Fiber Floozie Retreat 2022

For those of us who go on quilting retreats, many people who know us, question it…..you’re going where? To do what? Sew all day? What else do you do? Nothing? Are you guys crazy? Sounds boring.

Let me try to put it into perspective….think of something you absolutely LOVE to do…reading….baking….card making….shopping…watching the real housewives….whatever it is that you love to spend time on. Now imagine that you have 6 – 8 other people…most of whom you’ve known for decades…and all of whom you like/love a lot…and all of whom love to do that very same thing. Now imagine that you manage to get away from your regular life for a week…not only is there no taking care of spouses, or animals, or bill paying, or doing dishes (mostly :~)…but instead….all of you get to do that one thing that you’re all crazy about….you’re doing it…and you’re talking about it….and you’re exchanging ideas and you are loving every minute. Now maybe you understand what our retreat is all about. We are all PASSIONATE about quilting (at least most of the time anyway :~)….we love to do it….we love to talk about it…..we love to get each other’s opinions….we love to see what all of us are working on….and we especially love it when we get to yell ‘’I’m on the board!!!’’ and we jump up to show the rest of the crew what we have completed. There is not another feeling in the world like that.

So, June came over on Sunday afternoon (since we leave very early on Monday) and we had our traditional butternut squash/pasta/sage dinner:

-saute lots of onions (in my favorite pan Ginny...thank you for talking me into buying it!!)

-toss in cubed butternut squash and saute until brown

-add in lots and lots of sage

-cook pasta separately and add in along with some butter

-if you have it, a topping of feta cheese is divine!

Then Monday morning (11/7) Michael helped us to pack up the car:

and we headed out…in the dark….at 5:30 AM.

We arrived and got set up:

and were sewing within an hour of arrival:

Arizona Mary did a quilt months ago that I published in the blog and I really liked it:

so I decided to do it on retreat. I mentioned that I was doing it, and eventually 4 other people decided they wanted to do it too, and we decided to work on that first. Four of us got most of the way done with our tops:

BG wanted to lay hers out on her design wall at home before sewing it up….so stay tuned for pictures of that top in the future:

It is always cool to see the same quilt pattern made up in different colorsways.

We also had hunky cowboy pillow cases:

and tons of other projects completed:

-a mistake in sewing together turns into a whole new pattern :~)

-OH OH OH OZEMPIC!!!

-OOPS!!! turns into HO HO HO...

I even came home with a totally finished quilt...Mary Jo made a quilt for BEDS=DREAMS, and got the lable sewn on at retreat:

As usual, each morning we played the game of ‘’find the penguin’’:

our traditional mascot.

We had wonderful food, lots of conversations, tons of laughs and solved the problems of the world while refreshing ourselves for yet another year of living. These are some of the best people I know, and I am proud and happy to call them my dear, dear friends:

BG, June, Mary Jo, me, Janice, Leila

from the top down: Janice, Leila, Mary Jo, me, June, BG

This was our 13th annual retreat, in a variety of venues (Blue Mountain, Grady House, Roxwell Holiness Camp, Mt Aetna Retreat) the retreats just keep getting better and better.