Fall Retreat 1 of 3

I am SO fortunate to be able to do a lot of quilt "retreating." I have three retreats in October; the first of which was last weekend. That retreat is put on by the PUPs Quilt Guild and is held at a retreat center in Bartett, Tennessee. This guild knows how to put on a retreat! They have a group of people meet you at the door to unpack your car and deliver ALL your "stuff" to the appropriate room (sewing room or bedroom). That is worth the price of admission right there. But that is not nearly all they do.

When we arrived in our classrooms, our places were marked with a name tag, and lots of "swag." It included a bag of M & Ms, a home-made cell phone/tablet holder, a fat quarter of fabric, a Frixion pen, a ball point pen, a ruler, a plastic storage bag, a paperweight with the guild logo, and a home-made mat with pockets for our sewing machine.

The retreat committee worked for two years on raising money, making items for "swag," snagging a well-known teacher, accumulating items for the silent auction and the live auction, putting the baskets for the auction together, putting the guild teacher classes together, putting together and quilting four quilts to give away at the retreat, and SO much more.

This retreat (offered every other year) has a "feature teacher." This year's teacher was Denise Green a certified Judy Neimeyer instructor. The first night shd had a trunk show.

Her classes are included in the price of the retreat. I chose not to take any of her classes, but the people who did RAVED about her as a teacher. You can check her out at her site. Here are pictures of the work from her classes.

Classes were also taught by guild members. Here are pictures from those classes--a string quilt class, a 3-D pillow class, and a modified Dresden plate class.

There was also a thread play class.

They had a challenge this time too. The theme was time. Julie was the big winner.

They have a silent auction and a live auction at the retreat to make money for the next retreat. I got two items from the silent auction--a plastic thread keeper/case for $2, two yards of heavy duty stabilizer for $1, and a Moda Frivol tin that included the pattern and fabric for a small quilt for $10. I was thrilled! At the live auction, lots of different baskets were available. I think there were more than 65 items in all. I scoped them all out and listed the top six or seven I was interested in. I ended up getting three baskets--This & That, Kiss Me Goodnight, and Hello Sunshine. (They gave all the baskets very clever names.)

I love this retreat--I get to visit with friends, learn something new, buy quilting supplies at a great price, and have a truly wonderful time. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

I'm leaving for my next retreat in less than a week. I'm hoping to get some more of my 365 Challenge done and work on my "artsy" string quilt. Stay tuned.

Posted with Blogsy