Thought I’d post a few Random Retreat Pics for your enjoyment today.  Because I know you are waiting with baited breath.  And although I’m not sure what baited breath really is, I don’t want you to have to wait with it too long.

For those of you who have never been on a quilting retreat, I thought it might be important for you to see what our packing looks like.  The important things that it’s necessary to bring along.  And the size of the piles of stuff.  Cars have never been so weighted down.

This is my trunk before I picked up Suz.  Or maybe I should say before I picked up Suz and Suz’ stuff.  As you can see, I really wondered where her stuff was going to go.  It appears there is not a lot of room left for her things.  Unless she wanted to give up her front seat and be a hood ornament on the way.  So that her stuff could come along.

I should point out here that if the first evening is any indication, I could have left most of this stuff at home.  Really.  I could have just brought the camera and the laptop and been just fine.  But I suppose it was good exercise to load this all up.  And then unload it here.  And load it back up on Thursday.  And unload it at home again.  Just in case I actually wanted to turn on the sewing machine.

This is the trunk after Suz’ stuff was added.  We’re pretty good trunk packers, don’t you think?  And I don’t think we could have put one more thing in there.

This is the back seat.  And proof positive that we couldn’t fit anything else in the trunk.

Remember I was going to show you the important stuff that we brought along?  I must admit this is the first time a TV has ever come along.  We normally go on these retreats to get away from those things.  But this time there was one very important difference.  I’m a new fanatic, remember?  Please refer back to the blog on October 9th if you’ve forgotten about my fanaticism.  Or just continue reading.  It will all make sense in a minute….

Here’s my friend, Suz, sitting next to me in the retreat sewing room.  And you can see on the screen why it was important for us to have a TV along.  Wouldn’t you know that the timing would be such that our dear Rangers would be playing all three days of our retreat!  And we have to watch!  And cheer!  And wear our new Rangers’ shirts!  GO RANGERS!  Because after all Suz and I are fanatics.

Remember I told you about the snack table and all the food involved in retreating?  This is just 1/2 of the snack table.  My friend, Karen, brought the Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar chips.  She knows they are my favorite retreat snack.  I love her.

Here’s the other half of the table.  Because it was absolutely imperative that you see all the snack foods.  And this is the somewhat healthier half with apples and dark chocolate pomegranates..  We’ll see how fast they disappear.  The apples, I mean.  Because I’ve already put a pretty big dent in the pomegranates. 

They accused me last night of spending too much time grazing at the snack table.  But I was doing blog work!  How could I report on the snacks if I hadn’t tasted them all?  I mean really?  And I’m happy to report there was not a bad snack in the bunch.   So far.  I’ll taste the rest later and let you know if I find any bad apples…..

Two of the gals at retreat had these cute little sunflower bookmarks stuck in their spools of thread on their machines.  We inquired about them because they were just so cute!  Well, lo and behold, our dear friend Sally gave them to these gals from Kentucky!  “What?” we all said, “Where are ours?”  So we had to call Sally and give her what for because she didn’t send sunflowers for the whole class!  How dare she give cute gifts to only two of the retreaters!  We did our best to make Sally feel extra bad that she wasn’t at retreat this time.  Just because she didn’t send one for us all.  I bet Sally is at home right now, making sunflower bookmarks for all of us.  She might even be driving down here as you read this to deliver them.  She’ll not forget the rest of us ever again!

Here’s a brief picture tutorial from Pat on how to make a really cool pillowcase……

OK – if you can’t understand all the steps from the pictures, you’ll just have to get with Pat for a private class.  I tried to write an explanation all along the way and it didn’t even make sense to me and I was there!  So just call Pat.  Or leave a comment on the blog and Pat will schedule a personal class just for you.  Unless you live in Italy or something.  Wait!  Maybe Pat would like to come to Italy to give you a personal pillowcase class.  I’ll be sure to ask her.

The Newbies all made us something for our workspace and Karen found a really interesting way to display hers.  It required a very short video for you to get the full effect.

Karen’s Sewing Debut Video

And after everyone had gone to bed, I found this box near one gal’s sewing machine.

But you need to see what’s inside…..

I’ve eaten a lot of carrot cake in my life and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like that.  I can’t even see a single tree nut like they warned us about!  If I was a bettin’ woman, I’d bet that was a brownie with big chocolate chunks in it.  I very nearly took a bite to see if it was carrot cake.  But I think I’ll just wait and let Madelyn leave a comment about this one.  If it’s carrot cake, I definitely want the recipe.

Up next:  Secret Sisters

Hugs,
Barb