Christmas

April 17, 2011

A "SUPER" Fun Spring Retreat!

Pie Plate Patterns held their spring retreat last weekend in Fairview. I was fortunate to teach two classes this year. I chose the Bella Bag and the Twister quilt. I like to take treats to my students so for the bag class I took them all a $1,000.00 chocolate bar to put in their finished bags, that is if they hadn't munched on it during class. I've said it many times and I'll say it again. Every sewer needs chocolate!
Everyone had an enjoyable class, I hope. I had a couple of ladies sewing bags for the first time. It makes me feel all good inside when I hear comments of how much fun they had and they can't wait to try another one. I hope all the ladies came away with that feeling.
Just look at all those cute bags. Good job gals.
The meals Bonnie and Brenda prepare for us are amazing. These ladies really know how to take care of hungry sewers! Just an example is this chicken salad crossiant sandwich. Oh my it was delicious. I need to get this recipe for sure. They also fixed us a roast beef and potatoe supper, taco salads, chicken and rice and they all had the extra trimmings to go with. Thursday afternoon I took Sylvia's bowl making class. At first I thought this class was going to be a little intimitating but I had such a great time learning a new technique.

Here's some of Sylvia's finished bowls.


Lynette and Suzanne from the Corn Wagon came down to take the class and to have supper with me. It was fun having them there. There's always a little laughter going on while sewing. Lynette is makinng a bread basket.
Suzanne and her scrappy bowl. Here is my bowl just starting to take shape. Did I mention how much fun these are to make, and easy too.

Here's my finished bowl. Not to bad for a first timer, huh.
Three times cute!
Friday afternoon Gracie Lou's Quilt Shop put on a great trunk show. Isn't this Sew Diva a fun quilt. It was adoooooorable! Carrie Brown is the owner of the shop. She brought some of her old quilts to share with us. What great treasures she has.

We were asked to bring red, white and blue scraps with us to the retreat. We would be making blocks for the Quilts of Valor project. They set a goal to have 80 blocks sewn before the end of the weekend. And we did it, now these blocks will be put together and given to a widow and her brother-inlaw in California. Bonnie got to know this awesome family while she was serving her mission for the Church of Jesus Christ. The husband and brother lost his life by a roadside bomb in Afghanastan. I was really moved by this kind gesture. Here are my blocks.
Friday night was spent Twisting the night away. I had 10 ladies in my late night class. For their treat I took them Twizzlers licorice. Oh did we have a good time, this group was a really fun bunch of ladies.
Donna is making a Halloween Twister, it's going to be a great quilt.
Here are the semi finished quilts. I can't wait to get pictures ladies! You promised.
This is Bonnie(the organizer), I should of grabbed a chair to stand on. She's just a little bit taller than me. I'm glad I can call her my friend.
Saturday morning they close the retreat with breakfast and show and tell. I didn't have many of my students come back for this but Sharon didn't miss out on it. Her bag turned out cute as always. Sharon is one of my regulars at the Corn Wagon.
And this is Brenda(the organizer) with some of her quilt blocks from her class.
And tah-dah we have a Twister cut and all put back together. She was having to much fun to quit. She must of sewn all night to get in completed. Now it just needs borders.
Here's Kathy and Louise with their partial quilts. They are coming right along.
Here is some of my loot I got to bring home. They drew my name for a bag kit on Thursday afternoon, now isn't that wierd, a bag lady winning the one and only bag kit. Friday afternoon I won some sewing notions and on Saturday morning a won a "Fresh" Jelly Roll from Designer Deb Strain. At these retreats we also have midnight sews at 10:00. The first night we made pillowcases for charity, the second night we made portable ironing boards and I showed them how to make Pretty Posies and the last night, Friday, they made headbands. I was to pooped to sew that night after "Twisting" all night.
I look forward to this retreat every year. Now I can't wait til fall, I'll let you in on it when I have more details. Why don't you come join us?

1 comment:

Yvonne said...

What a fun and busy weekend you had. So much fun to look at all the pictures of the Twister quilts and those bowls look real cute too!