the Yankee Quilter shop in town and did some damage to our credit cards. Here are some of them waiting to make their purchases.


I still have show and tell pictures to share and I will do that this week. This weekend I've been playing in my studio and will have some photos to share of what I've been working on too. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!