Sunday, August 19, 2007

Stitching Retreat

What a great day at Ann's annual stitching retreat! We left in the morning, anticipating getting there early and getting a good seat, only to find about 8-9 cars already there! But with Ann's new stitching room, there are lots of great seats and fantastic lighting provided by the sky lights. Lunch of course was amazing as always, as everything always brings such delicious food and its too tempting to try a little bit of everything. The dessert table was so enticing....with so much goodies and cakes, but with diabetes now, I resisted and only ate a small piece of carrot nut bread and fruit only.

It was so great to see and catch up with stitching friends that I hadn't seen for a couple of years and I was looking forwards to finally meeting my new blogging friends. Its so funny to meet people face to face that I feel I know already through their blogs!

I did get a few pictures, although not enough I realize now, as I must have taken them later in the afternoon and I have too many shadows from the skylights. Believe me, the lighting was much better in the room than what shows up in the pictures!


Here is Christin (Christin's Ramblings) and Beatrice (Stitching with a View) showing off their partially completed TW's Castles.



Just outside is a peek at Rebecca (Rebel in Ontario), and inside are Beth on the left and Kathy (Kathy's Sit and Stitch) sitting next to Ann's amazing Prairie Schooler quilt on the wall.



A not very clear picture of Kathy at the end of the table in the stitching room, with several of the ladies in Ann's Thursday afternoon stitching group.



Colleen and Marj mostly kept to the much quieter dining room with Carmen and Paula for most of the day. I didn't get a picture of several of the people who were there, including our lovely hostess, Ann (Knowledge and Needles), or Dani (Dani...Black Belt Stitching Wizard), who was always visiting at different areas of stitching groups, nor did I get a chance to meet everyone! There were over 20 people there - what an amazing group!

Of course I did pay a visit to Ann's shop, Knowledge and Needles, conveniently located next to the house, and with Anita's (ahem) encouragement only managed to fall off my stash diet a little. I did want to pick up some 25 ct fabric so I could try some over-one stitching with my super-fantastic new Dazor magnifier at hand, so I found two fat-quarters in cream and antique white. Ann had some of the new JBW patterns, these are just so sweet and too hard to resist these cute little patterns. I found a Prairie Schooler Christmas Ark pattern, that I thought I could adapt into a birth sampler, as I just found out I am about to become a great-auntie again. And 3 of us, Anita, Marg and I bought the last of Ann's Spring Fever biscornu kits. Not such a bad stash haul and actually it was only $2 over my stash budget that I had saved up, so no guilt on my part! I can climb back up on the wagon again....at least until my birthday :-D

24 comments:

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

Looks like a super great time was had by all!
:)

Margaret said...

This retreat sounds like so much fun Wendy. What a great way to enjoy our wonderful hobby.
Congratulations on receiving your first biscornu - it is lovely and will always be extra special because it is your first one.

Kathy A. said...

Hi Wendy. It was so nice to meet you at Ann's yesterday. What a great day that was. I sure enjoy all the wonderful stitching and the great friends we have. Look forward to starting Paradigm with you Nov. 1st.

mainely stitching said...

Oh what fun!! :D

Sue said...

Oh, it sounds like so much fun, I wold love to go to a retreat ;)

Annemarie said...

I love all the pics of our fellow stitchers! Thanks for sharing them with us. That PS quilt is AMAZING, by the way :o) Also love your PS Christmas Ark, I hadn't seen that one before.

Hazel said...

Looks like you all had a wonderful time. x

Lynn said...

Sounds like a fun weekend. Ann had sent an invite my way but I was working so maybe next year. Thanks so much for the pictures. It's nice to put faces with the names. Great stash! I especially like the biscornu.

Stephanie said...

Sounds like you all had a great time! I think you definitely deserved the stash, and to only creep so very slightly over your budget surely deserves...a treat of some kind as a reward!!

Cheryl said...

Sounds like you had a great time! I always wonder what it would be like meeting some of my blogging friends face to face

Andrea said...

Sounds like you had a lot of fun.

Michele said...

what a great day you had! thanks for sharing the pictures .. it's always fun meeting stitching friends :)

jane said...

The retreat sound great! Where was it? I would love to attend one sometime, there is one here in Sept. Is it an overnight or just a one day thing?

Dani - tkdchick said...

It was great to see you Wendy. Yeah I had a little trouble sitting still on Saturday!

Great pics!

Carla said...

it looks like you had a fantastic time in your retreat :)

Singular Stitches said...

Looks like you all had an absolutely fabulous time!!! :o) How nice to get together with other stitchers!

Heather said...

Lucky Ducky! Look at how much fun you had :D I would love to go to something like that. I have a feeling I will attend one someday. I am glad you enjoyed yourself!

Deb said...

Oh, what fun, Wendy! How I would have loved to have been there with you. Love those colorful dragons!
Hugs,
Deb

Anonymous said...

What a good idea to meet each other and to stitch together ! I would love to do that too.

Unknown said...

Looks like everyone had fun. And what great stash you got. :)

Julianne said...

Hi Wendy,

I'm glad that you had a good time. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend

lena-lou said...

This looks so much like you have had a great time :))

stitcherw said...

Looks like everyone was having a wonderful time. I'd have loved to have seen all the great stitching and met my fellow bloggers. Nice stash too, what a great retreat.
Sue

Cathy B said...

Sounds like you had a fun time! What fun to meet some of your blogging buddies!