The retreat

The retreat house was huge but it was buried in stash and stitchin' women. There was not a spot on the floor anywhere that wasn't piled with supplies... The activities just flowed and there was great sharing going on continually, both formally and informally. We did polymer clay faces and molds, painting bird buttons, experimenting with angelina fibers, making ribbon flowers and leaves, embossing velvet, dying lace and ribbons with at least 4 different brands of dye, learning punch needle, sharing books and materials, practicing tatting and we stitched and stitched and stitched. .. We also divided and shared an absolute mountain of fabric and ugly ties.

In addition we went shopping in Breckenridge and probably made the bead shop's entire year (with some ladies returning there 3 times in 4 days.. ) Ing brought the wonderful piecemaker’s quilt and in addition we got to see Leslie’s lovely landscape quilt, Lauri’s fantastic "Under the Sea" quilt and a fabulous quilt by Claudina. The Chinese Auction was a huge success as everyone was appropriately ruthless and poor Janet kept having her gifts stolen. I ended up with a whole tin of handmade beautiful ribbon flowers (by Theresa) which I will use on something very very special.

All in all my head is still spinning... I know of several books I HAVE to have, along with tiger tape, a punch needle that is large enough to do ribbon, more dyes, and special hoops that stack. As I track down sources I'll share with you.. I can tell you there is nothing more therapeutic than laughing out loud and we did plenty of that...