Retreat Recap!!

I 100% had an awesome retreat. I had fun stitching. I had fun buying but as always, it was the people that blew me away. I hope to share a little about the people and about some of the neat projects and things they had.

I didn’t get a picture of everything…I was so busy chatting and stitching, eating and shopping that I pretty much forgot that I’m a blogger and am supposed to have pictures to share. Oh well, you’ll have to live with the ones I did take.

First off the retreat center sleeps 15 people. Technically it could hold 16 if two people are willing to share a double bed. There is a big cozy room with an open kitchen, living, and dining room area and then there’s a big classroom. We always choose to stay cozied up in the living area and ignore the classroom. I love that because then I can get snippets of all of the conversations that are happening.

Most of us arrived on Thursday. Kelli and I came right when the doors opened. We set up and then got busy stitching.

New to our group was Romonia. I was so happy to get to know her better. She’s a hoot and fits right in with our crazy bunch.

A few weeks ago Romonia was at my house. She was with her daughter and they were at my house because Romonia’s daughter was adopting my foster dog, Jerry. Remember the adult male corgi I had? Him. Romonia was a blog reader of mine that’s how she found out about Jerry.

Romonia and I got talking and I immediately felt like she could be a kindred spirit. She cross stitches, has a big farm-based family, has lots of kids, is a quilter, and has a long arm!! At the time we had one opening left at the retreat. On a complete whim, I asked her if she had ever been at a cross-stitch retreat. She said no and I asked her if she wanted to come. On the spot, she said yes. It was so fun!! So FUN!!

Thursday night we went to the BBQ spot in town. I highly recommend it. We all ate together.

For evening meals we often ate out together and lunches we had in the retreat center. Someone brought sandwich meat, another a salad and another watermelon, another ice cream!! The ice cream and frozen yogurt really hit the spot!

We did not go hungry. This was the snack sharing table!! Yes, we all ate too much!

One thing fun about retreats is seeing other people’s things. This is a jewelry case that one of the retreaters redid. I just love it. I’ve been wanting to redo one but haven’t found the right case.

HERE is a link to the case. You can see the before of how she bought it and the after to how wonderful it looks. I REALLY want to make one…REALLY-REALLY.

Lots of people brought finishes to share. There were more but I didn’t get the pictures taken until after Romonia left and she had some great finishes.

Four of the gals that come are from Illinois/Wisconsin. They are so fun. They go to lots of retreats all over the country so they have a ton of experience. They have stitched at all sorts of places and have experienced different things. They say most places don’t have as much room as we have so they’ve learned to keep their things compactly. They have these wooden trays and have bought a wooden drawer to go underneath them to maximize their stitching space.

I looked online for the ruler box they have underneath but couldn’t find them. They are from Primitive Gatherings but I didn’t find a link.

Tracey gets the bravery award. She recently had her knee replaced and was only off weight restriction recently yet she still came from Nebraska. Last year she came with Nell…this year she came with Janelle. We’re so hoping Nell will be back next year.

Tracey uses blue linen on some of her projects and she has a knack for making it look awesome.

Here is Becki. Sadly she was looking down in the picture. Becki has the most stick-to-ness of all of us. She was stitching away and finished 3 or 4 small projects. WOW!! She lives 3 hours away in Minnesota!

Here is Janet. She brought two projects with her that needed the finishing details and she finished both. Lucky girl. I’m hoping next year she bring them back all finished!! I would love to have BOTH of these on my walls.

This is Trish. She is a newbie to the group. She was working on a piece with a barn. She had other great projects too. I was lucky enough to sit pretty close to her and was able to chat with her.

My daughter Kayla was there. She came at about lunchtime on Thursday. Her friend Liz came on Friday.

Kelli worked on a lot of different pieces. This was one she was working on.

Here is the whole group of us. Romonia had to leave on Saturday afternoon so we grabbed a picture together.

Kathryn was there…she was from Minnesota. She came last year and was a little quiet, but this year she wasn’t quiet at all. She and I were both working on projects with a basket so that was fun to compare. She is fourth from the front on the right-hand side. She is a retired nurse so her and Kelli and the other nurses in the group swapped nursing stories.

Janelle is in the front middle. She was working on projects I would love to be working on. I knew her from quilting retreats. I think it’s so fun that we both are quilters and have now added cross-stitch. Honestly, I think most of us in our group are that way except for two.

Pictured with Romonia are the gals from Illinois and Wisconsin. They are a hoot and really had us laughing. They went from quilters to cross stitchers early on. They love to travel and have been to many quilting retreats and many different cross-stitch shops. We spent much of our retreat time trying to convince a couple of them to film flosstubes. You would all love them. They are like a mini comedy hour.

Pat who is part of that group is a prolific and talented stitcher. She finished one piece that is on my to-do list. It’s the one on the left called Every Opening Flower by Brenda Gervais. She had a stack of wonderful small pieces that she was working on getting finished. It’s truly so fun to see these pieces stitched in real life and not only in pictures.

Our time together ended much too soon. We booked a retreat for next year at about the same time of year. We were worried because our friend Nell couldn’t come and now we invited new people and already love them too. Kelli and I volunteered to sleep together in the one double bed next year so everyone can be invited back.

These gals were all so great!! I am so glad we all got together. I am looking forward to doing it again next summer.

P.S.
I’m going back for another retreat in two weeks. I won’t know a single soul there so I’m a little nervous. I’m sure I’ll miss these gals but will make new friends too. If anyone is interested in retreating there, it’s an open retreat. They just posted on their Facebook page that they have two openings for people that could stay at the retreat center. That is $50 a night. It is from August 3rd through August 6th. They also have openings for people who would like to stay at the hotel in town but just come and stitch during the day. They listed on their Facebook page that the cost for stitching only would be “Cost is $50 for all three days, $40 for two days and $25 for one day.” They have a Super 8 and an AmericInn Hotel in town. Both are just fine hotels. If you are interested in going you can call the Stitchery Nook. Their contact info can be found HERE. Note they are closed on Mondays. Fingers crossed one of you might go!!